I'm going to pick on just one or two articles and snark them to death here, because I'm mean like that in a rush, but there are quite a few similar pieces out there which I could just as easily hang this article from.
For those of you who have been busy doing other things besides worry about what goes inside your cellphone, you may be bored to hear that Google are releasing a product known as "Android", which has been positioned by more than a few people as an "iPhone killer".
I'm not sure why this is, possibly a short attention span that means people can only tie together the last two things they saw in one technology area, or maybe just wishful thinking for a nice juicy battle to write about, but it's not uncommon to see lists like this one, which I shall now attempt to pick apart. Again, I'm being a little unfair, especially when the site posting that list also rebuts some of the points itself, but you can find these 3 points trumpeted all over the web.
Android can be used by any cell phone maker
This is attractive - to cell phone makers only. It doesn't mean that users will know or care whether their phone has 'Android Inside' (sorry). In fact, if the god awful attempts at branding I see from my current carrier (hi T-Mobile!) are anything to go by, you'll be hard pressed to figure it out even if you are interested.
Android runs on Linux
The argument here goes something like "All developers love Linux, there are millions of people crunching code for Linux, and you can run all this code on your phone. Yeah. I always wanted to run web, email and DNS servers on my phone. Maybe if I get one for each member of my family we can build a phone Beowulf cluster while we're at it.
And it isn't like you'd have any usability issues trying to run Linux-based stuff designed for a desktop on a phone or anything. Or, for the average phone user, installing any of this stuff, that isn't wrapped up in a nice phone-friendly format by either Google, the phone supplier or the telephone company. This is an advantage that Apple and Microsoft have from making their mobile platforms different to their normal one: You have to re-code and this forces you to re-think the UI while you're there. You can argue that this doesn't work so well for some of the ugly apps you see on Windows Mobile, but the worst "Windows Mobile" based app will be more usable than a "full fat system" app squeezed onto a phone, if only because the mobile UI designer knew the size of screen and approximate number of buttons they were developing for.
Which brings me to what I see as the biggest problem with this idea. For the majority of mobile phone users, what operating system their mobile phone runs is completely irrelevant. What software is installed is almost completely irrelevant. Most people don't care how or why their mobile phone works, as long as it does. Frankly, they'll look at you a bit funny if you even ask them to consider what operating system is on their phone. And they'll be right to do so - if it does what they need then how it does it need not concern them, and if it doesn't do what it needs they'll pick up another phone that does, and still not care about the 'how'.
Now I know I've written a fair bit on this site about Windows Mobile, iPhone, Exchange syncing to mobile devices, etc... but people like you and me are very much the exception. Anyone who thinks the fact that their phone runs Linux is important to the average phone user has no idea about the wants and needs of real users at all.
Android is made by Google
Oh hey, look, something else totally irrelevant. I'm probably buying my phone from the phone company. It's probably got the name of the manufacturer on the bezel. I can already point email and web pages on my phone (whatever it is) at Google's services. What's your point?
The operating system's maker is as irrelevant as the operating system itself. I'm buying the phone from either the phone company or a reseller. I'm buying services from the phone provider. The phone has the manufacturer's name on it, and people who like it are going to say "ooh is that the new Nokia / HTC / whatever? Can I see it?", not "Oh look a gPhone".
I'm not Google's customer for any part of my day to day use of the phone, unless the OS imposes itself on me to remind me that Google are there. And that sort of thing isn't likely to improve my experience of using the phone...
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Fact is, Google, like Microsoft, are selling to the phone manufacturers, which will probably make them a good deal of cash, but it means that the view of their phone will be unfocussed, as it will be behind different kinds of phones from lots (if Google are lucky) of manufacturers who all do things their own way, supplied to mobile telecoms companies who will rebrand the phones and further blur the focus of the "Android product".
Apple, on the other hand, are tightly focused. They've partnered with only a few telecoms providers and kept tight control of the iPhone experience. They might have to let a few telecoms people into the tent in order to get a connection, but you're left in no doubt that you're buying an Apple device that works as a phone and as an iPod, and can be controlled via iTunes. At no time do you need to know what OS the iPhone runs, you just need to know how to use iTunes to buy music, ringtones and applications for it.
Just found Ed Bott's report of the "crapware" free laptop that Sony have given him to review (thanks to John Gruber/Daring Fireball).
I'm glad for Ed that he's so happy, and this is certainly a big improvement over the last time he got down deep with a Sony laptop, but I've got to ask: Doesn't Ed seem absurdly grateful when you consider that what he's basically doing is thanking Sony for deigning to stop being quite so obvious about violating customers?
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they did it, I'm glad Ed raised awareness of the original problem and this response from Sony, but isn't this really just the absolute minimum you should expect after laying down a fair amount of money for a new computer?
Here's my suggestion:
If your new computer arrives from the supplier so larded down with "crapware" that it can hardly run then my suggestion is that you simply return it as faulty. If it doesn't work correctly as delivered then it is faulty, regardless of whatever spin the supplier tries to put on the situation, and don't let them tell you different. I'd say this goes double for "premium" branded hardware, such as that from... ooooooh... Sony, for example.
Ed wants to thank the likes of Sony for finally stopping hitting us in the face. It's a start so I don't want to disagree too hard, but personally I think consumers need to start hitting back when we're sold rubbish and simply refuse to accept this sort of behaviour in the first place. The only reason suppliers sell you computers in this state is because you allow them to do so.
In the grand tradition of this blog, I need to apologise for not posting again. I don't have much of a defence, except that I've been very busy at work for reasons that I can now talk about:
My employer has finally received all the confirmations, funding and planning permission we need in order to start building an entirely new campus which should be finished in 2010. I am delighted to finally be able to talk about this in detail - while it's hardly been a secret that we've been planning to do this for some time, it has only been now that the final pieces have fallen into place and the college's building contractors can actually start breaking ground. £30 Million may not be much to spend on a new building compared to some projects but in our part of the education sector it is a considerable amount.
As part of this project, I've been working very hard behind the scenes as part of the senior IT staff involved in planning IT facilities and general building facilities (which are all expected to connect to the network for centralised computer control), and between doing this on top of my 'normal' job, I've not had the energy to post much.
My part in this project is in some ways quite small, but in others we touch every part of the building. It gives me real pleasure to think that no matter what happens, I will be part of the group of people who made a real difference to the education and community of people in Luton for years to come.
Yeah, I'm a little psyched about that, does it show? When we finally get around to putting more stuff online I'll be sure to link to it.
My IT-related point being...?
As a part of this new build, we are currently looking at how to move services between the two campus buildings with little to no disruption to the service provided to our end users. As new college will be built on the large grounds of the current one, the two buildings will be sitting side by side during completion of the build and our move over to it, and this is where things get interesting.
First the obvious: both campus networks will be linked by fibre-optic cable, so physical connectivity while we move isn't an issue, users will neither know or care if their email server is on the same campus as them or not.
Next the inevitable: After being involved in virtualisation for so long, it's inevitable that I'd look for any excuse to reach for it, so this is part of what we're going to be doing here. I've just completed a major project to review and rationalise our network services and we're going to move from our current ad-hoc collection of virtual and physical servers to a properly planned virtual server system based on VMWare's VMWare Infrastructure Enterprise.
Again, no surprises there, unless you're surprised that I hadn't already implemented this sort of system.
Here's the punchline: Talking with both VMWare and Dell (our server/storage vendor of choice), we plan to use VMotion and Storage VMotion to migrate servers and services between the two campuses with little to no disruption (at least compared to unplugging physical servers and moving them by truck then discovering half the drives failed due to that pothole and.....)
Everything's Gone Green
Of course, it wouldn't be a modern IT project if we didn't talk about 'Green computing' would it? A large part of the plans for the new college are based on green principles, with things like Termadeck roofing/flooring, ground source heating, designing the building to use natural light and ventilation in all workspaces, and quite a few other initiatives whose details escape me right now. Part of the justification for the move to a large virtual server setup is to reduce the amount of power consumed by IT, both in terms of the direct electricity use by the servers and in terms of the secondary power use for things like server-room air conditioning.
In phase one of the virtualisation project we plan to reduce the amount of servers in our server rooms by about 60%. Of the remainder, probably another 20% will be virtualised as soon as we're sure things have settled down, and as much as possible of the servers that are left will be moved onto more efficient server hardware, e.g. blades, where possible. This should represent a substantial saving over our current setup before we even move into the new college. We're also investigating thin clients for use in workspaces, but we have not yet reached any conclusions about this; there are some areas where they make a lot of sense (Kiosks, etc) but we still have reservations about large scale use for lesson delivery.
Coming from a snark on John Gruber's site about Samsung's instinct going head to head with the iPhone in a hundred million dollar advertising campaign, I find the Gizmodo article with videos of the two phones side by side. And I have to say what the hell are they smoking in Sprint and Samsung too for that matter?
Maybe I've misunderstood this, but the selling points of the Samsung Instinct are that it has 3G and GPS built in. Like the next version of the iPhone which is supposed to be coming Real Soon Now(tm) is expected to have.
Maybe I'm biased because I'm looking at this with the eyes of a European where our mobile phone infrastructure isn't made entirely out of second hand string and tin cans like it appears to be the case in the USA, but while 3G is important I just don't get boasting about it. Next you'll be telling me that my car comes with tyres or an engine. By all means tell me why yours is special, if it really is, but don't expect me to drool uncontrollably just because you've got one at all.
And let's not forget the adverts that commit the cardinal sin of putting your product next to a competitor's when your product might have slightly better technical chops, for a couple of months maybe, but ultimately looks like crap. And besides that, I think anyone who is that impressed by how the phone looks will already have an iPhone with a contract tied to it, and those of us who are impressed by features more than looks will already have a different phone (here's mine) that does far more than either the Apple or Samsung phone already. So who's left? People who want an iPhone but are too stupid to notice that the one they picked up feels funny and says "Samsung" instead of "Apple" on the casing?
I think John Gruber is right. If I had an extra hundred million dollars to spend on making people buy my mobile phones, I think I'd spend it on building a phone so damn good that I don't need advertising because people besiege my stores to buy the phone anyway. Or I'd wonder who was going to be buying luxury mobile phones during the onset of a recession and save my damn money for a rainy day.
I just wanted to quickly gather up some links to articles I've found interesting of late.
First of all, Claus Valca has some great posts over on Grand Stream Dreams. I want to draw your attention to a link roundup and comments post Claus made a week or so ago because of some interesting stuff he's found around Firefox and the implications of how it pre-fetches content (This Week in Firefox Tips (Tinfoil Hats optional but stylish, towards the bottom of the article).
If you use Firefox this should scare you. If you don't use Firefox you should still be worrying about how your browser of choice does pre-fetching and still feeling a little bit scared. While no-one can possibly argue with the lofty goals behind the FBI scheme discussed, it seems pretty clear to me that there is a lot of scope for some horrible mistakes to be made too. Much like the MP in the UK who thought that spam would stop somehow if only we had our postcodes (aka zip code) incorporated into our email addresses, this is clear proof that when politicians and lawyers try to regulate technology they don't understand you frequently end up with bad law.
Once you're done with that article you may want to check out the more recent one with lots of links and tips for improving Windows XP and Vista performance.
There really is something for everyone on that site, unless of course you own a Mac. In which case John Gruber wants to talk to you about Safari Vs. Firefox and also has some useful tips on manipulating the settings for hidden files in the Mac's HFS+ file system.
Next up is Mr Angry's post on Religion vs. Science in IT and Project Management. I've got to be honest, I've been wanting to write something on this myself for a while and mentioned it to Mr Angry in a blog comment on another article of his that is very much worth reading, and he took the idea and ran with it (with my blessing I hasten to add!). I think he ended up writing an article that says pretty much everything I wanted to, except phrased better. Well worth a read. Even more worth keeping in mind when reading other articles.
Nice to see that Joel Spolsky agrees with me about Microsoft Mesh by the way. Though to be fair that's largely because I was agreeing with him. There's an interesting rebuttal of the anti-mesh sentiments expressed by Joel and I at Ashutosh's blog here. Obviously I don't agree *grin* but it's a well written alternative point of view that deserves consideration. Ashutosh thinks file sync is a big deal, and while I can see it will be useful, it just doesn't excite me somehow.
To me Mesh still sounds like some kind of re-write of Groove to turn it into .mac.net and while those Windows users who are interested deserve a decent coherent implementation of .mac it just doesn't seem amazing to me in the way the initial announcements suggested I ought to find it. Phone me when I can use my iPod touch to get a file off my desktop PC at home and transfer it to my Apple laptop in another office at work.
I also found a link to a funny youtube video on Ashutosh's website. I'm not sure if it's a hoax or not but it's nice to see a Lenovo X300 expose the MacBook Air as a triumph of compromise and style over substance. Thanks for making me chuckle! I still think that knowing me I'd rather have the Apple product if I won the lottery and didn't need to justify my purchases any more, but there is no doubt that the MacBook Air is compromised by a desire to hit a certain size and weight in preference to actually being a good laptop.
Lastly, the Windows Connected blog has a few good articles on Vista and the dislike surrounding it. I guess I have to tread carefully here as I'm hardly a fan myself but there are a few good points in the original article about this on the site. I will say that the author of that article knows about as much about Macs as I do about what it feels like to [insert bombastic statement about doing something really really really really bad here], but their point about Vista bashing becoming a sport is well made. I don't agree with the implication that there are no problems with Vista at all, obviously. That's not been my experience, but things are getting better with Vista it has to be said.
I have to say, if you want to criticise something then try to do so based on facts. In other words: approach it as a science not as a religion (did you see what I did there?). Don't tell me Vista or Mac OSX or Lotus Notes or Live Mesh "sucks". Anyone can have an opinion. Tell me why you have a problem with something. Ok I have to admit I'm far from perfect here myself at times, but I'm promising to try harder on this site from now on.
Of course, daring to even go within 20 miles of Mac OSX with a critical attitude provoked the inevitable reaction, which was addressed in a follow-up post. I mean seriously, what is it with the Apple fanboy crowd? Most of them make me embarrassed to own an iPod, let alone my Mac. I just don't understand it. There's never been a better time to own a Mac and yet still there are armies of idiots out there waiting to go off on any writer that dares to so much as look at an Apple product funny, let alone say something bad. Talk about a persecution complex!
I'm not sure I agree with all of the points raised about either Mac OS X or Vista in either post, but the over-reaching theme of the articles remains true I think.
As anyone who takes even a cursory glance at this site will know, I've been critical of Windows Vista for a very long time (way before it became fashionable to bash it! Who says I'm not a trendsetter?). With Service Pack One being released I thought it was time for another decent trial.
Building "Brandine"
So rooting around in my box of spare computer bits, I realised I had enough spare parts to build a new computer, with the exception of a case and motherboard. All the computers I've built have been named after characters from The Simpsons, and most of the old parts were removed from a computer I'd named "Cletus". Obviously this new computer would have to be called Brandine!
On reflection, I also decided I wanted to build a modern media centre, which made me decide to also purchase a video card that could handle HDTV and wouldn't sound like a jet taking off to the mix too. So I now have a new computer built on the hardware below:
ASUS T3P5G965 "BareBone" system (Minitower case inc. i965 BTX Motherboard and 250w Power supply). [Asus website]
Corsair DDR2 memory 4GB (2x2GB) [c'mon you've all seen memory before]
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 [toms hardware article]
Samsung 20x DVD-r/rw DVD+r/rw DVD-RAM SATA DVD writer [view]
Samsung 500GB SATA II hard drive [view]
Sapphire 512MB HD3650 PCI-E video card (DVI-I HDTV HDCP supported) [view]
As you can see from the Asus T3 specifications, it's quite a well built platform even though the 965 chipset isn't that new anymore. The Asus T3 motherboard is based on a BTX layout and supports up to 8GB of memory. It also supports 3 SATA and 1 PATA drive, which for a small media centre is probably more than enough. In addition to all that, the T3 also includes onboard graphics based on Intel's X3000 graphics, which didn't meet my needs (hence the new video card above) but would be fine for general office use.
Still, you've all come here to watch me chew Microsoft out over Vista again and not to watch me babble about hardware, so lets get on with the software shall we?
Enter Vista
Brandine is running Vista Ultimate Edition x64 with Service Pack One installed, with Office 2007 SP1 also installed. Also installed are the latest versions of iTunes, QuickTime and the very useful Bonjour from Apple. If you have a home network and you're not using Bonjour to help devices find one-another I can only suggest you give it a try.
Nero 8 suite is installed, with the rather useless Nero search indexer service disabled.
Windows Live was also added, all components installed without any of the drama I suffered on the XP machine, and lastly I also installed Paint Shop Pro to help me grab screenshots and Crysis to help me relax... er to test DirectX 10.
I chose the x64 edition of Vista for a couple of reasons:
1) Because I can. I have the licences and x64 is the wave of the future.
2) The hardware supports 8Gb of memory and I might want to see what that performs like one day
3) I already knew what 32-bit vista behaved like.
Installation proceeded very quickly, with no problems just as you'd expect. I created an admin account and a couple of 'normal user' accounts and configured Vista to automatically log in to the account I had set aside for shared media centre use without any issues.
Vista works well on this platform, but even with SP1 installed it still feels more sluggish in response to the user than you'd really expect, but nothing too objectionable. Microsoft Update still downloaded several updates even with SP1 installed and the update process still feels far too slow when compared to Windows XP or Apple OSX 10.5. Still, it gets there in the end.
The WEI report shows a good level of performance from the system too, which isn't too surprising. None of the components I'm using here are the fastest in their class, but all of them were / are well designed and well balanced components that are well up to the job being asked of them. The slowest component here is actually the CPU, the Core 2 Duo E6400 itself, with a WEI of 'only' 5.
This just goes to reinforce the idea that you'd be crazy to buy a new CPU that wasn't a dual core these days, or even quad core if you know why you actually want one (heck, can you even still get single core CPUs outside of budget ranges?).
So how was it?
Vista makes a pretty decent media centre PC when all is said and done. The media centre experience is smooth and pleasant on a large TV screen, and despite one or two quirks the interface is usable enough. I don't think I'm telling you anything there that you haven't already read in any other review of Vista's media centre. A couple of bad points for me might be configuring the PC to auto-logon and run media centre, which isn't difficult so much as clumsy, because you have to make changes in a couple of unrelated areas to get everything set up right.
Another area where x64 Vista Media Centre doesn't do so well is in codec support. There are two things that surprised me here:
1) Codec Support for x64 media centre is relatively poor because of the requirements for 64-bit codecs for media centre playback. It's not as bad as it was, I've read some real horror stories about how bad this was when Vista was still new, but it's still not all it should be. When you consider that video encoding and decoding is one of the things that can definitely benefit from 64-bit multi-core processors, this really surprised me.
2) Being able to play a movie in the 'normal' Windows Media Player is no indication of whether or not you'll be able to play it in Media Centre. This is an unbelievable pain in the hoop because it makes testing a drudge.
I found a good few websites that had a lot of help for us pioneers though. Thanks to The Green Button, Freik's weblog and doom 9 for helping me figure out what's going on and find a fix for most of my codec issues between them.
This is something I think Microsoft need to work on. I realise there are sound technical reasons why this problem happens, and heck if I didn't fix them myself, so what's the big deal? At the end of the day, if I'm sitting in front of my TV trying to watch a film or show I've saved to the hard disk, I want to relax, not to fiddle with the inner workings of the computer driving it. I earn a living doing exactly that, and while I'm fortunate enough to really enjoy my job, the plain and simple truth is that when I'm not at work I just want to get things done without fiddling around.
Another area that surprised and worried me was file performance. Despite doing a clean install of Vista SP1 onto reasonably specified components, all of which are certified Vista Compatible by their manufacturer, it seems the much reported file copying problems remain.
Using a portable disk to move saved films between my computers, I'm still dismayed to report that it took about two to three times as long for Vista to read the data from the portable drive and copy it onto its local disk than it took for the XP machine to write the data onto the portable disk from local storage.
Benchmarking. And Crysis.
Crysis worked well too. It wasn't as fast on this computer as it is on my 'normal' Windows desktop, but then I never expected it to be. It was perfectly playable though, and the graphics looked much the same, possibly very slightly better lighting effects and such-like, but nothing substantial. It's worth mentioning at this point the hardware remained cool and quiet throughout all of this play-testing, remaining inaudible throughout my video playback and my game session.
I grabbed benchmarks using the PCPitstop tools. I'm not saying these numbers are authoritative but they do give some indication of performance. The XP machine is running a faster Quad Core processor so this should be taken as a 'flavour' of the two machines rather than a direct comparison.
| Name | "Brandine" | "Homer" |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 | Windows XP Professional SP3 |
| Processor | Intel Core2Duo E6400 @ 2.13GHz | Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.45GHz |
| Ram | 4Gb DDR2 | 4Gb DD2 |
| Hard Disk | 1xSamsung 500Gb SATA II | 2xWestern Digital 320Gb SATA II
(no raid) |
| Video | ATI Radeon HD3650 w/ 512Mb DDR3 RAM | ATI Radeon X1950 w/ 512Mb DDR2 Ram |
As you can see, the two computers show a clear difference in performance, as expected, though both machines perform very well indeed compared to the average tested by PCPitstop. The only area where the Vista machine 'wins' compared to the XP machine is on hard disk performance.
The Internet performance differences surprised me. The connection was idle in the tests apart from the machine being tested.
The Vista machine is connected to my gateway with an 802.11n connection and my XP machine is hardwired through gigabit Ethernet. So far so good, but the connection to the Internet is a 20Mb connection, which should be well within the capacity of both connections.
At the end of the day, the Vista machine's Internet connection is still fast enough to download most things at a fair clip, and that will do me. I tested streaming music from the iTunes library on my XP machine over the wireless connection to the Vista machine and I'm pleased to say it worked just fine.
And yes I do have a lot of music, thanks for asking.
Conclusions
So what did I think of Vista Media Centre? Well I'm keeping it for now, This probably doesn't sound like much of a compliment if you've just Googled your way onto this article and haven't visited my site before (welcome by the way) but as I mentioned at the top of the post, I've not been a fan of Vista for quite some time so simply persuading me not to nuke it and install something else is a major accomplishment.
I'm still not sure I like Vista's desktop eye-candy and generous use of white space for a day to day desktop, but on a media centre designed to be viewed on a TV set at a distance the uncluttered layout, large icons and generous space between groups of items starts to make a lot more sense.
The x64 question is another matter. I'm a geek so I've got no problem with keeping this computer as a 64 bit machine, but at the moment I think if I was building a media centre for 'normal' people I'd use the 32 bit version of Vista rather than the 64 bit version. The point for most people isn't "can you make it work in the end?" but rather "why should I have to struggle to make it work at all?" and for now the 32-bit version of Vista media centre still holds a slight edge here.
Finally, a word about the hardware. I picked a BTX-based system because I knew that it would run cool and quiet. I picked the HD3650 video card because I knew it would provide a good balance between performance and noise. This has to be one of the biggest driving factors behind hardware choice for a media centre. Could I build a faster computer to make Vista run like greased lightning and produce benchmarks where that waxes a XP machine? Of course I could. But would I want that computer in my front room wailing like a banshee while I'm trying to watch a DVD? No.
Just some quick notes on what I've noticed, or been told by people I trust, about XP SP3 so far. My own experiences are based on a clean install at home and a few test upgrades at work (ah the benefits of being paid to do R&D).
What XP Service Pack 3 is - and is not.
Windows XP SP3 is a collection of hotfixes and patches that are rolled up into one giant patch for Windows XP. Unlike SP2, SP3 does not make substantial changes to the way Windows XP works and does not add a lot of new features.
The few new features that are added are more along the lines of fixing problems in the boiler room rather than a complete refit of the whole ship. This might sound a bit dull and if you're hoping SP3 is going to make Windows XP do something magic then you probably will be disappointed with it. However, it's an important update and I'd recommend it to any Windows XP user.
You can slipstream XP SP3 into any older version of the Windows XP install media to create a XP SP3 install disk, if you wish. However, do not slipstream XP SP3 from a vista machine, a bug has been reported where doing this invalidates the licence keys.
This version of SP3 is for 32-bit 'full' Windows clients only. It is not designed for the 64-bit version of XP Professional, Embedded XP or Windows Fundamentals and will give an error message if you try to install it on one of these systems. Apparently there will be a separate update for the embedded systems/Win Fundamentals later.
What does SP3 do?
Mass deployment should be easier, with built in support for the Intel High-Definition sound architecture (installing the XP hotfix in earlier versions of XP automatically sometimes proved tricky), and the ability to forgo entering a licence key during setup for those who don't use volume licences for some reason. You'll still need to do this and then activate afterwards though, but it's a nice feature for businesses that haven't taken up volume licence options and want to distribute a standard build based on their OEM licences.
XP SP3 is supported in Apple's BootCamp, but you will need to update Apple's BootCamp install on Windows itself because updates to various Apple drivers and components used in Windows are required. (Spotted by Colin Barnhorst and tested here).
Networking improvements add support for Black Hole detection and Network Access Protection (aka NAP), both implemented much the same way as in Vista. I'm not sure that I'm overly taken with the idea of NAP (possibly more on that in another article) but Black Hole detection should help people who have 'network weirdness' issues.
Both IE6 and IE7 are supported, that is, SP3 will provide the latest updates to whichever version you have installed. It will not force you to upgrade from IE6 to IE7. Neither does it force you to upgrade Windows Media Player (I don't think it applies any patches to either version of WMP though.
What does SP3 not do?
It doesn't make big changes to the way your computer works. It doesn't appear to break any of the apps I use (take that with a pinch of salt because there's a whole world of apps that I don't use).
It won't turn your XP machine into a half XP half Vista hybrid. It won't turn water into wine and it won't feel different at all in day-to-day use.
It doesn't change any of the limits on things like memory (e.g. it doesn't allow >4Gb support via PAE or anything) or file sharing or licences or whatever.
There's some debate over whether or not SP3 speeds XP up, and while it certainly feels pretty snappy to me, it's difficult to put a hard number on this. It certainly doesn't feel like it's slowed anything down.
So should you install it?
If you've got a fully patched XP SP2 system that you're really happy with, there's no rush but I'd still suggest you install it once it's been out for a little while and the rest of us have discovered the few problems with the update process that might still be hiding. If you're an obsessive geek about these things like me then you'll probably ignore that and actually be running it already, and more power to you.
If you're building a fresh OS install then I don't see any reason not to install SP3 as part of the setup. Heck, it'll make the setup routine slightly easier, that's a reason to do it right away. Just don't expect any major changes, this is a simple tune-up, not a new engine and re-spray.
I was originally going to base the title on The Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane" but then I realised that "suck you" was open to all kinds of misinterpretation and wouldn't end well.
Still on with what I really wanted to say. I've just done a clean rebuild of my XP desktop machine, partly because it hadn't been done for about 2 years and was due, and partly because I wanted to install XP Service Pack 3 now it's been released.
So XP SP3 installs very quickly, seems nice and snappy (much more so than Vista, despite my hardware easily being towards the top of the "vista premium capable" territory, and all is good. It's funny how XP with just a few of the apps I use on Windows installed feels much more like "home" than Vista with all of my Windows apps. Office 2007 installed well and everything is working nicely with ActiveSync for my phone, iTunes is working and if I can manage my day and listen to music while doing it then I'm pretty much happy.
Except... I've been trying to get used to Windows Live Writer and I'm certainly a big fan of Live Messenger, and if you go to get these apps at the moment, you need to download the Windows Live Installer, a 'wrapper' for various Windows Live apps, all of which are similar to Live Writer and Messenger (supposed to be small and lightweight, with a focus on doing a job and doing it well).
Now I've got to agree with Lloyd and Rory here, the installer is fundamentally broken, and frustrating beyond all reason if you only want one or two apps from the Live 'bundle'.
Yesterday I downloaded a 2Mb installer "wrapper" and ran it, and straight away I was bombarded with questions about whether or not I wanted to make Windows Live my default search provider (no thanks, I like to find things when I'm looking for them) or install some kind of toolbar (Sure, I like having my browser window half-covered in useless buttons and widgets, it isn't like I loaded my browser to read web pages or anything), and something else I can't remember right now but I said 'no' to.
After this, it went into some kind of mode where it started searching my hard drive for live apps. Apparently, rather than checking the 'known' places on the hard disk, check the registry to see if the apps were registered there or even do an efficient search of my hard disk, it apparently wanted to do a bit by bit comparison of everything in my computer room. With this done, it then spent a while 'downloading' my selected apps and finally, 20 minutes later, told me the install was "cancelled" which was a surprise to me as I hadn't done anything to cancel it, and then offered to dump a copy onto my desktop so I could try again later. Hmmm. Despite being "cancelled", the installer managed to install itself (huh?) onto my computer so that each reinstall attempt produced odd error messages like the first "cancelled" except much less 'helpful'. I gave up yesterday and it was only after much swearing and cursing today, that I finally managed to get messenger and live writer installed.
Let's be clear about this... Windows Live Installer took longer to fail to install messenger and live writer than Corel Paint Shop Pro X took to install, and PSP X is hardly a lightweight application. Microsoft, I've got to ask... what on earth was the thinking behind this? I can see how it might be nice for someone who wants all the Live apps to be able to get them in one download, but this installer is a cranky, unreliable, little ***, and that's when it actually works. It's a painful awful experience for someone who just wants to grab live writer, or messenger or mail to have to sit through this crap. Live Writer and Messenger are both great little apps that I <3 love <3, even if messenger winks do make talking to my teenage niece an adventure in frankly incomprehensible popups and txt spk (love ya really KC!), but the problems with the installer really do need to be addressed. If I didn't already know how much I liked and really wanted messenger and writer, the chances are I'd have given up and used something else after the first time it crashed and burned.
If you want to download a copy of Windows Live Messenger directly, without having to bother with the installer wrapper, you can visit the website of Windows Messenger MVP Jonathan Kay and grab a copy from his links. If I get to hear of work-arounds for other live software I'll post them here too.
So it seems the fruits of Ray Ozzie's labour at Microsoft are starting to appear in public at last. And I for one say "Your point being...?" I'd love to link to their blog at this point to let them explain it, but it seems that their .live.com server is knackered at the moment. Bodes well for the mesh service doesn't it?
Apparently it's a platform that is designed to put me at the centre of my digital world. Oh good. I thought I was already at their centre, what with them not being sentient yet and me being the owner of all these devices, but who knew.
I'm fairly sure I've heard something like this from Microsoft before, and I'm fairly sure it got laughed at back then too.
So on a supported device, I need to install a client and I can share folders full of files with myself. Or with other people. And even sign up to RSS feeds and aggregate them into one or two big custom RSS feeds.Wow. I've never been able to do that before *ahem*. And I can even send them messages, in an instant. It's good to see Microsoft launch a new product instead of rebadging old stuff... or not so much.
I'm so super-psyched to share applications and data between my work computer (oh wait... my employer might not want me installing unapproved software. Or putting their data on devices they don't own.) and my mobile devices (oh wait, where's the iPod client? Where's the iPhone client? Where's the Symbian client? Where's the god help us Zune and Windows Mobile clients?) and my home computer (uh... no wait, no Mac client yet. No word of a Linux client at all).
This lack of support for other devices is a big serious Elephant in the living room. Don't underestimate the platform problem: Unless it supports all the devices that a user might reasonably be expected to want to use with it then it isn't solving my problems or your problems, it's solving the problems of some hypothetical marketing construct that doesn't exist in the real world.
The support for other "real" operating systems is obvious, but you might think I'm being a bit silly asking for iPod, Zune and phone support but consider this: Why shouldn't I be able to lot onto my handheld device and download a file from my home PC via this 'mesh'? Wouldn't that actually be really helpful if you're driving to a meeting and realise you've left important data behind? Wouldn't it be great to stop for coffee somewhere and use 3G or wireless connections to grab the file onto your mobile phone without much hassle?
Or what if I want to Sync / add contacts or diary entries between my phone, my exchange server account at work and my online web2.0 calendar? Or to hear a song while I'm out and about, ask my home computer to buy it for me (so it will be securely stored and backed up and stuff) then download it via this 'mesh' to my music player or to push it onto my phone ready to select as a ringtone.
So it's client software that lets me send messages and files between computers, as long as those computers run Microsoft operating systems and I'm allowed to install software and to share the data that is on them and aren't behind a firewall that kicks the Microsoft client to the kerb. Good luck with that). That can't be it. I mean I've heard so much about how earth-shatteringly new this is, there must be more to it. (There is also some more reasoned analysis here that isn't either the fanboyism in the stuff I've linked to or a cynical git laughing at it all like me, if you're interested).
Oh, apparently I can actually log onto my " Live Desktop" and access any of my "meshed" devices from any other "meshed" device. So I could be sitting at work and gotomypc at home... er I mean Go Back To My Ma...er..PC. So what we've got here is "Groove.net Live!" plus Messenger, plus being able to get to your PC anywher.. ok I'll stop joking about their "original" remote desktop feature now. OopsI did it again!
Of course, it's all sprayed with a veneer of XML and RSS to keep it sounding fresh and "Web 2.0" and so-on. I guess that makes the difference. It isn't the technology that's new, it's the packaging!
As ever with a lot of web 2.0 stuff, I find myself asking: What problem does this actually solve and does anyone in the real world outside of the 250 people who hang on to every word posted on valleywag actually have this problem? I mean don't get me wrong, if they solve the platform problem then it might be nice to get all these various things rolled up into one handy tool, but there isn't really anything new or even exciting here. Is there?
I found this post on Lifehacker via Kurt Wismer, someone whose comments I've kept an eye on for since I started reading the alt.comp.virus newsgroup, which is quite a time ago now. Kurt seems to have the habit of annoying people by simply speaking the truth as he sees it and not spending too much time and effort on sugar-coating. I'd personally consider that an asset in people who are there to talk about security but many people still seem to blame the messenger when someone points out the flaws in a plan.
Anyway, the Lifehacker post talks about an add-in for Firefox that allows you to choose to "download and execute" files instead of downloading them then having to go and execute them yourself in a separate action. (No I'm not going to link to the Firefox add-in itself, if you're stupid enough to think that sounds like a good idea you can go and find it yourself.)
Sure, it's convenient to be able to have something download and auto-run. Sadly, it isn't just convenient for you as the computer user but also for anyone who'd like to compromise your security; auto-running programs on download is quite simply a very bad idea and I'm actually rather disappointed that people still think otherwise.
When you download a file from a web-browser, leave the browser and go to use the file via the operating system's file management tools (explorer, finder, etc) you have an opportunity to inspect the file before opening it. You can see if it's what you expected. You can easily view the file properties if you want to be careful. If you're running a typical Windows antivirus and anti-spyware package, you can usually right-click on the file and get a report on what it is and whether or not it is clean. If it's an executable archive (e.g. a self-extracting zip file, a common way of distributing downloads in Windows) you have the opportunity to open the archive without 'executing' any of the code - something I always do when I can.
All of this is gone when your browser opens the file for you. Sure, most virus scanners will inspect a file before allowing it to run, but you miss the chance to view the file and say "hmm, I thought I was downloading an archive here, so why does it actually appear to be a batch file?"
I want to address the comments on the lifehacker post about 'trust'. The idea is that you can do this with downloads you 'trust' without any worry. Now I'd agree that some download sites are more trustworthy than others, but there is still a problem with trust: It doesn't mean what most people seem to think it means.
Some people talk about 'trust' in computing (hell any walk of life) as if it is some kind of magic ray that makes it OK to abandon any sensible precautions. That isn't the case. I trust my best friend who I've known since school to not harm me. I hope that he and his family would say the same about me. All that this "trust" means is that we wouldn't do anything to harm each other intentionally - that doesn't mean that accidents won't happen or that mistakes won't be made.
So you trust Microsoft. Or Apple. Or Mozilla. Or Redhat. Fine. You trust them not to intentionally set out to do you and your computer harm. Great. I'm actually inclined to agree with you, with a couple of caveats... Firstly, you had better hope that their definition of not doing anything to harm customers like you roughly corresponds with your definition of harm. Secondly, you better hope that they don't see a need to trample on the edges of your needs in order to protect themselves. Lastly, you better hope they never make a mistake.
Good luck with all that, especially the last one.
Still, Lifehacker is all about "getting things done" and clearly they're all busy people over there. So I have a suggestion to "get things done" in terms of what will inevitably happen to people who auto-run content they don't know much about: Email your usernames and passwords to hackers so they and you don't have to go to the trouble of having you download and running something without inspecting it first. It's OK. You don't have to thank me now.
I'm going to make a note of issues I've encountered with the Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 migration at work, and which didn't have immediately obvious solutions. It's been far too long since I posted anything that wasn't a thinly (or not so thinly) disguised rant about some aspect of IT that I'm vexed at.
After migrating a mailbox to Exchange 2007 SP1 from Exchange 2003, the user attempts to access their mailbox via Outlook Web Access and gets redirected to the correct URL for an Exchange 2007 mailbox (webmail.example.com/owa) yet receives an error.
Common causes I've seen:
1. The user hasn't waited long enough after you've performed the move to allow AD to be updated about the change to their mailbox.
2. If you get the user to click the button for more information on the error, the following charming message appears
Request
Url: https://webmail.example.com:443/owa/lang.owa
User host address: 10.10.10.20
Exception
Exception type: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.StoragePermanentException
Exception message: There was a problem accessing Active Directory.
Call stack
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.ExchangePrincipal.Save()
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchLanguagePostLocally(OwaContext owaContext, OwaIdentity logonIdentity, CultureInfo culture, String timeZoneKeyName, Boolean isOptimized)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchLanguagePostRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.PrepareRequestWithoutSession(OwaContext owaContext, UserContextCookie userContextCookie)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.InternalDispatchRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
System.Web.HttpApplication.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)
Inner Exception
Exception type: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADOperationException
Exception message: Active Directory operation failed on DC.Your.Internal.Domain.FQDN. This error is not retriable. Additional information: Insufficient access rights to perform the operation. Active directory response: 00002098: SecErr: DSID-03150A45, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
Call stack
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.AnalyzeDirectoryError(PooledLdapConnection connection, DirectoryRequest request, DirectoryException de, Int32 totalRetries, Int32 retriesOnServer)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.ExecuteModificationRequest(ADRawEntry entry, DirectoryRequest request, ADObjectId originalId)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.Save(ADObject instanceToSave, IEnumerable`1 properties)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.ExchangePrincipal.Save()
Inner Exception
Exception type: System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.DirectoryOperationException
Exception message: The user has insufficient access rights.
Call stack
System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.LdapConnection.ConstructResponse(Int32 messageId, LdapOperation operation, ResultAll resultType, TimeSpan requestTimeOut, Boolean exceptionOnTimeOut)
System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.LdapConnection.SendRequest(DirectoryRequest request, TimeSpan requestTimeout)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.PooledLdapConnection.SendRequest(DirectoryRequest request, LdapOperation ldapOperation)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.ExecuteModificationRequest(ADRawEntry entry, DirectoryRequest request, ADObjectId originalId)
This message will appear if Exchange has insufficent rights to the user's AD object. Each user must have the Exchange Servers group listed in the
permissions tab of their active directory account object before OWA
will work properly.
Note that this isn't referring to the group memberships applied to the user's account that allow the user to do things, but rather to the permissions that are applied to the user account object itself to control how it can be accessed and manipulated by Active Directory, Exchange and the like.
To view these permissions on an object in Active Directory, you will need to run Active Directory Users and Computers, select the domain you wish to operate in, then in the menu select View, then click Advanced Features. You can now manipulate permissions on AD objects, and needless to say you should be very careful about how you use this power.
If no-one can access their mailbox, then refer to this article on the Microsoft website.
If the majority of your users are fine but one or two users cannot access their mailbox, then verify if the problem users are in the same OU and follow the Microsoft article above, paying special attention at the OU level.
If this does not help then you may need to manually edit the accounts themselves. Proceed with caution at this point, as the reason permissions on these account objects may be different is because another application needs them set a certain way and has made changes. I suggest making this change to just a small sample of users and testing their accounts before you apply it to all users having this problem.
- Remember to enable Advanced Features in ADU&C.
- Locate a user who is having this problem.
- Right-Click the account and choose Properties.
- Click the Security tab. DO NOT attempt to change permissions directly on the user.
- Click Advanced
- Ensure that "Inherit from parent...." is ticked, then press Apply.
- Ensure that the Exchange Servers group is now listed with the Modify Permissions Permission. If this is not the case, then the permissions are set incorrectly on the OU, and I refer you to my earlier comments and link.
- Press OK to close Advanced properties, then press OK again to close user's account properties.
- You might need to wait a while for the change to replicate.
- Test that OWA now works.
I have to admit that some areas of the computer industry make me asahmed to be part of the IT profession at times.
Take gaming - 1up.com's article on 5 botched game launches talks about Steam...
Yes, yes, we all love Steam now.
By which we mean "It hasn't gone away yet, and people won't visit our site if we don't talk about Valve".
It's the model of digital distribution and community management in PC gaming right now
By which we mean "We're high."
utterly shaming Microsoft's embarrassingly inept Games for Windows Live initiative.
When you're standing in a barrel of crap, the fact that someone else is in it deeper than you doesn't alter the fact that you're standing in a barrel of crap.
But back in the day, we were even harsher on Valve
than we now are on Microsoft -- because the official launch of Steam on
November 16, 2004, which coincided with the launch of Half-Life 2, was
an utter nightmare. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.
It didn't "seem" like it, it was. I remember being really excited to have the game in my hands at last. I remember buying it over the counter and rushing home to play it, and I definitely remember sitting around for ages waiting for Steam to do its thing before I could actually play the game. Is it any wonder that I was underwhelmed by the game itself in the end after all the rubbish Valve had put me through to play it?
To be
fair, some of what we complained about at the time was simply because
we had never seen it before. Like, for example, a single-player game
that required you to be online to play it. What seemed unreasonable and
demanding back in the day is now more par for the course.
Which brings me to the title of the article... Just because you're used to having to be online at some stage during installing or playing a single player mode of a game it doesn't make it right. It just makes you used to the crap being shovelled at you by the vendor.
Asking me to be online to install or play a single-player game doesn't seem reasonable to me. It actually seems like some kind of unreasonable demand to me. I own the computer, I've purchased a licence to use the software already. Why do I need to go online and prove myself over and over again to the vendor? (Microsoft, I'm looking at you too)
Banning someone for life from playing the games they have paid for, simply for upsetting the system (no this has not happened to me before someone thinks I'm just being bitter at being caught cheating or something) doesn't seem reasonable to me.
Charging someone the same sort of price for a digital distribution of a game that they'd pay in the shops to actually receive something tangible doesn't seem reasonable to me. And I'm not the only one.
That said,
the initial launch was a disaster, with Valve's servers backed
up and crashing due to bottlenecks and general instability, making it
literally impossible for many players -- whether they'd bought a boxed
copy or a direct download -- to validate and play Half-Life 2.
And herein lies another problem. No matter how robust the Steam infrastructure is, it is still another layer of code and systems that all need to be working correctly and available for users to use the products they have paid for. I'm not saying that Steam is still unreliable, I'm saying that "more complex" is inherently more prone to problems than "simple".
Yes,
gamers finally had the most anticipated PC game in years in their hot
little hands, but they couldn't play it because the online validation
was busted. As an advertisement for Valve's new distribution system,
you couldn't have asked for anything worse. Since then, of course,
Valve has gone out of their way to fix and improve Steam, and now we
can't imagine living without it.
By which we mean "Our imagination has atrophied. Perhaps we've played too many first person shooters based on WW2."
I've not purchased a Valve game since Half Life 2, which I actually gave away rather than play it again. I seem to be doing OK considering. Valve make great games but I'm not prepared to put up with the price of having steam on my computer.
This brings us on to Microsoft.
I know I've used them as a virtual punching bag a lot recently but they do seem to sit up and beg for it. Frankly it isn't a question of what to write about them but rather where to start. I've already mentioned WGA above, and this is a good example of a product module that reduces the reliability of the product simply by existing.
WGA is also a very good example of punishing your paying customers for the actions of others; the big pirate rings have hacked versions of XP, Vista, Office and anything else you want all lined up and able to install without having to mess around obtaining "permission" to use something you've already paid for. Who gets inconvenienced by WGA and product activation if the real pirates have bypassed it?
Another problem with Microsoft recently is that the quality of their products have become very erratic of late. I love Office 2007 myself but too many people out there are having problems with it to say that it's been a major success. And let's not even get started on Office 2008... We're looking at rolling that out at work for our Mac users and I've honestly been shocked at how poor Office 2008 performs on the newest Macs and stunned at the amount of odd lockups and crashes I've seen with it. If I create a fresh install of Leopard and Office 2008 is the first thing installed onto it and it still crashes then I think I'm on safe ground when I call it a lemon.
Office 2008 arrived on a Select DVD so it must be a finished product, but going by how it behaves and performs I'd expect it to be an early beta, and not one the product team ought to make public either.
Lastly on the subject of Microsoft. Oh boy. This just keeps getting worse doesn't it? So not only were Microsoft execs aware of problems with Vista performance on even new hardware because they themselves got burned by it, but they actually colluded with Intel to make the issue happen, and to hell with us customers. Outstanding. That's just a big bravo right there to the pair of them. I know that Vista bashing is hardly original these days, and I know that I've done so much of it myself that it must be boring the people who read this blog to tears by now but really this stuff just writes itself. Apple's Leopard has been criticised for a few bugs and rough patches at launch time but it's been a roaring success for Apple because all it had to do was suck a little bit less than Vista... and Leopard has managed that easily, even if you treat the problems with Vista in the most favourable way possible and treat the problems with OS X 10.5/Leopard in the worst way possible. At the very least, as someone who owns a Vista Ultimate licence, I'd like to ask 'Where are all those Ultimate Extras I was promised'?
Who else is on my chopping block today? How about Sony?
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that "Sony" was Japanese for either "Welcome to our world of stupidity" or "We hate our customers and we're proud of it".
I mean, first we've got their rootkit issues from a while ago (this persuaded me to add Sony to my boycott list).
Then we've got the Blu-Ray price hikes now the competition is killed off. I know this is hardly uncommon in a monopoly type situation but most players have the good grace to be subtle about doing this, you know, introducing a product update that lets them change things without being too obvious about it.
Then most recently we've had the issues with crapware on Sony machines coming to the forefront, with Sony USA having the sheer cheek to try and charge customers an extra $50 to un-install the junk from their new Sony computer so that it actually works properly. The most priceless part, of course, is when they got caught with their hand in the cookie-jar they produced the most weasel-worded comment since... well I'm guessing since Sony BMG got caught installing rootkits on peoples computers.
“We heard the message loud and clear, (...) VAIO is the
poster child for negative experiences people had [with trialware]. We
recognize that, and we acknowledge it. We’ve been really beat up by
this issue. We’re listening and we’re taking action.” - Mike Abary, Senior Vice President of the VAIO division talking to Ed Bott of ZDNet.
If you "recognize" the issue then why are you doing it in the first place Mr Abary? Why did you try and rip customers off further by cashing in on something you "acknowledge" is a problem? Why did you wait to get caught before "taking action"?
And, Mr Abary, your final question is "Why should anyone in their right mind believe any rubbish that dribbles out of the mouths of you or any other Sony representative ever again, and why should any one out here in customer-land buy a Sony product ever again after your company has continually been caught spitting at its customers?".
Of course, I'm quite well aware that Sony are not the only guilty party when it comes to loading rubbish onto new computers. But something about the extra-cynical way that Sony goes about larding their new computers down with so many of these extras, charges a premium for the product because they are a premium manufacturer (hence negating the usual counter-argument that these things are needed due to slim margins in the hardware industry) and then is cynical enough to charge you even more money once again to give you control of your own computer just sticks in my throat that bit more than some of the other guilty parties, who at least have the good grace to look embarrassed about what they're doing.
Let's finish with some examples of bad ethics on a much smaller scale.
G-Archiver is a program that backs up messages from your g-mail account to your computer. It's not free, users have to pay a small amount to purchase it if they want to use it. I can't say it's ever interested me, but I suspect it's been very useful indeed to those people who do need it.
Imagine that this program that you paid good money for was stealing your email username and password. Horrible idea isn't it? Sadly, this turned out to be reality. Jeff Atwood published an article detailing this very big problem on his superb coding horror website after a reader emailed Jeff telling him about the problem (further writeups on other sites here and here).
Of course, the people behind G-Archiver didn't ignore this big threat to customer security or confidence in their business, springing into action they posted the following:
What happened with G-Archiver?
It has come to our attention that a flaw in the
coding of G-Archiver may have revealed customer's Gmail account
usernames and passwords.
It is urgent that you remove the current version of G-Archiver from
your computer, and change your Gmail account password right away.
What happened was that a member of our development team had inserted
coding used for testing G-Archiver in the debug version and forgot to
delete it in the final release version.
We sincerely apologize and assure you that this coding mishap was in no way intentional.
We'll be releasing a new version that corrects the flaw in version 1.0. The new version will be available very soon.
I'm not sure who composed that but if they visit my site I'd like to ask them: "Have you ever considered a job at Sony?". I reckon they'd be perfect for it. Still the main thing is they issued an apology and a warning. Of course, it's hidden behind a small link on their main page with nothing to communicate the urgency of the article, and at the time of writing it's not linked to from their "FAQ" or "Help" pages, but I'm sure they're sincere.
Now Jeff links to the Association for Computing Machinery's code of ethics as part of his article, and as a member of the British Computer Society, a similar professional organisation for IT professionals in the UK, I can easily point you to a similar page on the BCS website.
What do you think? Taking those two "code of ethics" pages and thinking about what they say, do you think that Valve, Sony, Microsoft or the people behind G-Archiver meet those standards? When you stop and think about things, do they meet your standards for someone you want to do business with, or are you just so used to being treated badly that you don't notice any more?
Microsoft have released a new tool to render your Vista installation (even more) unusable and hence prod you into moving back to XP or buying a Mac. More info here.
I'd love to give a serious review but the laptop we use at work to test Vista / simulate a "home user" accessing our services remotely crashed while downloading Vista SP1. There's a certain amount of irony in Vista being so unreliable at times that you can't even get it to hold still long enough to fix it.
As ever with me, sorry about the recent lack of posts; I'm involved in a large amount of projects at work that revolve around building a brand new "green" campus, equipping it with state of the art gear in every area and moving into it without any sort of break in operations. This is proving to be somewhat time consuming, no surprise there, but I will have some good stories to tell if I get the time and energy to do so.
Apple have today announced that along with their SDK to allow developers to produce 3rd party apps for the iPhone they have also been working on support for Exchange server. How about that, I guess I was right.
Doesn't the list of things Phil Schiller produces for an Enterprise iPhone sound a lot like the laundry list of device management policy options in Exchange 2007? Never mind, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Let's be honest here, the iPhone has been a roaring success just like we all knew it would be, and with the announcement of "Enterprise" support and a "proper" SDK Apple have removed some of the roadblocks that stand in the way of the iPhone marching into more larger businesses.
I'm not trying to soften everyone up to confess that I've purchased one myself despite the many objections on the list I link to above remaining unanswered by the way, Sure, I've purchased a new phone of my own recently, but it isn't an iPhone.
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