King Research has released information on a Windows Vista related survey that was performed on how IT professionals felt about the operating system. The results concluded the 90% of people in the IT field did not want anything to do with the operating due to concerns with security and stability. Cost was also a factor but I have to say that if the security and stability aspects were fine, then the price might not look so bad.
To be honest, I’d have to say that I am one of the 90% that doesn’t care for Vista. I’ve used it a little bit and got really tired of it being slow and a little “too secure”. I know that the phrase “too secure” sounds odd, but if you’ve used Vista, then you likely know what I’m talking about.
To those that don’t already have a Zune or those that are planning on upgrading theirs, here’s some news for you. Microsoft has announced a new set of Zunes to be released in the near future. The new series of Zunes are expected to feature 4GB, 8GB, and 80GB storage capacities and will cost $150, $200, and $250, respectively. Considering that fact that the 80GB Zune is only $250 than the 4GB, why wouldn’t you pay an extra $100 to get twenty times the amount of storage space? With my existing iPod slowly fading away, I really may be in the market for a new Zune. If anyone has any thoughts on how much you like or dislike your Zune, please let me know. I need some perspective on the Zune so I can know what to look for.
As many people seem to be agreeing (myself included), Vista turned out to be a pretty lousy version of Windows. Thankfully, many of the computer manufacturers of the world are working towards setting up a solution to allow users to downgrade to Windows XP. Windows XP was by far my favorite version of Windows that Microsoft every put out. It was basic, easy to use, and didn’t prompt you for 20,000 things when you were trying to do something. All I can say to the PC manufacturers is,”Bring it on!” That downgrade capability is a much welcomed release so please don’t delay.
Watching old skewl computer videos is always a good time and I think this one is definitely one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a video boasting the sweet MS-DOS 5 upgrade software. It features mouse support for crying out loud! Mouse support!!! Check out the video below.
Here’s the shock of the century, a Slashdot article about Vista having trouble with IPv6. I don’t know if anyone saw that news coming. I would have imagined it would have had decent support for it since IPv6 is becoming more known. Not to mention the fact that Apple has had good IPv6 support for some time now.
From the article:
‘We are seeing a number of applications that are IP-based that do not like the addressing scheme of IPv6,’ says one user. ‘We will send a print job to an IP-based printer, and the print job becomes corrupted. We’re seeing this with Window’s Vista machines. When IPv6 is installed, this happens without fail. As soon as we remove IPv6, all of our printer functions return to normal.’
Many of you audio visual fanatics probably follow what goes on in the realm of the avsforum.com website. While searching around for information on the LinuxMCE software, I just happened to find a post on the avsforum.com site that compares MythTV to Vista MCE and man is it a long one. This guy gave an insanely thorough examination of the two different applications. If you’re trying to decide between the two of these applications then I suggest hitting up the AVSForum.com site and check out the haps.
I swear, this big brother thing is getting out of hand. A Slashdot article is reporting on how Microsoft wants to develop a technology that will allow them to identify internet users based on the websites they visit and such. Honestly, I think if it really got to that point I would hope for some hack that disabled that feature or I would have to stop using the internet. I don’t have anything to hide but I think that’s a serious invasion of privacy and don’t want to provide them with information that would help them develop their program.
From the article:
New Scientist reports on a technology Microsoft is developing to identify users based on their browsing habits. Quote: ‘The software could get its raw information from a number of sources, including a new type of ‘cookie’ program that records the pages visited. Alternatively, it could use your PC’s own cache of web pages, or proxy servers could maintain records of sites visited. So far it can only guess gender and age with any accuracy,’ but the aim is to be able to identify name, occupation and location as well. On a related note, The Inquirer reports on Microsoft’s plans to widen the use of its identity-verification technology CardSpace, which is built into Windows Vista and available as an add-on to XP. It’s being envisioned as an identity solution for the entire internet: says Kim Cameron, pioneer of the technology, ‘We feel it has to solve all use cases.’ (Aha, so the anonymous use cases, too, eh?) One might ask, with all of this user-ID information on hand, how long will it be until the Feds come knocking on Microsoft’s door asking for help? They already have.
I saw this article on Slashdot and about laughed myself to death. Symantec, the company known for it’s anti-virus and firewall software, has reported in a study that Microsoft has the most secure OS of its competitors. The article about this hilarious report went on to mention that Red Hat Linux and Mac OS X have ranked BELOW Microsoft. Seriously? Come on now.
“According to a Symantec study reported by Information Week, Microsoft has the most secure operating system amongst its commercial competitors. The report only covered the last 6 months of vulnerabilities and patch releases, but the results place Microsoft operating systems above Mac OS X and Red Hat. According to the article, ‘The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.’ The article continues to mention the metrics used in the study (quantity and severity of vulnerabilities as well as the amount of time one must wait for the patch to be released).”
FutureDomain from the Slashdot site posted about an issue with the Window Live OneCare application. It was found that the application has a tendency clear out the entire .PST file of your Outlook or Outlook Express mailbox. (Nice.) Another lesson as to why you should go with a Linux or Macintosh based machine. I still think Windows has its purposes but the new Vista OS seems to be causing some trouble.
Wow! I didn’t really expect to see a post about Bill Gates speaking out against the current immigration policies within the United States. But hey, I guess if Bill’s making the mad cash from Windows then he can talk about whatever he wants.
From the article:
“None other than Bill Gates has spoken out against tighter immigration policies in the US. According to Gates, the US is losing skilled immigrants to other countries that are easier to immigrate to. Among his comments: “I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.”