Available for almost every operating system in use today - Reader is a format that works!

No, I haven’t been exploited. I feel fairly protected with the software I have running on my machine (which effectively removes a good amount of performance - Why do you think that when you look in the instructions to many games the first thing mentioned is suspending the antivirus program?)

No, I am very sure that somewhere, in some publisher’s thought process right now is the idea that putting out their magazine in PDF format is a bad idea. The reason is that if somehow exploiting code is found to have gotten into it, they will be blamed, and the good PR from the availability of PDFs will be totally removed by the bad feelings generated by any harm to user’s computers.

This would be a bad thing - a very bad thing.

Not only is making the content of magazines freely available for download a good thing for the user, it is another, otherwise missed, opportunity for advertisers to get a crack at selling their wares. Further, the downloaded content is likely to end up on a CD or DVD somewhere, archived, making it more likely that generations from now, someone will have the ability to clearly see some aspects of life today, without the jaundiced eye of the historian.

For the short term, it makes reference to data much easier than flipping through pages, or, if available, indices in print. The pictures available in a PDF, never fading if the file remains intact, provide much more than the thousands of words that might replace them in another document format.

Many magazines have started to make this content available. Maximum PC and The Perfect Vision are just a couple that quickly come to mind. But the trend should be allowed to continue.

The format has become so pervasive that almost any large program that is supplied with documentation is also supplied with Acrobat Reader, so that the user can immediately see what is needed in the setup or troubleshooting pages. Adobe has worked to make a very usable, helpful, and hopefully durable format. It shouldn’t become another also ran, simply because someone wanting to show hacking skills decided to focus on the format.

-

Tags: adobe reader, pdf, hacking, exploits, publishing concerns

There is nothing so satisfying as when you see points you’ve made being re-iterated by someone in the mainstream media - never mind you said it first, or that is has been some time since you said it.

I refer to the story on itwire.com, this morning, which asks a question I asked some months ago in this column.

If Microsoft can’t write drivers for Vista, what hope does anyone else have?

I will admit that the author has a somewhat more humorous slant on this than I had, but then he also wasted time and effort on the hardware he gets so worked up about.

Please read the story here - you will be entertained, and also you hopefully will catch the irony of this situation.

Share this post :

Tags: microsoft, microsoft hardware, microsoft vista hardware ’support’, de-de-de(see carlos mencia)

The announcement of the chip which is at once very small and claimed to be very fast will be, barring any unforeseen problems, an amazing and inexpensive way to gain high speed connectivity for most computers.

The claimed actual throughput is 200Mbps, which is startling and unexpected, as this is faster than many Gigabit wired LANs achieve. No actual test results have been made available as yet, so speed and distance claims are murky right now.

The chip size is quoted as 65 micrometers, which includes the media access controller, the baseband processor, and two radio units, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, along with the other ancillary components. Naturally, this allows extremely low power drain, and therefore qualifies as ‘green’.

Those innovators who wish to put everything slightly electrical on the network presumably have visions of wonder in their heads, considering how easily the chip will be grafted into anything from a washing machine to the family microwave.

-

Tags: broadcom, 802.11n, 11n networking, lan, wireless lan, green computing

An opinion about Microsoft Windows Vista, that is. One look at the other posts on this forum and it is amazing to see the variance in opinion.

Somewhere in the midst of all the opinions is the truth. Somewhere in the halls at One Redmond Way, a head of a programming team knows the answer to why the release of Vista was so filled with problems, and why the efforts of so many, for so long, proved to be so fruitless.

It doesn’t matter that the public disdain for the company is great, anyone who is blessed with any intelligence must see that Microsoft has turned out some products that are great enough to be on the majority of the computers on the planet. Innovation has been there for a long time, and it must also be seen that the large problem looming over the programmer’s heads is the difficulty with innovation, coupled to backwards compatibility.

The best case, in my opinion, would have been to continue to maintain Windows XP, while taking a few more years to invent a new system, completely removing any backwards compatibility, and with a huge campaign to publicize the newer, better system - leaning heavily upon phrases like ‘completely different’ and ‘breaks all bonds with the past, in order to innovate’.

By removing backwards compatibility, and doing the advertising over a few years (at least four), the drivers and operating system could arrive together. The leadership position that Microsoft is in would allow them to do this.

Perhaps as much as a break with the x86 architecture would help here. It would be a blow to Intel and AMD, but it would also shake up some innovation in those camps as a by-product. One look at the Power6 numbers and it’s easily seen that the coders at Microsoft could be really sloppy, and the operating system would still be very fast.

Some would say that there is no need to re-invent the wheel, but clearly, in some minds there is, as those minds are not happy with the mature operating system that is Windows XP, and must instead move to a new operating system with much glitz and many problems. It is so important that these same users must then state conditions of near perfection of operation, trying desperately to negate the comments of so many who work with the same machines, more hours per day, and pushing the same machines further towards the ragged edge that exposes flaws in anything man-made.

In closing, I wonder why the powers that be in Redmond are not more forthcoming with some great tome explaining the need for a different operating system, and why simply evolving XP will not do it. After all, it is easier to incrementally change something, rather than work with something new. From a monetary standpoint, it is simple enough to keep selling XP, with minimal changes, and the greatly reduced staff to maintain the code, knowing that with the changes in the EULA, a copy of XP dies when the motherboard dies. This makes the most sense, and the most profit.

-

Share this post :

Tags: microsoft, windows xp, windows vista, innovation, power6, eula, leadership, black comb

In an article on itwire.com, Verizon Business has announced plans to be fully IPv6 compliant in the United States by the end of 2008, and worldwide by the end of 2009.

Verizon is leading the move to IPv6, which still has many fearing the transition, because many previously unforeseen problems are cropping up in this age of everything from the family computer to the washing machine in the laundry room being connected to the internet, and requesting an IP address.

The lack of unused addresses is the primary reason for the move, as this change to universal connectivity has made addresses short in supply. One of the reasons many want to move to the scheme, which will bring 3.4 times 10 to the 38th power addresses into play, which means that there would be about 5 times 10 to the 28th power addresses for each of the 6.5 billion people on the planet. Effectively this will make a surfeit of addresses for any foreseeable future, and eliminate any need for network address translation. The results are both good and bad for this. It will mean that every item in your house will be able to be reached directly from anywhere on the internet, but it also removes a layer of protection from problems and attacks from the outside.

The end result will be one of greater control over world connectivity, but in the interim, some amount of chaos will ensue. It would be simpler if all of the work could be done without connection, and then, when complete, a switch could be pulled and all connections would immediately respond to the new address scheme. Such will not be the case.

As the change takes place, Verizon will be attempting to do what was explained earlier to the best of its ability, which is to run that IPv4, the current standard scheme, in parallel with the new build-out.  During this time, nothing will be made obsolete. As soon as the version 6 scheme is fully implemented, many items will be obsolete, as they will no longer correctly respond to traffic sent and received. Older operating systems will also have to have new TCP-IP utilities and new stacks, to be able to respond correctly.

The internet is getting up in years, starting to show some age, and has become more widespread in its use than the original architects at DARPA could have anticipated - it will be an exciting, yet frustrating, time during the coming growing pains.

Tags: internet, internet addressing scheme, ipv4, ipv6, darpa, verizon, network address translation, internet connected household appliances

Oops! Not so Ultimate now…

While at ZDNet today, and checking out the blog and input from Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, I noticed that he has been having a problem on his systems running Vista concerning copying a large number of files.

Mr. Kingsley-Hughes describes the problem as being exacerbated by running Kaspersky Antivirus software, although not specific to that product. It involves copying large numbers of files, 16,400 to be exact, either at one time, or possibly over a period of days where the system does not get rebooted.

The problem manifests itself in different ways. Sometimes the files are simply not copied. Sometimes the ‘out of memory’ error appears, and then other errors are also seen, such as Blue Screens of Death, and unscheduled reboots.

The entry by Adrian also describes Microsoft’s knowledge of this problem for some time, and having a fix for it, but that the fix was not in the SP1 beta released to those people who are ’special’ enough to obtain it.

For those who have experienced the problem, or simply do not want to, here is the hotfix.

Further,

While there are still other file handling problems in Vista, such as selecting large numbers of files (~1,500) cause serious spiking in memory usage (that is not released until reboot), hopefully one by one these issues will be addressed (SP1 maybe … the current beta doesn’t fix these issues).  Maybe then Vista users can feel as confident handling their data as when they were XP users.

Article in full

Clearly Microsoft is showing it either is incapable of doing something we expect of little children - that is, learning from their mistakes, and not repeating them - or it no longer cares to be careful in its practices.

Either way, a message needs to be sent - you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

-

Tags: microsoft, memory errors, kernel me mory errors, file copying operations, bsod, kaspersky antivirus, vista - the ultimate operating system, irony, hubris

It seems in their efforts to convince the general public that the update of files not otherwise noted, in any list seen by the user, was purely innocent and of no consequence, Microsoft overlooked a little problem with updates on any system that had subsequently been repaired using the repair console.

The problem was discovered at Windows Secrets, and further reported at ZDNet by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Lest anyone think this was an isolated incident, occurring on perhaps only one or two machines, several were set up to simulate the problem, and the problem was consistent in its appearance.

A full set of pictures showing how the defect works is here. 

and from Windows Secrets.com

However, after running the repair option from an XP CD-ROM, Automatic Updates defaults to “on,” and the new 7.0.600.381 executables are automatically downloaded and installed. These new executables fail to register themselves with the operating system, preventing Windows Update from working as intended. This, in turn, prevents Microsoft’s 80 latest updates from being installed.

Adrian also gives methods for checking to see if your system is affected, and 2 ways to affect repairs when the problem is found.

Microsoft has gotten caught with its collective ‘pants’ down, and the non-admission of the problem does nothing to build confidence in the company. It would seem that any company as plagued by litigation and bad press as Microsoft is, would do everything in its power to engender customer support, confidence, and loyalty - but it seems that Microsoft believes it is so ensconced in the collective lives of its customers as to be untouchable.

Full article here

-

Tags: microsoft, windows update, stealth updated files, repair console, zdnet, windows secrets, oops

In the wake of the news that Microsoft search technology was a disappointing third in the ‘Search Wars’, Microsoft has rolled out new additions to Live Search.

The company reports that the size of the search index has been quadrupled, and work done on prediction algorithms, while sheer processor power has been applied to help with new video search and play technology.

The Live Search Video will allow preview of video content through the use of thumbnail windows.The windows will be able to be sized by the user, and previewing will also include filmstrip frame by frame capabilities.

New categories for search have been added, looking more like the categorization of the old Yahoo, rather than a current competitor to Google.

Also said to be greatly improved is the Microsoft Maps feature, becoming closer to Google Earth and MapQuest in the way it works.

All of these changes look good on paper, but if the results are not that different from current offerings by Google, will the changes be enough to have users go to Live.com and put Microsoft back in the running?

-

Tags: microsoft, live, live search, live search video, google, yahoo, microsoft maps, rank amongst peers, indexing improvement

As anyone who reads, listens to radio, or watches television knows, the dividing line between news, entertainment, and outright propaganda is blurred more and more daily.

The newest offender in the media arena is the Video News Release, which is described as a short video segment filmed and produced to look like a news item. The origin of the breed was when the style was used to promote government policy. Now it seems that the government is saying that it can be the only one to use ‘thinly veiled propaganda as news item’ format.

The push to action was brought by a letter from two consumer groups, the Center for Media and Democracy and Free Press. The letter cited the airing of the ‘infoganda’ by almost 100 stations. The FCC decision concerns only one station, known as Comcast CN8, and the levied fine upon this station. The amount was small, only $4000, but the message sent was clear.

The CMD has posted the VNR so that anyone may judge for himself. The advertainment is for an alternative medicine of questionable efficacy, with experts unidentified in their areas of expertise.

It will be interesting to see if the message sent by the FCC will be properly received and the admonition taken. Nonetheless, it is a case where the usually lackluster performance of the FCC is put aside, and positive action in the public interest taken.

-

Tags: fcc, infomercial, advertainment, vnr, comcast, center for media & democracy, free press, fines levied, media responsibility, propaganda

Tabloid television and news is a fact of life. There is no escape. There should, however, be certain parts of any individual’s life that remain untouched.

Such is the case with the ongoing spectacle, that should never have been, concerning Charlie Sheen and his relationship with his children. The reporters have sunk to new lows on this one.

The ostensibly high minded and factual Entertainment Tonight and The Insider both ran snippets that cast ridiculous aspersions rather than shed light on the situation. Although nothing was done that could be legally actionable, it is sad that someone on the editorial staff felt the need to bring any part of this onto the television screens of the rabid ‘news’ fans.

The report on Entertainment Tonight touched upon the never identified and recently discharged nanny who felt it was ‘inappropriate’ for the star to have his 3 year old daughter in bed with him. Barely touched upon was the possible reason for the testimony, which is likely the retaliation of a disgruntled ex-wife. I’m sure nothing stated was incorrect, but the tone was accusatory and unnecessarily strident.

The self proclaimed ‘defenders of decency’ cannot have it both ways, with acknowledgement that children need closeness to parents in their formative years, and proclaiming on one hand that the ‘family bed’ is a wonderful tool to promote familial bonds, while in this case reviling the actions of this parent who does exactly what they claim beneficial.

At the same time, small references to Charlie Sheen’s pre-parental lifestyle are there to encourage illogical jumps in thought, as many know that Mr. Sheen was certainly no angel in younger years. 

Not only are these unproven accusations un-newsworthy, they are as salacious as anything posted about Mr. Sheen’s previous life. The stories have no redeeming value, show no benefit to the audience, and have no outcome as yet. What they do is feed the insane need of some to comparatively raise their own level of existence.

For the reporters, and the news hounds, another path should be immediately taken.

Tags: news, what is news?, the fourth estate, tabloid journalism