Software
Reactions to commercial software.
For a period of time, I have access to both an MSDN and a TechNet subscription. Both offer Microsoft software for download. I wondered what the similarities and differences were between the two subscriptions. I copied the two download lists into Excel and aligned them. Most of the material I would never use. Some products I have never heard of. I present the lists, current as of today, for your reviewing pleasure. TechNet MSDN Applications (63) Applications (79) Access 2.0 Access 2003 Access 2003...
My last post related the sad story of a dead HP MediaSmart Home Server. This time, I will relate the steps I took to configure the Synology DS1511+ for use. To avoid unnecessary typing, I recommend this post to provide the basic details. It is written for the older DS1010+, but the process is the same for the DS1511+. … OK, now that you have read that, I have different drives in my NAS so I had a different kind of problem. I chose to go with five Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green SATA II drives (WD20EARS)...
There comes a time when computers die. So it was with our HP MediaSmart Home Server. At the age of 4, I was not expecting it to die. Oops. It has never really been an easy life before the death of that machine. It’s anemic 512MB of memory got upgraded to 2GB. The 500MB primary drive got expanded with two 1TB drives. The power supply fan started sounding like my lawn mower, so it had to be replaced. Things seemed stable until the primary drive croaked – and me unable to locate the recovery disk –...
I enjoyed reading the E7 blog entries. I see that the E8 blog has been reserved
Over the past several months, I frequently found myself cursing the Internet slowness of my fully loaded multi-core computer. I cleaned, optimized, defragmented, flushed and did everything customary to resuscitate a lethargic machine. A blog entry described the woes of someone in a similar position. He speculated that the cause was Abobe's Flash plug-in for IE. A Google search showed people with a similar problem and similar thoughts. I figured it would not hurt to just kill Flash ... kill it as...
My wife and I were talking by phone while I was at a store when she mentioned that she wanted an MP3 player for use around the house. Easy in-car use was also a requirement. I went to the music player display case to see what was offered. A full 80% of the boxes were various flavors of iPods. The rest were Zunes with a couple of Samsung units. Since I have a bad opinion of Apple DRM and iTunes lock-in, I bought her a 4GB pink Zune and brought it home. My wife loved opening the box and playing with...
IE8 Beta 1 now available here. My initial experience with this version was not good. As soon as I viewed my Favorites and started to mouse over the list, the browser crashed. Every time. After the fifth or sixth time, I uninstalled it and returned to IE7. After downloading a new copy, I reinstalled. It still crashed. Then I started the browser without add-ons. (Right click the Desktop icon and choose "Start Without Add-ons.") No crashes when viewing Favorites. Ah hah. I went in and pruned down the...
Go to the main site before it gets hammered with traffic: http://www.microsoft.com/wi... Even better, they seem to have fixed the nonresponsive Favorites folders bug that crept into the last release candidate. Update 1: Too late. Microsoft's download servers, as well as the supporting authentication, RunOnce and update servers, are creaking under the load. It would be best to wait a bit for the update rush to subside. When the phased Automatic Updates hit, expect even more mayhem. Update 2:...
Update: You are now too late. It took Microsoft five days, but they have finally removed the download file and the page linked below. Sorry. You may want to try the Google search linked below to find someone who has it posted elsewhere. After corporate security types screamed, Microsoft pulled the download of their Private Folder 1.0 installer. More accurately, they pulled the web pages that pointed to the file, but, for the moment, left it posted on their download server. You can find it using this...
Today I got to unpack and set up my new toy. After over five years of existing with the same old 1.1GHz P3, I finally got my brand new Dell XPS 400 -- Pentium D Dual Core 3GHz Processor 930, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, 256MB nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX, and other toys -- Sweet! I plugged in two 19-inch LCD monitors that I had ready, fired it up, and promptly got deluged with the Dell advertising crapware. I had to read the startup configuration screen very closely to make sure I was not agreeing to AOL Broadband...
I mentioned earlier, that I endorsed IE7 Beta 2 Preview, but I should clarify that something seems wrong with the ClearType implementation. It is so bad for me, that I have had to turn it off. Now I admit that I have a wimpy old home system (P3 1.1GHz), but the ClearType pages at Microsoft say that I should have seen an improvement. There is a new IEBlog entry today talking about this. Try it and see if it will improve things for you. I think it will likely be a wash on more modern hardware, but...
After playing with Beta 1, I find the Beta 2 Preview to be worth it. Uninstall Beta 1 if you have it before installing Beta 2 Preview. My installs were seamless. Note: The .Text editing window is a little flakey with delete/backspace and cursor positioning. It also has problems with the post body toolbar. Hmmm ... maybe a reboot. Lots of people are calling this Beta 2 -- that is incorrect. The IEblog announcement calls a beta preview “a release for everyone involved in making the Internet work.“...
Brian Bergstein, AP Technology Writer, gives us a good summary of where things stand with Sony and their DRM problems. Suffice it to say that they relied on First 4 Internet for the expertise and F4I proved to be inept. I think Sony's suits have little concern about the “thieving users” who are trying to steal their content, but only get concerned about the lawsuits and lost profit. The music industry got too used to obscene profit margins and now cannot live without them. Sony seems...
The media is looking for blood, and there is plenty of Sony's lying around. Update 1: Someone finally says that the antivirus companies who were supposedly protecting us have no clothes. Update 2: A good USA Today article that links the Sony DRM to executive changes, a questionable merger, and staff downsizing. The stories are only getting worse. I think this will emerge as a perfect case study of now not to protect a company's intellectual property. Sony issues a second apology, stops production...
Previously, I hypothesized about a fictional pitch that sold Sony on the rootkit XCP DRM they included on some recent CDs. I then examined how the software's authors pitched their product. All of those scenarios were fatally limited because I think I fell into the same trap the Sony did -- I did not examine how CDs are played from all angles. My assumption was that the players in this game were Sony (and by extension First 4 Internet) and the incipient thieves who buy the CDs. The point of view that...
Now that we know quite a bit about how the XCP DRM copy protection scheme was implemented for Sony, how was it sold to the record companies? First 4 Internet has the following posted on their XCP DRM website. Read the following knowing they are talking about a specialized player supported by a rootkit-based DRM driver. They pitch it as a “disc format“ when it is actually a standard format (to play in regular CD players) with added autorun software for computers (both PC and Mac), and...
I have lots of links in this post about Sony's XCP DRM software and how they bungled it. The last update there brings up an interesting point. Picture yourself in front of senior management pitching the “cutting-edge” technology you have found at an unremarkable British software company. No lawyers or PR flacks are around. You are suitably vague about the detailed techniques, but you breeze through the slides extolling the benefits of the process. The suits are impressed. You get the...
I am sure Sony would use different words, but the effect is the same. Their effort is poor, the purchased rootkit is not very well written, and their subterfuge is potentially vulnerable to legal challenge. (Buy those CDs now and join the potential class action suit!) Read about it here. [Highly Recommended] Update 1: Hmmm. More here concerning Sony's “uninstall” system. It also covers how the Sony system phones home. The software's authors attempt some rebuttals here. Overall, this is...
In my last post on Program Object Models, I was trying to figure out how to replace the Notepad functionality of the 1990s-era Ecco Pro PIM program with a more modern version. It turns out that my desired multi-collapsible outline, that I liked so much in Ecco Pro, is present in OneNote. In OneNote, as you mouse over a line, a box with a four-way arrow appears to the left. If you double click the box, any child items collapse. Another double-click reverses the process. Additionally, the collapsed...
I was doing some design research several months ago when I started collecting samples of the exposed object models of published programs. My intent was to study them and see how others had designed their interfaces. My next major project (if I ever get the time to start it) will likely have a macro requirement, so I wanted to create my design to allow easy macro functionality later. A reasonably good automation explanation showed up on MSDN recently by Omar Al Zabir: “Implement a Microsoft...
As opposed to my first IE7 post, I wanted to point out some good stuff about the new browser. I rarely run beta software on my machines. I made an exception this time, mostly because intense interest. I waited almost a week to see if the early adopters had gotten burned by anything. I was amused by the people who used a Beta 1 software package for 15 minutes and then declared it to be inadequate when compared with their current tabbed browser. There were both good and bad aspects about the IE7 Beta...
MSDN has an excellent explanation in their 2001 article on Creating Windows XP Icons. You will need a competent graphics program and the time to do the work. Need something quick? There are 132 sets of free icons over at Pixiegirl Presents, ranging from to useful, to the interesting, to the eclectic. Want something professional? IconExperience sells multiple collections on a range of subjects...
Now updated and expanded, go and read Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List. Highly recommended, this is another link to keep around
Years ago, I was head of a military school that taught, among many other things, computer network defense. We hads lots of unknowing people come through our school and receive our firehose of information over a two-week period. There was way to much information to teach in that time, so we provided a supplemental CD with the full course materials and additional references. I wrote a very basic summary of how to defend your home computer, giving examples and recommendations based on how I was doing...
Microsoft brought this version out last July, but I missed it. It can be downloaded here. What kind of personal data is buried in Office documents? Quite a bit, actually. Here is what the tool removes: Comments. Previous authors and editors. User name. Personal summary information. Revision marks. The tool accepts all revisions specified in the document. As a result, the contents of the document will correspond to the Final Showing Markup view on the Reviewing toolbar. Deleted text. This data is...
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