Curiouser and Curiouser! on microsoft

Foghorn Longhorn

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 11:55:48 +0100

Windows Longhorn slips again, becomes megaproject. Gates holds forth on Microsoft's next Big One [The Register]

» I especially enjoyed the section:

Gates's list of what's planned for Longhorn is largely user's eye view, classic eye-candy of the sort that gets bolted on to the company's interim releases, but given that we're currently talking about a major overhaul, these ought to be more integral to the finished product than has often been the case in the past. Gates alludes to the database angle by asking of current operating systems: "Why are my document files stored one way, my contacts another way, and my e-mail and instant-messaging buddy list still another, and why aren't they related to my calendar or to one another and easy to search en masse?"

Sounds just like Radio. I think UserLand should sue!

Palladium or bust

Sat, 29 Jun 2002 08:55:40 +0100

Dylan Tweney: Broken trust. The problem is that Palladium requires users to place a huge amount of trust in Microsoft. You don't get to decide what runs on your computer -- Microsoft does. You can't even open files unless you've been authorized by Microsoft, or by a third party. [Tomalak's Realm]

» Definitely a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

Spam : there is some evidence to suggest that P2P filtering will effectively reduce the spam problem down to manageable levels. Developments in this direction can start providing benefits now and without costing investment in hardware & OS.
Virii : I run Norton Anti-virus in the background. I use auto-update to keep NAV current. So far, I've not had a problem. I don't open attachments unless they are scanned. I trust that virus defence systems will continue to advance and provide greater and more seamless protection.

Palladium's safety mechanism sounds a lot like "pull the plug out of the wall." You'll be protected, because there will be no software to run on your shiny new computer except that from the Pravda like M$crosoft and it's allies.

Remember the pedigree of who we're dealing with here. If you're an ISV will you be happy to pay Microsoft to have your software certified for Palladium? Each time you release? Even for a patch? And what if your playing on Microsoft's turf or turf they have their beady eyes on, Think your customers might have just the odd extra problem that doesn't happen with Microsoft's possibly inferior entry? Want to take that risk? Remember who we're dealing with.

It's only Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and Intel & AMD's lock on the CPU market that allows this kind of applied stupidity. In a healthy market for chips & OS's there would be too many options for one vendor to create a lock-in like this. Of course, trust Microsoft to manage to spin this carbuncle in a way that could appeal to people.

Remember the original MSN? Customers flocked to Microsofts new and improved internet in their... dozens. That's because they had a choice and the internet didn't suck ass. Between now and LongHorn we need Linux to establish itself on the desktop to provide some kind of realistic alternative. We need to be able to let M$crosoft and Disney go their way, hand-in-hand, whilst we go ours.

We need a choice.

Why haven't Microsoft bought Google?

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 18:00:26 +0100

Why haven't Microsoft bought Google?

I want to know.

Goddamn dialogs

Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:47:03 +0100

What is it with Microsoft? Do they have some special internal version where everything always work?

Every time you get an error in any application is pops up in a dialog box. What do you do with it? Well you copy it from the dialog and then paste it into an email, or support form or some such don't you? Don't you? That would be the easy thing to do wouldn't it.

So why on earth don't standard dialogs always allow copy of all visible text!!!

What a crock of shit

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 14:57:23 +0100

So, ever since I installed Service Pack 1 for Windows XP

Outlook 2002 runs painfully slowly. Where it used to be fine, now it takes 4-5 seconds after I click a message before it appears in the preview pane. Clicking multiple messages to delete spam also takes 2-3 seconds each.
My start bar menus now flicker. Even when the mouse is stationary I can see it flickering like it's constantly redrawing the menu.
Same thing for all my context menus.. Bah!
My QuickCam software crashes and I can't undock any more because "Your camera cannot be stopped. Please try later" Yeah, right.

So the net result of my upgrade?

I have a new, more invasive license
I have a machine that is slower and less reliable

Well thanks for fucking nothing you M$crosoft shitheads.

I declare XP1 to be spam!

Hasty hasty

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 20:38:34 +0100

Addendum to my previous rant about XP & SP1. I was hasty and I hereby apologize to all the Microsoft shitheads I may have offended with that piece.

It looks like the flickering menu's and outlook performance issues were related to a piece of software I started testing about the same time as I went to SP1. We had a .DLL issue that caused a bit of a hiccup.

So the net result of SP1 is, instead, only a more invasive licence and not being able to undock my laptop anymore.

So, well done Microsoft. Good job!

How to annoy your users (Part I)

Sat, 05 Oct 2002 10:01:44 +0100

To anyone working in a software company. My computer is my own. You do not make assumptions as to how I want to use my computer, nor do you make assumptions as to how much I want to use your product, just because I happen to be installing it.

The worse culprits in this kind of thing are probably Real. Real seem to have an entire marketing strategy focused on annoying the fuck out of their users until said users refuse to ever install a Real product again. I know that's the state I'm at, and so are quite a few of my friends. When there's a site that says requires Real Player, my reaction is Oh well, I can't hear that.

[The Desktop Fishbowl]

» This is such a stupidly annoying practice. I too gave up on Real long ago, so far it hasn't bothered me too much - their time seems to have come and gone.

To Microsoft, and all the others who mess with my carefully configured settings, I ask the question "Whose bloody computer is it anyway?" But of course we all know the answer to that one: "Not yours mate!"

Register this!

Wed, 16 Oct 2002 12:09:50 +0100

MS pulls another clip-art fan rave. Hall of shame [The Register]

» So beautifully scathing. So richly deserved.

The Palladium Paradox

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 15:19:00 +0100

David Weinberger on Palladium

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_weinberger102502.asp

Microsoft to become Hollywoods new best friend?

Microsoft Blogger

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 15:26:17 +0000

Anil Dash: Microsoft's Weblog Software. [Scripting News]

» The only thing wrong with this is that Microsoft won't use the words 'weblog', 'blog', 'weblogger', etc... They wouldn't use such old tired terminology when they could invent new and improved (and trademarked) terminology of their own!

You can put make-up on a pig..

Sat, 25 Jan 2003 09:08:55 +0000

Palladium Name Change; Mission Still Same. This just in from Microsoft's PR folks: "Microsoft is adopting a new name to replace the code name Palladium. Effective... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Yes, it's just as easy to re-read their statement as "The name Palladium garnered a lot of bad press so we're going to give it a boring name with an odd acronym and hope you forget all about it."

As Dan says, you can put make-up on a pig...

Oh yeah, I trust you now!

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 12:44:38 +0000

Windows Update keeps tabs on all system software. Spy on the wire [The Register]

Is this true?

The use of SSL suggests a deliberate attempt to prevent me from knowing this is happening. A deliberate attempt to decieve me. I would not tolerate this from any other vendor. Why should I tolerate it from M$? And they want my trust?

For me they have two choices:

Refute the allegations with independent verification.
Apologize. Destroy the data (and collateral data) & prove that they have. Give a solemn undertaking that this will never happen again.

I'm turning off Windows update, now. If I was interested in switching before, you can bet that goes ^10 now.

InfoPath: Golden path or mantrap

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:18:09 +0000

OneNote and InfoPath.

I just saw the demos for OneNote and InfoPath. OneNote is just a glorified Notepad, no where as good as NoteTaker is. InfoPath, on the other hand, is going to be a catalyst, an monster underwater earquake that will start a tsunami of changes across industries. Its going to generate Office suite upgrade momentum as well as Microsoft server and middleware software sales. Buy Microsoft stock. Their revenue will rise sharply in the near future because of InfoPath. I am not exaggerating, folks.

[Don Park's Blog]

Reading Don's blog these past few months I've come to trust his judgement on this kind of thing. The InfoPath demo certainly offers some attractive possibilities. Looks like M$ may have a winner.

Of course the usual M$ questions remain:

Not browser based, back to the proprietary client
XML forms but not XForms
How easy will it be to work with non-M$ platforms

I guess that the last question is, ultimately, key. If InfoPath is just another Web Services Architecture client (and something that propels that future) then it's a good thing. Otherwise...

Goddamn Microsoft crap!

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 10:10:18 +0100

Damnit I had to go and say I was happy didn't I?!?

So this morning my laptop won't connect to anything. The setup looks fine, I can ping okay but no DNS resolution. So I fiddle about disconnecting things from the router, hard coding the DNS server that kind of stuff.

Then I notice that ping is displaying odd non-ascii characters instead of the name, and a little bit later DHCP stops working. It won't assign the address. I can't get host names and ipconfig is telling me unpleasant stories about how things aren't sockets any more.

Of course my little Mac is fine.

It kinda spiralled downwards from there. I tried various fixes (including the netsh TCP/IP reset trick) all to no available.

Last night perfect working laptop. This morning broken laptop. What did I change? I plugged it into the dock this morning.

To be fair to Microsoft when, in desparation, I tried their system restore tool it did work. I've lost some installed applications (but not data) and configuration but TCP/IP is back.

However not wishing to be too fair I would estimate that M$ have cost me 3 days of lost productivity just over the last week with having to reinstall and then another 2 hours this morning trying to debug this fscking problem.

You better believe I will be buying a Mac next time around.

Boycotting Y! and MSN

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 13:25:11 +0100

Yahoo to Lock out Trillian. Yahoo makes a fatal blunder in following Microsoft to lock out Trillian users. Yahoo is responding to its current competitive definitions rather that thinking forward strategically. Trillians error is just the type of strategy advice I was given yesterday. [Unbound Spiral]

This sucks.

Yahoo! and MSN both blocking 3rd party clients? Unless Cerulean Studios can work around this as they have before then I shall be boycotting both those networks from Sep 24th and Oct 15th respectively.

Nimrods ye are

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 16:52:44 +0100

Dan Shafer calls us "nimrods" for turning off his IM client. Well, the way I look at it is we're still a business. Our bandwidth costs us money. Our servers, and their upkeep, costs us money. My salary costs Microsoft money. Our shareholders demand that we return a profit (so much so that one shareholder recently asked us to stop giving money to charity -- I'll come back to that in a minute).

Plus, we're making our service more secure and it does more now than it ever did before and now we'd like to start selling our IM infrastructure to third parties. Seems to me that's fair. Dan, do you work for free? How about you send me your latest books for free? Or, even better yet, what would your publisher say if I went to Borders, bought a book of yours, then retyped it and put it onto the Internet for all my readers to use for free?

As to charity, one of our shareholders wants us to be forbidden to spend any money on charity. That's just plain bad business. Why? Because it makes me feel good as a Microsoft employee that Microsoft is one of the world's largest charitable givers -- it's a major reason that Microsoft has one of industry's lowest turnover rates. It also improves our brand's reputation (which does need all the help it can get). It also lets us invest in growing areas like education that can't afford the latest technology. That lets us learn best practices that we can incorporate into our products.

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

No you're nimrods.

You're trying to defend cutting off the oxygen to vendor neutral IM. I'd think the same if I found that my next Outlook upgrade suddenly meant I could only email other Outlook users.

I'll be boycotting MSN from October until a work-around is found. Of course you could save me this bother and just make your damn software interoperable!

Whose the nimrod now?

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 20:17:22 +0100

Following up on my previous post about MSN messenger and Trillian it looks like I was wrong which, I guess, makes me the nimrod in this case.

If Microsoft are providing a way for any client to integrate properly with the MSN infrastructure and simply charging users for using their infrastructure then I have no complaint (provided the charge is reasonable). As to the argument about it being free using MSN but not free using a 3rd party client well I guess Microsoft must be getting something back by users using the MSN client.

In this light Microsoft's approach seems better than that of either Yahoo or AOL who both seem intent on destroying the idea of vendor neutral IM.

Building quality with faces

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:36:30 +0000

Reality lies somewhere betw Cringely and Ballmer and Linus. How about this. Both guys (Ballmer and Torvalds) make really shitty software. Microsoft, after decades of Windows development still can't make a robust operating system that a normal person can use. And Linux ships with every security feature wide open. An end user who actually installed it (a amazing accomplishment in itself) would end up (instantly) hosting a playground for script kiddies everywhere. And the user interface of Linux sucks. Windows isn't totally terrible. It's a huge embarassment that with many billions of dollars, dozens of years, and billions of man-hours, this is the best the human species can produce. [Scripting News]

In reading the Cringely piece I had a sudden vision of how we can get sharp improvements in the quality of Microsoft products without them having to give it away.

Open up the developers.

Linus Torvalds says:

The other reason why free software is better is because the personal reputation of the developer is attached to every release. If you are making something to give away to the world, something that represents to millions of users your philosophy of computing, you will always make it the very best product you can make.

I think he's right. I know the pressure I feel to deliver something good and the pain of failing. I'm not saying that Microsoft programmers don't feel the same things, but they are hidden behind the behemoth they work for. When the pressure to ship gets too great they can, ultimately, acquiesce and nobody will know. There is no public shame.

If these guys were in the spotlight for their work then they could take either the heat or the praise as appropriate. I'd like to see a site at that shows each product, the team who works on it with pictures, bio's, links to weblogs, email and so on. And why stop at Microsoft, lots of people make crappy software (I'll refrain from saying "us too" since you know that already!)

How to lose friends and influence people

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 18:27:30 +0000

Microsoft and Google: A Terrible Match. New York Times: Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals?. Google, the highflying Silicon Valley Web search company, recently began holding... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Google becomes part of Microsoft? Then watch me drop Google like a shitty stick! I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in that.

Sure I'd trust Microsoft with my data again...

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:20:31 +0000

Good grief I can't even start Outlook now. It opens then immediately runs up to 100% CPU and sits there unresponsive. I'm not even sure it will work to the extent that other clients importers will be able to get the data out. What do I do then?

One thing you can be certain of. I will never buy into a world of Microsoft controlled DRM. They don't build the kind of software that I would trust not to lose my licenses, invalidate my data or lock me out of my system. If this was Outlook + Palladium then doubtless the PST files on my backup CD wouldn't be readable by now either.

I can't wait to say "Good riddance Outlook."

-----------------------

20.30 Update

Sure enough I tried to use Bloomba to import my Outlook mail and no go. It spent 2 hrs twiddling it's thumbs while Outlook just looked on and laughed it's fiendish laugh. My next step will be to do a final backup and then attempt to re-install Outlook so that I can export my mail archives into another application.

What a drag.

Let's make nice

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:24:35 +0000

Brand Emotion.

I'm sitting here in Seattle's airport. My flight is delayed. The plane is broken. A new one is getting flown in. But, it gives me some time to think about how people perceive brands and what can affect that perception. Particularly when it comes to Microsoft

What do you think when I say "Nordstroms?" I think great service. "Coca Cola?" Refreshing. "Nike?" I wanna be like Mike. Apple Innovative. "Levis" Cool. "Krispy Kreme" Hot and fresh.

Now, what do you think when I say "Microsoft?" Do you think "Monopolistic? Ruthless? Rapatious? Arrogant? Low quality? or Untrustworthy?" Many people do.

[...]

What do you think? How can we work together to make a win-win?

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

[Note I have edited this piece because I think I was being unfair to Robert.and more self-righteous than usual.]

Behind Scobles brand guff lies my truth. People do not fear Micorosft simply because they dominate the software market. People fear Microsoft because they have proved, repeatedly, that they will do anything to win including acts which are unethical or illegal.

I think that one of the reasons Scoble, a prominent blogger, was hired was because Gates & Ballmer have a new strategy called "Let's make nice." I think they've realised they have a growing PR problem and their way of dealing with it is to get people saying nice things about them.

I don't think they are above hiring people like Scobe, giving them the shock & awe therapy whilst feeding them the kool-aid and then letting them get on with spreading the good word about about how "we've changed." If that also means giving them secret new toys, printing glossy values packs and signing campfire songs then so be it.

A companies values flow from the top. Gates & Ballmer have been responsible for Microsofts values for a long time. I don't believe they have changed. Why on earth would I?

It's not a simple world (thank god!)

Sun, 18 Jan 2004 19:49:01 +0000

Java is Mature.
Java is a mature proven language for non-GUI applications. What it means is that it does what you expect it to and there is a large body of open source software you can leverage. Carlos E. Perez's enumeration of Open Source Web Crawlers Written in Java is a good example.

C# and .NET, on the other hand, has a long way to go still and there is no easy to extend IDE like Eclipse for developers to rally around. Working with .NET at this point is like working in a new town destined to grow, maybe like Chicago was around 1840. As for my involvement with .NET, I enjoy the rough life.
[Don Park's Daily Habit]

As someone who wrote his first C# application on Friday I could get to like the language. But it's not cross-platform and Visual Studio.NET 2003 is, compared to Intellij IDEA, a piece of junk. I guess if all I did were write apps for Windows boxes every day it would be fine. I don't yearn for that kind of simplicity though.

Catalyzes recurring revenue model, it says here.

Tue, 04 May 2004 19:09:23 +0100

Here's locking down you, kid - MS hawks vision of DRM future. Catalyzes recurring revenue model, it says here By John Lettice . [The Register]

Needless to say I won't be buying one of these devices, nor will I be licensing the legitimate content to go on them. I intend to boycott all such things until the industry takes a serious approach to consumer rights, i.e. forever.

Another sad step on the bad patents journey

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 09:56:26 +0100

Smart TODO Patent.
Automatic handling of TODO comments in source code is something Eclipse has been doing for a while now but Microsoft has been granted a patent the feature. The patent was filed on March 6, 2000. I forget when Eclipse had the smart TODO feature.
[Don Park's Daily Habit]

There has been some talk of this in the Intellij IDEA groups with some people claiming that Delphi had the feature long before 2000. I've never used Delphi so I can't comment.

I f**king hate Outlook

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:49:23 +0100

And so it begins... my first crash from a new installation of Outlook 2003. That's pretty good it means it survived a whole 2 days without crashing (well I was out all of yesterday, but I'll count it anyway).

IE is such a piece of crap

Mon, 09 May 2005 21:59:24 +0100

I hate Microsoft Internet Explorer so much right now. It appears that the very neat trick Sean Burke developed to cope with XSLT processors which don't honour the disable-output-escaping setting causes IE6 to cough up it's spleen. It displays nothing, no errors, won't trip the debugger, it just sits there fat, dumb, and happy.

Further Microsoft (who I seem to remember as a company that made software tools for developers) seem unable (or unwilling) to offer a credible solution to browser based debugging. Given how long IE has been around I think the IE team should be ashamed of the pitiful support they offer developers. The script debugger is a piece of crap and there is no DOM inspector.

Take a long hard look at FireFox guys and remember you have frustrated me to the point that I want to tell all the IE lovin bastards out there that I don't give a rats ass if my pages work for them or not!

Pathetic.

Update: it appears as if there is something ugly in the MSXML processor where an element in the generated by the XSL stylesheet stops IE from rendering anything at all. Changing the element name to x-script fixes that. As does commenting out the whole element. What is up with this?

Update 2: after much messing around I trial'n'errored into a first solution and the feeds now seem to work in internet-explorer. I'm not entirely sure what was throwing IE, it may have been the use of the html namespace in the XSL stylesheet. I'm not sure I really care at this point. As long as it works.

Update 3: in all fairness I should point out that IE does honour the disable-output-escaping setting. If FF did too this mess could have been avoided.

Intel buys Apple next?

Thu, 09 Jun 2005 19:04:35 +0100

I've been waiting for Bob Cringely's reaction to the Apple/Intel deal and it didn't dissapoint. He see's the announcement of Apple's with Intel chips as the first public steps in a dance that will see Intel buying Apple in order to strike back at Microsoft whom it see's as an unfaithful partner. He could be wrong but it fits some facts which are hard to explain if you take Jobs at his word.

Dr. Frankenstein would use Longhorn

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:26:52 +0100

Take a look at this beta image of Microsofts latest operating system. It makes me want to throw up. I am so happy I own a mac. First of all, having everything transparent makes it hard for my eyes to focus on the content, they are going all over the place trying to look for solid ground.
Second, there are artifacts of the old look and feel WITHIN THE NEW ONE. How confusing can you get when you have a pair of Xs, both which look like they should close the window and both in different styles. It is amazing how little can get done with billions in the bank. [Microsofts Complete Lack of Taste - Technoblog]

All the previews I have seen of Longhorn have looked terrible. The Windows UI is like Frankensteins monster in the movies. The special effects get better but it still looks like your worst nightmare come to life. I think it was Freewheelin Franklin who used to say

"Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.".

for Microsoft dope could read vision. Longhorn appears to be a testament to the failure of throwing money at a problem.

At the risk of confirming my status as another boring born again Mac zealot I'm finding the Mac UI a very productive environment (Okay Terry you can shoot me now!) Switching from Windows has largely been a matter of relief rather than confusion. This thing works.

Load another salvo of turkeys.

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:32:31 +0100

Doc: Not only this, but "vista," I just learned, means "chicken" in Latvian.

Makes sense: since Apple already booked all cats names (Panthers, Jaguars, Tigers, etc.), Microsoft is turning to birds. "Windows 2006 Chicken", it feels familiar and not threatening. To compete with MacOS X Lion we'll get "Windows 2010 Turkey"... [ Paolo ]

Sounds about right for such a fowl operating system.

Some ships just won't float no more

Mon, 22 May 2006 11:06:18 +0100

Saw a great comment in Mini-Microsoft's post about recent changes to the compensation plan at Microsoft:

Kevin Johnson talking about how the ad business is a big market and so we'll go after it and how "a rising tide lifts all ships". WHAT?!?!?! A rising tide won't rise a ship that has all this ballast and is anchored to the sea bed. Plus, aren't we MICROSOFT can't we control the tides? So I was disappointed that we had to sit through that to get to the second hour.

I really only read Mini for the comments. It's a fascinating window into a large company with a diverse work force. It's like watching a political discussion only I can treat it as pure entertainment because, having switched to Apple, I have so little interest in the results.

Vista should've been codenamed White Elephant

Thu, 25 May 2006 13:03:00 +0100

I just leafed through Chris Pirillo's Vista Beta 2 feedback and had to chuckle. I don't know what OS X 'Tiger' or 'Panther' looked like 8 months before release, maybe they were in a similar kind of mess, but I doubt Apple had to contend with dialog boxes from the Windows 3.1 days!

The Vista release saga (now with extra delay!) is increasingly farcical to behold, especially in the light of the question "Who's waiting for this thing?"

To this outsider Vista sounds like Windows XP SP3.5 with a not terribly well conceived UI. Performance will be variable and reliability will continue to a problem as registry files grow and grow. I have no doubt that M$ will shift a bunch of units via OEM but will anyone actually go out and buy an upgrade to this turkey?

If I was a Microsoft stock holder I might be starting to give credence to the idea that M$ was deliberately depressing it's own stock price.