DevBlog

Last night I watched the college basketlall game between Fullerton and Utah State. A local station picked up the feed from a southern California station. The SoCal station was responsible for all the production of game. For an organization that is supposed to be professional, it sure did look like amateur night. Here are just a few things that were wrong:

• The announcers constantly mispronounced the name of Mike Ahmad
  
• The announcers constantly referred to Utah State as Utah, which is a difference school with a different team and a different coach and even in a different city.
  
• The play-by-play announcer seemed to get lost at times. There would be dead silence as things were happening on the court
  
• Several times the camera was swishing around or the picture was switched to a different camera with such a bad angle that you missed seeing the play
  
• The graphics operator couldn't keep up with the score and sometimes gave the basket to the wrong team.

Today I got thinking about this and comparing it to what we do in our own computer business. Do you treat our customers as intelligent people? Do you really try to act in a professional manner and not just say you are a professional? Do you do mediocre work? Do you do your best day in and day out? Do you engage in professional development on a regular basis? Do you work and improving your computer and business skills?

I have a poster on my wall that I got from Despair, Inc. The poster has a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The caption reads, "Mediocrity -- It takes alot less time and most people won't notice the difference until it's too late." Don't be mediocre. Work at doing the job in the best way possible.

Who says Microsoft doesn't play nice with other operating systems. Windows Services for Unix has been nominated as a finalist for the LinuxWorld Awards.

Ken Levy has posted his January newsletter.

Microsoft has released an updated version of the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA). This is an important tool for checking your system for possible security issues. You can download it for free.

Think IBM Websphere is a better web platform that Microsoft's .NET? Think Websphere is more secure? Think again. @Stake compares the two. [Scobleizer]

Every OS Sucks
Behind the Scenes at Microsoft

Ever wonder what those illustrated instructions mean? Now there are answers in the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness.

I've blogged about this before...the half truths and lies used by the Open Source community to try to explain why it's better than proprietary software. To be fair, Microsoft is no better, but I don't hear them shouting as loudly as Open Source supporters. Long time Fox developer Whil Hentzen is moving to Open Source. He recently posted a document on his web site that explains why he's moving to Open Source. [Disclaimer: I have known Whil for years and count him among my friends. His company, Hentzenwerke Publishing published my book.] However, there needs to be an examination of his stated "facts".

Freedom
Whil states:

With proprietary software, your freedoms are severely curtailed, and are becoming more and more limited each day. You're only allowed to use the software in ways that the manufacturer designates, on platforms that the manufacturer deigns acceptable, and for time spans or by numbers of users expressly allowed by the manufacturer. You are not allowed to make changes to it so that it works better for your own situation - indeed, you are not even allowed to look at how the software is put together in order to determine how to best make use of it.

What is wrong with this arguement is that a huge percentage of users not only won't change the open source software they use, but don't even know how to do it. My mom can't do. My dad can't do it. My brother and sisters can't do it. I'm a pretty good programmer and I can't do it either. I can learn, but my mom, dad, brother and sisters don't have a clue as even where to begin. This arguement is like telling the general public that they can change the engine in their car if they want. Yup, they can...but they either don't want to or can't. They're happy with what they got when the "opened the box".

Choice
Whil states:

Open Source, on the other hand, is all about choice. Don't like a particular browser, or office suite, or email client? You've got many alternatives to choose from. And since there is competition between the providers of these choices, they need to compete on both features and quality. A monopoly doesn't have to concern themselves with features or quality, because there's no reason to.

Huh? Does this arguement even make sense? I can change my browser, office suite, or email client anytime I want. There is nothing forcing or requiring me to continue using Microsoft products. I've got just as many alternatives to choose from as anyone using open source products. And can Whil honestly tell me that Red Hat wants you to use a different variant of Linux or that Open Office wants you to move to Star Office? Nope. They want you locked into their products as much as Microsoft does.

Security
Whil states:

When a vulnerability is made public, proprietary companies do a public relations dance that includes denial, reluctant admission, and then foot dragging, the speed of which is dependent on how close the media holds their feet to the fire. It's common to find severe vulnerabilities in Microsoft products to go unpatched for months. Open Source vulnerabilities, on the other hand, when they are discovered (and despite the availability of all of the source code, that doesn't happen very often), are always fixed within days, if not hours, of their discovery. It's a contest of egos to be the first one to provide the patch that fixes a problem.

Go read Scoble's blog about his lunch with the head of the IE group at Microsoft. Not only does Scoble point out that Microsoft is serious about security but you'll also learn why fixing these problems is so difficult.

Also, if you were to write a virus, wouldn't you want to get the biggest bang for your buck? There are millions more computers running Windows compared to Unix/Linux. This translates into more computers being infected. This does not mean Windows is inherently less secure than Linux. Go do some research at cert.org and you'll find there are as many security advisories for Linux/Unix as there are for Windows.

Finally, Windows is built on a codebase and technology ideas from the early to mid 1990s. Security back then was very different than it is now. We weren't all connected to the Internet. The Windows code base all the way down to the kernel just wasn't designed for today's interconnected networks. Windows XP, Service Pack 2 will go a long ways to fix many of the problems. Windows Longhorn will be a HUGE step forward and be MUCH more secure than what we have now.

I'm not saying that Windows is perfect and not vulnerable. I just don't see any facts that show Linux/Unix is more secure than Windows.

Opportunity
I have no arguement there with Whil. There is probably more opportunity in Open Source than in Fox.

So, What is the Truth?
First, the arguements used by the Open Source about what is wrong with proprietary software are not based on fact, but rather on feelings.

Second, the arguements used the proprietary vendors against Open Source are also flawed.

Third, proprietary solutions give you the same freedom of choice as Open Source.

Fourth, the Open Source community doesn't understand the market.

Fifth, Open Source is neither more nor less secure than Windows.

Sixth, I think both Open Source and proprietary solutions have their place.

What do you think? Feel free to comment.

Forget the mouse... it's a pee controlled UI for Windows! [Scobleizer]

Radio Shack is going with Windows XP over Linux because it's easier to deploy patches and updates. This is part of the total cost of ownership (TCO) that Microsoft has been touting as one reason to use Windows over Linux. [TechWeb]

A couple of the recent big Linux news items have turned out to be not so big. First, IBM is not planning to switch to all Linux desktops. Second, Israel has always had the opportunity to buy only the Office products it wants instead of the entire suite. This is contrary to what the Israeli government said.

So, what does this mean? That much of the Linux hype that we've been hearing lately is just that...hype.

Are you wondering how your investment into Crystal Reports will look going forward? Business Objects has released a product roadmap that may answer your questions.

You can now get Crystal Reports 10 from Business Objects. I have not yet seen the program so I can't comment on any of the enhancements. My normal reseller, CDW, didn't have it listed on their web site and they don't have it listed in their database. It is listed on the Business Objects online store. Read the press release.

Microsoft's web site, Microsoft.com is one of the most visited sites on the internet. Have you ever wondered how it works? Or how many people visit it? Now you can know. Traffic information for December, 2003 has just been posted.

One thing I'm going to try to do this year is read a computer or business book every month. First up is The Craft of Scientific Presentations by Michael Alley (ISBN 0-387-95555-0). The author discusses ten critical errors that many scientists and engineers do when giving a presentation. It's a great read with many examples, both good and bad, from well know and less known scientists and engineers. Later this year I'll follow up with The Craft of Scientific Writing.

I've been Scobleized! In case you're wondering, it wasn't painful.

RSS in Government is a web site that tracks what's happening with international, federal, state, and local government's use of RSS

Utah has long led the country in getting the state government online and last year won an award for the best state govenment web site. It's also considered the most connected state with the biggest percentage of its population using the Internet, especially through broadband connections. Now I've learned that all branches of the state government are using RSS feeds. [RSS in Goverment]

Ted's posting of his website stats prompted me to look at mine for December, 2003. My web host provides some statistics information for me. Here's some of what I found:

• 9,718 sessions with 132,464 hits.
  
• yahoo.com was the most active referring search engine
  
• radio.userland.com/newsAggegator was the top referring URL
  
• www.tedroche.com was the top new referring URL
  
• My home page was the most commonly accessed page. kb014 (Integrating Crystal Reports with Visual FoxPro) was the second most accessed. My blog was third.
  
• Not surprisingly, MSIE5.x was the most commonly used browser and Windows NT the most commonly used OS. Unknown came in second in both categories.

Tim Berners-Lee has been knighted in the UK for his efforts in creating the Internet.