Archive for the 'windows' Category

Sorry Scoble, gotta go here after I read this:

“I’d rather have a slipped date than a cruddy product.”

Problem with Microsoft’s OS is that typically you get both. – Zing!

I sent an email to my company’s IT department Tuesday. It said:

The little “windows update” icon popped up in my system tray today, and I learned that XP SP2 is now available to me as an update. Do you want me to install the update?

I asked them about this particular update, because I’ve read a few bad things about the update, and don’t really care to investigate them myself. I usually just install whatever security updates Microsoft provides (for IE and the other ‘critical’ updates that have come out over the past 2 years since I got the Dell laptop that is my work computer). I also asked because I hadn’t heard anything pro or con from the IT department about the update, and since they gave me “administrator” powers on the machine, I wanted to know if they wanted me to install the update or not, because I don’t want to hear “you should have asked us” when the update breaks something that’s important to my daily work tasks.

(Most of the PCs in the company are pretty locked down and require an IT person to install anything, but I got lucky and got admin priviledges on my machine for some reason — and about 1/2 the company uses Macs, so our PC IT department is pretty small and over-worked … though come to think of it, there are actually more PC IT folks than Mac IT folks… says something doesn’t it? But I digress…)

I got a priceless response from a usually generally overly-helpful, normally cordial, and usually explanatory staff:

NO

That was the entire response. ALL CAPS. One word. No explanation.

So, I went about my day, and won’t install XP SP2, but I can’t help but think about how crappy the job Microsoft is doing at educating their corporate clients about this update (which is supposed to solve a lot of security problems isn’t it?)

Oh well, glad I use a Mac at home and don’t have to research that update for my own personal use…

About once a month, Outlook becomes a pain in the ass for me to use for about 2 hours.

Inevitably, it’ll hang on me while I’m doing something else, or some other process will hang while I’m using Outlook, and Outlook will refuse the shut down properly.

(I’m normally in the middle of about 15 things when this happens).

I’ll shut down the XP box that I use, and let it sit for 20 minutes or so (I guess I’m hoping it’ll get over whatever I did that made it mad at me).

After leaving it alone, I’ll start it back up, and then I’ll try to launch Outlook. It’ll tell me that it wants to start in “Safe Mode” (and I’m like … hmmm, does it normally run in ‘un-safe’ mode?). I’ll let it try, and every-time, it’ll faily to start up properly. I’ll again, leave the machine alone for 20-30 minutes… hoping Outlook will figure out what’s giving it problems, fix it, and then start up… about 90% of the time (or so it seems) it’ll fail to start properly, and will just sit there telling me that it’s “Not responding” (and I’m like “No Shit!”)

So, I’ll shut it down using the “End Process” command on the Windows Task Manager.

And then, I’ll start up Outlook, and it’ll tell me that something is horribly wrong, and that it needs to go into “Detect and Repair Mode”. I’ll click “ok” and then go away for another 20 minutes or so, while Outlook’s installer tries to do it’s thing.

About half of the time it works and Outlook continues to work (although it forgets some of my preferences).

The other half the time, I “rinse and repeat” this whole process.

This whole process happens about once a month, and it costs me around 2-3 hours each time it happens…

What a pain in the ass… total loss of productivity.

I don’t think Apple Mail has ever ‘ceased to function’ on me, and I know that Mailsmith hasn’t ever broken. Come to think of it, OS X has never crashed on me either…

Had to get that off my chest… Thanks for listening

Lookout looks really cool. It’s a plugin for Outlook that lets people search super fast on Windows machines and in Outlook files…

But I’ve got a problem with reading these comments by a Longhorn evangelist about how this product gives us a glimpes of what WinFS will bring to the Windows Operating System, not because it doesn’t sound cool, but because it’s sooo far away… When is Longhorn going to get released again?

I don’t mean to be rude or too inciting here, and I welcome the introduction of Longhorn, but doesn’t Mac OS X’s Finder already have the equivalent of WinFS, or at least ‘fast find’? I know it finds files on my computer at Googlespeed straight from the Finder. I didn’t have to fork out the cash for Outlook, and I don’t get viruses on OS X… I also have pretty damned fast finding features using Apple’s Mail (which is free) and the email client I paid for (Mailsmith) has super-fast and truly featured search options. Outlook and Windows have both always sucked at searching…

I’ll download and install Lookout tomorrow on the Dell… because I really could use a good way to search inside Outlook. Anything that makes Outlook useful (like Inbox Budddy) is good news to me.

And, yes, if I had my druthers, I’d use a Mac at work, but I don’t get to have my druthers.

(And, I spotted a reference to X1 in the comments of the post from Jeff Maurone… I just might check that out too)

Yesterday my CD-ROM drive on my year old Dell Latitude starting having issues. It won’t stay closed and sporadiacally opens on its own. It’s very annoying to be sitting in a presentation and have the CD-ROM drive just pop-open. You initial response is to just push it back in, but when you have a CD in the drive, Windows has the annoying ‘auto-play’ feature that opens the disk you just inserted in a folder view over the presenation you’re presenting in Powerpoint. It’s really damned annoying. Glad I learned that Windows did that before the clients I was presenting to walked into the room.

I’ll get the corporate IT folks to order me a replacement drive from Dell when I get into the office… I’m sure it can’t cost more then $5 the way Dell prices their stuff. They make cheap stuff, so it’s gotta be priced cheaply too, I’d guess.

Stupid thing keeps popping open while I try to type and hitting my wrists… stupid, stupid drive bay thing. It’s like it’s sensitive to the wrist pressure I put on it… stupid thing. I wish I had the floppy drive with me, I’d take the CD-ROM drive out and replace it with the floppy insert so this stopped happening… heh… just thought of something… I haven’t used a floppy disk in at least 5 years… how funny.

One other bitch about this Dell… the battery never lasts more than 2 hours… that just sucks when you’re trying to work on a plane and the plane ride is more than 2 hours long. Glad I’ve got my iPod with me. I may start bringing my Powerbook with me on business trips so I don’t have all these issues… but then I might end up watching a DVD or playing a game instead of working on work.

Excuse the harsh language in the title of this post, but this is just too good not to mention. I heard about this earlier in the week from a co-worker that’s a Mac-zealot, and thought that it was funny…

From C|Net: Houston: We have a problem with Office

Amazingly (to me at least) “Houston has begun to phase out Microsoft Office for its 13,000 city workers in favor of Web-based software from a local start-up.”

The Texas city signed a five-year, $9.5 million contract last year with Houston-based SimDesk Technologies to provide city workers and, eventually, up to 3 million city residents with the company’s software and services.

SimDesk offers a package of more than two dozen applications covering basic PC tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, calendars and e-mail. The applications include a subscription to SimDesk’s Web-based services, which allow customers to store documents, messages and other data on a central server run by SimDesk. This data can be retrieved and manipulated from any device with a Web connection, including cell phones and handheld computers.

Ray Davis, SimDesk’s founder and president, said the key to making it work is an extremely efficient protocol for transferring data to and from SimDesk’s central server. The company has a single 32-processor Unisys server capable of handling 21 million users.

“It’s not the typical client-server relationship,” Davis said. “We use a patented, proprietary transfer protocol…that uses a very specific load-balancing technology we developed. Whether you’re using a cell phone or the fastest Internet connection at the office, it reacts the same. You don’t have to worry about bandwidth.”

This is truly amazing. SimDesk stands to make $9.5 million off this deal, and if I’m doing my math correctly, Microsoft stands to lose up to $15,000,000 (3,000,000+ users times $500 per copy of Office) annually.

That’s gotta hurt.

If this program works, Microsoft (as well Dell, HP, Compaq, and others) are looking at a major degredation of their markets at the lower levels as well as a shrinkage in the higher levels of their markets I’d guess.

Then again, it might not work for Houston anyways… We’ve all seen failed IT initiatives for one reason or another. What I really like about this idea though is that the entire City seems to be behind it (at least in the Mayor’s office). That’s cool.