Tech

Microsoft are the devil in corporate form. They are a big, horrible, nasty company that is trying to make our lives as hard as possible, who want us to be forced into their slow, poorly built, proprietary technologies and products

It’s easy to blame the big guy isn’t it. I mean it goes without saying that the bigger the company, the more interested they are in shafting you for everything you’ve got, right? It’s almost like one of those passed down unwritten rules that no one even considers to challenge

I for one don’t think MS really falls under this stigma, in fact, I for one think MS is actually a rather impressive company. As proof of this about a year ago I listened to a talk by an MS intern (year placement) who had been working for them for 2 months. He was full of nothing but praise for them. On the basis of his talk I was actually fired up enough about the company to apply to work there. As it happens I stopped the process half way because I had found a job that better suited my needs, but had that other opportunity not come up I would have worked at MS without hesitation.

Now let’s make no mistake here, I have been working on MS kit since back in the days of command line DOS and trust me, I have had my fair share of cursing it in irate fits of rage. Brought on by all manors of strange bugs (normally when the Windows 95 sysdm.cpl file blowing up on me or explorer under XP during some huge network filecopy). Despite my hate for MS on many occasions I am still left sitting here wondering why people hate them so much.

I mean, lets look at what they actually do, both right and wrong for a moment. Take the new version of Office for example:

• The new ribbon interface is a stunningly innovative way to deal with the vast plethora of features Office has accumulated these days in a way which is both simple and elegant to use.

• They are moving to an open XML document format which allows other companies to build their own Office applications that are fully compatible (not the glorified hacks OO uses).

• They are building in huge levels of (optional) DRM just as businesses have asked for.

• They are trying as hard as they can to include PDF support if Adobe will let them.

But this is no real surprise is it? Office has always been one of the great examples of what something looks like when it’s right. Even the historically anti-MS Mac conferences uttered a fairly startling applaud to the news that Office was going to be released for the Mac.

Let’s move away from Office then, how about something a bit more hardcore… Anyone who has tried to dev in VB or C# will always sing praises Visual studio as one of the most powerful IDE’s around.

How about Windows Media Player. Now knock this as you may, but find me a media player that has the same level of features and such a useful and powerful library. iTunes may be all silver, Winamp may be small, real player is full of ad-ware… but at the end of the day, looks and size are nothing without the functionality to make people look at them

Perhaps we should move away from software. I would talk about their hardware, but there isn’t much to say there, it’s second to none. Perhaps we should go onto attitude. Have you looked at the vast number of low level server tools they give away for free?

I had a quick wander on their site the other day to see how much out there really was. I was quite stunned. I follow quite a lot of what they do and even I hadn’t realised there was that much out on the market.

Tools such as SQL server express. They know one of their main markets is businesses who will (quite rightly) have to pay for the full server version, but they also provide for the cheap consumer who just wants to try things out and build small personal applications. They even provide the likes of visual C# express for free and through their asp.net wing, web matrix. Need a fresh install of another OS? How about Virtual PC 2004? The list just goes on and on.

Now if their cut down enterprise kit/home user stuff is impressive what do you think their real enterprise kit is like? I doubt many of you get to play with a copy of Server 2003 or SQL Server 2005. I use both products (plus a whole heap of other stuff like source safe, Visual studio, Enterprise manager) every day. Crash? What’s that? I haven’t seen any of those products crash (ever) under anything but limit testing where I am trying as hard as I can to crash them (and trust me, I can crash anything). So all in all their stuff for businesses is rock solid. I actually can’t see any serious business moving away from them, ever.

Of course the home user market is an all together different place to deal with and has always required a different approach. So what does MS do for the home user then? Well for one thing (and this is a big one) they let you use almost any hardware you want. Well, that’s all very well, but for most people they get the manufacturer to pick the hardware. Ok then, how does this grab you. You can install an application first made to work on Windows 3.1 or under DOS 6. Well, you might ask do you actually want to do that. I mean who wants to run some bit of software that you bought back in the days when the internet was new? You want the newest most up-to-date software don’t you? I for one want to use software I already know works that I have already bought and I know will work with all the other applications I run. So under Windows you just run it. Simple as that. Ok so when Vista comes out we will have to drop a few 16 bit apps, but come one, we have to let go sometime.

The biggest thing that I think MS does for the home user market is functionality. They give people a fair bit of power and the options to do with it what they want. Last I looked people don’t want to be held back. They key to the way they delivered this functionality was that they keep it just under the surface. It’s there and people can dip into it if they want, yet on top is a fairly simple to use interface (and it’s only getting simpler). Now you could say this is the method that Apples uses with its Mac, and you would be right, but like with most things the key is the balance. You don’t want to sacrifice simplicity for functionality and vice versa. Myself I think Apple went a bit too far down the simplicity route. You have to do what Apple thinks you want to do, or you have to open up a shell prompt. With windows I almost never need to delve into a command window these days, I just use the advanced button in the settings box…

Now as someone who uses both a PC and a Mac I feel the need to do a few comparisons. Not least because in the current computing climate Apple is seen as the great savour coming to put right what MS made wrong.

Well, a quick glance at the news tells me Apple is going money grabbing. They are busy suing everyone under the sun who uses the word “pod”. They have claimed that people are going to be confused and are going to think the service comes from Apple. Well, lest I see everything that comes from Apple is pretty black and white (if you will excuse the pun). I can’t see many of the names being taken to court being confused with Apple service. If you ask me these sounds very much like an old MS trick.

So while Apple is for some unknown reason clamping down, MS appears to be opening up. I mentioned a while ago that Office was moving to XML formats. This will allow competitors to use the Office formats without any incompatibilities. Now if that’s not opening up to competition I don’t know what is.

In fact, while Apple seems to be closing down a lot of it’s technologies (they’re kernel springs to mind) MS is doing more for developers.

As a quick mention on copying, don’t think for a moment that Apple only has original ideas. Bother Apple and MS owe a lot of what they have to Xerox from the early days. If you look at the way the market is moving these days its’ no surprise they have a lot of similar features. None of the companies desktop OS’s have anything particularly original, it all comes from the corporate market and mainframes which have been around a bloody long time ago. Even in recent years things like Apple’s frontrow came after windows media centre

Now some of the Apple fanatically inclined will of course call bullshit and rant and rave about how wrong I am, how the evil corporation it trying to kill us all etc and how they steal everything from the mighty white. I will let you now I am writing this very post with MS Word on an Apple Powerbook…. Make of that what you will.

Ok, this has been going on so long I’m not sure where to start.

About a month ago we got a letter from our ISP (Tiscali) informing us that some “network enhancements” were being conducted by BT on the 24th of august and that we may lose connection for about 2 hours on that day.

Well, suffice to say these network enhancements didn’t help us much. From that day we had a very slow connection (around dialup and slightly under (as apposed to the 2 Meg we should have and had until then)). Well, Friday evening I phoned up Tiscali (as the letter said to and gave a number). Well, I went through the joys of their Indian support script (run this speed check, check for spyware, close p2p blah blah blah reset line blah blah blah blah etc) until they eventually decided it wasn’t an issue at my end and that is must be their fault. I was told that the issue would be escalated and that an engineer would call within 72hours.

Well, that was fair enough, I accept that they have to run through these checks as I expect most issues they get calls about are nothing to do with them at all and are the users fault. I was also happy to hear this idea of progress. Next day was not so good, connection stayed about the same all day until about 6pm when it suddenly started disconnecting every 40 seconds (or so). So I called them up with the information to add to my outstanding issue (just so when I got a call they would be up-to-date). Well, they tried to make me pass through all the bullshit and after a while I gave up with them and they said that the engineer would call in 24hours and that it had been added as a note.

Ok, so big day comes and no call. Ok, perhaps they are busy, leave it another day. Nope, still no call. At this point speed seemed to return to a nice 2Meg, so I just guessed they fixed it and hadn’t bothered to phone me. Now as nice as it is to know what’s going on, I don’t care if my connection is working as it should.

The bliss didn’t last long though. That Thursday evening it went down in speed again. I decided to leave it for the morning. Nope, still no change. I made a call when I got home from work (about 6pm). They once again insisted that I went through all the speed checks, config and spyware etc. I explained I had done all this and that they should read my profile. They were persistent and at this stage I didn’t care, as long as it got sorted. They said that it had apparently been passed to level 2 tech support and they had not been able to fix it. It was now going to be passed to level 3 (in the UK thank God) who were apparently the highest level. I was also told they would phone us (the UK people) by 9pm that evening.

At 9:35pm that evening I made a call to India again and after a whole bit of speed checks etc (it seems they will not talk to you unless you run a speed check and confirm you know what a virus is…) they explained that the UK group finished at 9pm. I concluded that the UK group had just decided sod it, leave that for the next day. The Indian guy said that I would get a call on that Monday. So that would bring us up to the last Monday past. Well, as you might expect that Monday call didn’t happen so I called up that evening and complained (and refused to do any speed tests (by this point had they been sitting in front of me when about to ask me for a speed test, they would not have dared. I think they were even edgy about telling me when in India…)). Anyway, they told me that they would get a supervisor to chase the UK group and also (after a lot of badgering by me) that if I called the billing department then they would be able to give me the number for the UK group so I could rip shit out of them myself.

Well, the next day while at work I called the billing number and they claimed they didn’t not have the number and that the India tech support might have it. I then blew what I considered to be a reasonably long slow burning fuse at them. I did try about half an hour later just to check if it was just that person deciding not to tell me the number. Can’t hurt to try….

Ok, so I then got home that day and there was a message on the answering machine from (a very Indian sounding) tech support drone. They said they would call back to on Saturday at 11am. So from then to today I have brewed, I haven’t had the energy or the hour it takes for one of my called to them to spare.

Today, after a quick visit to town for some shopping I rushed back to be in at 11am (the house has had people in all day) and still not call. It is now 12 hours on from then and still no call. I haven’t phoned this evening because I have a life to lead when I’m not on the phone to Tiscali. Monday morning they are getting an earful. I have not take shit from them for over 2 weeks now, but Monday things are going to get ugly.

Oh, and as a tribute to how this is so not my fault, I know someone very near us with similar problems (and he is getting about the same level of customer service).

Heads will roll, and if you know me you will know it will not be mine.

Two years ago I made a choice. I decided to buy an AMD chip over an Intel chip. At the time the AMD chips were lean, quick, cool, quiet. Comparatively Intel seemed like the fat, complacent middle-aged man to AMDs youthful sporty student who was done with the learning and was taking on the world. The AMD was everything I wanted and a little more. It seems times change. While AMD was resting on its laurels it seems, Intel was having its midlife crisis. It emerged with that same vigour to take on the world it once had. As I browse the statistics on the current offerings it seems all that blood sweat and thermal grease paid off, Intel has once again stormed the charts, not by a little but by a lot. I think it’s safe to say my love affair with the n00b has ended and I’m back on the straight and narrow. And at these prices I’m willing to dip more than just a toe in Intel.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2014646,00.asp

Ok, hands up who has tried the new Office 2007 Beta?

I for one have stayed well away from it for a very good reason. I have been bitten by beta software before, so badly in fact that it is one of the reasons for my recent(ish) reinstall.

I have been bombarded by stuff about it and I had just been itching to try it out.

Well, for once MS came to the rescues with a very neat idea.

http://www.runaware.com/microsoft/en-us/office2007/td

It’s an online test environment. Now don’t be sceptical like I was. I though this was going to be some poor webpage with JavaScript all over the place to give the appearance of Office.

Oh how wrong I was. It seem this is actually a virtual copy running on a real machine. There are test files, you can save data, you can use the whole of all the applications fully at a half decent speed.

In fact, I actually managed to prove quite how real it was when I managed to Crash Excel:

Just to prove quite how good it was, it then just had to do what I last expected:

And then the final icing on the cake….I logged off the machine. I then tried to go back in and I got this:

Don’t think for one second I’m going to review it though. It was cool, lots of fun, but I didn’t have a long enough lunch break to decided it it was really worth me getting.

I think it would be safe to say that I’m a bit of a technophile. To prove so I have a picture to show my complaints that the modern alphabet may not last me much longer…

Appendix A

I also have quite strong views on what technology I like and what works for me. Salespeople (note the PCness of it all….) both love me and hate me. They love me because when I go into the shop I tell then exactly what I want. Not a spec, but a product. Conversely they hate me because that means I don’t budge, however much they tell me another product is better. I am one of those people who will research to huge amounts before hand and then when I make a decision I’m happy with what I get.

For example, I bought my camera about 7 months ago. In fact I wasn’t quite perfect on this instance. I had narrowed my purchase down to 2 camera’s. I found one in a shop and had a go on that. I then went (with ) in search of the other one to pickup and test. I found it after an awfully long time looking. As will attest to, I picked it up, zoomed in, put it down, and then after a moments thought, went and bought the other one. And in my defence, this was one of those issues where for each good point one had, the other had a different way of dealing with it.

Another item I did something similar with was my phone. I have a Siemens ME45 which is over 5 years old. It is the first phone I got and still my only phone. At the time it cost £300 and as a tribute to my product picking skills it actually went up in price for a few months after I bought it. It beats hands down the poor bit of plastic I see tethered together with superglue nowadays. Interestingly I have never seen another one before. A good friend of mine was working in Germany (and in the home of Siemens) and he did see one. Apparently the guy was also looking for a new phone but could not find a better one.

Anyway, after all that procrastination…

I am finally looking at getting a new phone. I can’t stand not having something new anymore. It’s more than that. They now have features that I actually want (I have no lust for polyphonic ringtones, flashing cases and micro pictures).

I am looking at getting a O2 XDA Mini S. It’s a smart phone:

It supports push email, wireless and sports a half decent camera. The main reason behind looking into it is I actually use email more than SMS, so I want something that supports email in a way where I can use it like SMS.

It will never be as hardy as the Siemens, but few phones go out in the rain, drop 10M onto concrete and are used as a toy to play catch with and live to tell the tale, let alone have a few minor scratches that are now quite hard to find.

I shall just have to let it go. Gone are the days when things were made to last.

I know many of you hate my computer related entries, but don’t let that stop you from reading them. If all goes to plan this will be more psychological than anything else.

I’m always having arguments with Mac users. They normally take the view that their OS and computer is as good as it gets and they don’t seem to understand how I could want to use anything else. Myself, I like to consider myself to be the realist. Having now been doing a little work in the real world I can now confirm that anybody who says Macs are going to take over PC’s (Windows and Linux) have their heads so stuck up their arse they are not sure which way is up. Have you ever heard the phrase “If it aint broke, don’t fix it”? In other words, don’t meddle with something that works, let it be and let it keep on doing its job.

Now lets talk about something Apple just don’t do. They don’t provide backwards compatibility (with the exception of unusable crash-happy emulators). Now this is crucial functionality to remain to work in a business is an essential part of that business. After all, do you really want to spend all your worldly wealth on re-doing something that worked fine when you started? I know for a fact many large companies still run the same mainframe systems they did 20+ years ago.

Now yes, there is a wonderful counter argument to this point. It is that Apples strategy does not apply to the business market. It is looking at home user who for one reason or another don’t need backwards compatibility (or are so clueless they don’t realise until it’s too late). As with any argument I have I like to have a structure, in this case I shall go for the “build em up and break em down” approach. You see, Yes, Apples market model might work if the people that used business machines were a different set of people to home users. Guess what, the two are more than just linked.

Mac take over the world? My arse.

I hate Google

Well, I use Google all the time, but I really hate one of the things it did for software and the web.

My hate stems from one word, “beta”. Now last I looked beta software was that which was still in testing and therefore not really for a full public release. It could/will have bugs, it could make your machine crash, it could even cause loss of data. In fact, it could really mess things up.

Now a few years ago when Google starting playing around with all its little search ideas such as mail, videos, blogs etc they decided to re-define what beta should mean for the software industry. So to Google “beta” means “cool”, “up-to-date”, “fun”, “new”, “fresh” and even “unique”.

Now this little redefine wasn’t much of a problem when just Google used it because Google only develops stuff that is web based (with a few minor exceptions). All of its applications can’t really do much to the average home machine.

The problem really came because Google didn’t just define it for itself, it defined it for everyone wanting to release anything in the next few years, such as Microsoft. This means that MS has to release all of its software in beta first (making them very publicly known) just so people still think they are “fresh and “cool”.

Now we should really all know that MS beta’s should be kept to just those who actually test stuff, people on the MSDN who have a machine or two just for testing stuff. Testing should not be done by everyone, otherwise what’s the point of distinguishing it from release versions?

I myself got caught by this a little over a year ago when I installed a .NET 2 beta which buggered my COM+ (and is resulting in the reinstall next week (I haven’t had the time to do a full reinstall before next week)).

My current complaint is the “Windows Live” beta which it seems everyone is downloading and installing without a clue as to what beta really means (and it’s not like anyone reads the terms and conditions). In fact, even my 11year old brother downloaded and installed it on the main family machine after one of his friends told him about it. I Then removed it, put MSN back on and knocked his account back to user (he needed to be admin a while ago and I hadn’t changed him back).

I hate the system as it stands because people don’t know what’s to expect and so I (or some other person with a clue) ends up picking up the pieces and explaining what beta really is. I wish Google, MS and all the rest of them would grow up and stop trying to make the whole IT industry more approachable. There always have to be some bits which are a no-go area for everyone but those in the industry.

I think I have finally broken the ice with my Mac. It now understands that I am not just testing it, I really have bought it so there is no need to keep trying to impress me

How do I know this you may ask. Because it crashed. Not just any crash but a full system crash. A reboot sorted it, but the point remains that any OS can and will crash. That I present as a fairly firm two-fingered salute to all those who say Macs don’t crash. Wake up and smell the hard-drive.

When I bought my Mac I thought it would be a bit of fun to buy a Mac magazine from a newsagents. Firstly if you ever want proof that Mac’s are very much still a low market penetration product (at least in this country) all you need do it look at the price of their magazines. I have one word for you, extortionate. Well, all the same, I coughed up the cash for it and took it home to read. While flicking through the pages one thing because very clear very quickly. It isn’t any good. I have read article after article that simply praise the god like deity that is Apple for all the great products they produce, yet not one of said articles has really helped me much. It seemed to be a bit of a feel good magazine, something there just to make me feel like I’m a better person for owning one.

I get the feeling Apple have sat back in their little HQ convinced that they have made the worlds best OS, the worlds best hardware and the worlds best software. It seems therefore that they have been blinded by their euphoria.

If ever a group of people could be labelled as the eternal optimists, it would be the Mac users. Myself I like to consider myself a realist that whatever I do, it could always be better (bar 100% on an exam (which I have got before, but never been allowed under the notion that no exam is perfect. To this day I still protest this result of 99%)).

On a more positive note, I do feel like I’m really starting to grips with the OS. It’s starting to feel a bit more like mine as a machine instead of mine as a toy. I still retain that this is a gimmicky OS however. As a more general positive, this is also my first laptop, so whilst typing this on a cool summers evening in the garden I certainly feel that benefit. Wireless internet really was a blessing when it came down from above. Although in the next generation of OS’s I think we will start to see it in a more generally usable format, not just and add-on.

In other non-computer news, today I went for a little wander. A 15 mile sponsored wander with a friend round a local town (it was a circular route). I wasn’t the one that was being sponsored, I did it because he is a friend and I can read a map/tend to his wounds.

Let me assure you, starting a walk at 8am on a day like today, although it didn’t feel like it when I woke, was a really good idea. It was blisteringly hot by 10am and considering it took us until 1pm, the extra time in the cool did help.