Daynotes Journal Week of 13 October 2003 Latest Update : Friday, 17 October 2003 10:20 -0400

Monday, 13 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

8:30 - Is Windows XP the final version of Windows?

Years ago, I was cruising down a country road toward Farmburg. I saw a sign, Farmburg - 6 miles. I drove for another mile or two and saw another sign, Farmburg - 7 miles. Now, either Farmburg was behind me, which I was pretty sure it wasn't, or Farmburg was receding at considerably more than the 55 MPH or so that I was driving.

Longhorn, the supposed next version of Windows, is a lot like that. The longer we wait, the further away it seems to be. Microsoft is now officially saying that Longhorn is three years away. That puts it at the end of 2006, and we all know how good Microsoft is about making OS releases on time. That tells me that it's likely to be at least mid-2007 and possibly mid-2008 before the client version of Longhorn ships. The server versions, which are critical to the success of Longhorn as a desktop client, will, according to Microsoft, lag the client versions by a year. Taking Microsoft at its word here, that means Longhorn Server probably won't ship until at least mid-2008 to mid-2009. That's assuming it really takes Microsoft only a year to bring out the Server version after the desktop version. If they're late, it could be 2010 before Longhorn Server ships.

That's a long time by any measure, but it's particularly long when we're discussing software releases. Consider where we were six years ago. Most PC servers were running Novell NetWare, with Windows NT 4 Server just starting to make inroads.  A few corporate desktops were running Windows NT 4 Workstation, but most were still running Windows 95 and Office 95. More than a few were still running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and Office 4.2. Linux was just starting to gain converts in server-space, and the number of people running Linux on their desktops was so small that few even bothered to count them.

Now consider how far Linux has come in the last six years, and think about how much further it will have matured six years from now. I was reading an interesting article the other day. It made the point that many desktop Linux applications are only two major releases from functional parity with Microsoft applications. In some cases, that's pessimistic. Mozilla 1.4.1 is a better browser by far than Internet Explorer 6. OpenOffice.org 1.1 is probably just one major release from functional parity with Microsoft Office, in the sense of being a drop-in substitute for 99% of the people who currently use Office 2000 or XP. Evolution is gaining fast on Outlook. It's already a drop-in replacement for Outlook in stand-alone mode, and its integration with Exchange Server is now approaching usable. A host of other Linux applications are in similar stages of development, and many of them will reach the Good Enough level in the next year or two. In six years, they may well be far ahead of the comparable Microsoft applications.

But Microsoft isn't standing still, I hear some people saying. But that's just the point. They are standing still in many cases, or moving so slowly as makes no difference. Consider from a functional perspective their last several releases of nearly any product you care to name. Internet Explorer has pretty much been unchanged since version 4, despite its current version number of 6. It is, not to put too fine a point upon it, an obsolete browser. Anyone who has used Mozilla, Opera, or another modern browser and is then forced to use Internet Explorer feels as though he's driving a horse and buggy. And speaking of buggy...

Then there's Office. Office 2003 has very little in terms of useful functionality that Office XP didn't have. Office XP had very little that Office 2000 didn't have. Office 2000 had very little that Office 97 didn't have. And Office 97 had very little that Office 95 didn't have. If you compare Office 95 to Office 2003 in terms of useful functionality, you'll see just how little Microsoft has added in the last eight years. Or, to put it another way, almost no one who uses Word 2003 or Excel 2003 would be even slightly inconvenienced if they were forced to substitute the Office 95 versions. The major difference that most people might notice is that shiny new bugs have been substituted for those boring old bugs.

Windows is no different. Microsoft has written only one serious operating system. They called it Windows NT 3.5, although that was actually the 1.0 release. Since then, they grafted on the Windows 95 GUI and called it Windows NT 4. (NT 4 was originally called the SUR for Shell Update Release, and then Windows NT 3.6, before some marketer at Microsoft realized they could charge a lot more for Windows NT 4 than they could for a point release). Windows 2000 was supposedly a complete re-write, but I have my doubts. In effect, it's just Windows NT 4 with an updated GUI. If Microsoft really did do a complete re-write, they took great care to include many bugs from NT 4 in unchanged form. Windows XP, once again, is primarily an updated GUI tacked onto good old Windows NT, with a few things moved around and a few Wizards added.

So, although Microsoft wants you to believe that their current products are several generations removed from what they were selling years ago, the truth is that they're pretty much the same old products with a new coat of paint slapped on. In fact, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to upgrade a creaking old 1997 installation of Windows NT 4 to the latest version of Windows XP just by applying a service pack. Except, of course, that that wouldn't generate any upgrade revenue for Microsoft.

Conversely, Linux has been making giant strides over that period, albeit from a much lower starting point. In 1997, only True Believers ran Linux on their desktop systems. Nowadays, your grandmother can install Linux, using a GUI that's at least as good as Microsoft's, and with hardware autodetection and configuration routines that are better. If you don't believe me, just try removing a hard drive from one system and installing it in another system with a different motherboard and peripherals. If Linux is on the hard drive, it detects the changes and reconfigures itself automagically. If Windows is on the hard drive, you'll have to strip it down to bare metal and re-install everything. At least you will if you have any sense.

Microsoft has another huge problem looming. Licensing 6.0. A lot of companies grudgingly paid up when Microsoft made them an offer they couldn't refuse. They didn't want to do it, and they resent Microsoft for holding their feet to the fire. Having extracted those large sums from numerous corporations, Microsoft had better show them something in return. Something like a major upgrade that's actually meaningful rather than just cosmetic. The problem is, Microsoft has nothing to give them, and won't have until Longhorn ships. When those three-year Licensing 6.0 contracts come up for renewal, I suspect we'll see thousands of companies abandoning Microsoft like the proverbial rats abandoning a sinking ship. 

And Microsoft may indeed be a sinking ship. Not this year, certainly, and probably not next year. But I think we'll see more and more signs that Microsoft is in trouble as the months and years pass. Eliminating stock options was more significant than most observers realize. And one of the most significant signs will be that Microsoft will talk rather than do. They'll ship sizzle instead of steak. Office 2003 is a good example of a "cotton candy" upgrade. All appearance, no substance. All sizzle, and very little steak. Most of the corporate IT guys I know don't even plan to deploy Office 2003. They're not dummies. They recognize it for what it is, an attempt to generate upgrade revenue and to fob off folks who paid big bucks for Licensing 6.0. The problem is, it doesn't actually do much that's new and useful. And if you want to take advantage of even the small improvements, you have to deploy Windows Server 2003, which again many IT folks are planning not to do. The payback just isn't there. Which pretty much sums up Microsoft's coming problems.

To answer my own question, yes I do think Windows XP is the final version of Windows, or at least the final version that matters. I'll make a prediction here. By late 2008, let alone by 2010, most of the people who are now reading this journal entry will be running Linux on their desktop and notebook systems. Please mark my words, literally. Put a reminder in your PIM to check back here on 14 October 2008. We'll talk more about it then.

[Top]

Tuesday, 14 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

9:34 - The bad news keeps on coming for the DVD-R/RW format. Apple, one of the last DVD-R/RW holdouts, has announced support for DVD+R/RW. The first real indication I had that DVD-R/RW had lost the format war was when Plextor announced their single-format DVD+R/RW PX-504A DVD writer. Then, in May, Pioneer announced that they'd ship a drive that supported DVD+R/RW, which was kind of like Pepsi endorsing Coke. Now Apple, which was the last major holdout in the DVD-R/RW camp, has apparently seen the writing on the wall and announced limited support for DVD+R/RW in their next release of OS X. For now, Apple is supporting DVD+R/RW only for data, but I expect to see them extend that to video before long.

Now that DVD+ discs sell for the same price as DVD- discs, the last advantage of DVD- is gone. I expect hybrid DVD± drives to remain popular for the next year or so because people like to hedge their bets, but DVD+R/RW has won the format war. If you're buying a DVD writer, the Plextor PX-708A is the one to buy. It's a dual-format DVD± drive, but the dual-format capability is not the reason I recommend it. For now at least, Plextor has the only 8X DVD+R drive available, and 8X makes a huge difference. If the PX-708A is a bit pricey for you, the 4X Plextor PX-504A DVD+R/RW costs $50 or so less and remains an excellent choice.

21:47 - Well, the Communist Chinese have launched a manned orbital mission. Let's hope that it ends catastrophically for them. The last thing we need is Communist China with a serious space program.

[Top]

Wednesday, 15 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

11:14 - Blew up an ashtray this morning. When I knock the ashes out of my pipe, a burning ember sometimes ends up in the ashtray. Ordinarily, it goes out pretty quickly, but under some circumstances it can continue to smolder in the nest of ashes and old tobacco in the ashtray. This morning, I noticed a burning smell that wasn't my pipe. When I touch the edge of the glass ashtray, it was quite warm. So I carefully carried it into the kitchen and dumped the contents into the side of the sink with the disposer. Some stuff remained stuck to the bottom of the ashtray. Silly me, I ran cold water over it to rinse it out. The ashtray shattered with enough force that one of the large chunks sailed over the edge of the sink and fell on the floor. I've blown up a lot of things in my life, but I think this is the first time that I've ever blown up an ashtray.

I've always thought that few people pay enough attention to companies that try to redefine common words for their own benefit. One example I've harped on is the attempt, apparently successful, by the RIAA to redefine the word piracy to mean copyright infringement. That's a cunning plan, because all of us grew up knowing that piracy was a Very Bad Thing, while none of us get too excited about mere copyright infringment.

This article provides yet another example of this disturbing trend. The direct marketing organizations are trying to redefine the meaning of the word spam, to their benefit of course. We all know that any unsolicited bulk commercial email is spam, but these folks would have us believe that spam sent by their member companies is not spam at all. No, it's "legitimate marketing messages". Only messages that are vulgar or deceptive are spam by their definition. 

"Our members...are concerned that spam is killing the potential and promise of e-mail marketing," ANA President Bob Liodice said. "We are asking corporate marketers to abide by tough marketing guidelines so that consumers can easily differentiate between legitimate e-mail marketing...and spam."

Yeah, really tough rules. Among them, my favorite is that e-mail lists should not be sold or provided to third parties without notice to the consumer. Not permission, you understand, just notice.

I don't know about anyone else, but I consider these "legitimate marketers" just as much spammers as the sleazeballs who promise larger penises, "generic" Viagra, or a share of millions of dollars in stolen Nigerian oil money. The problem is, the direct marketing groups are convincing lawmakers to accept their definitions of spam and "opt-in". If they succeed, we'll all be the losers, because the resulting laws have the unintended effect of legalizing spam.

Is there such a thing as a "legitimate email marketing message"? Although many anti-spam zealots would say there's not, I disagree. For example, right now I have a message in my inbox that SpamAssassin passed as legitimate, but Mozilla Mail marked as spam. SpamAssassin was right in this case. It's from Encyclopedia Britannica, and is offering me their current version for $25.

Now, if I'd never bought the EB this would be spam. But I did buy an earlier version, and I provided my email address to them when I did so. For them to send me an offer to upgrade to a newer version of a product that I'd already bought is, in my opinion, a legitimate marketing email. It would also be legitimate if they sent me an offer to buy a closely related product, such as their almanac. But if they sent me an offer to buy an unrelated product, or if they sold or rented my name to another party, that would be spam.

And therein lies the problem with passing laws about spam that use anything other than an absolute opt-in requirement. What I consider acceptable, someone else might consider spam, and vice versa. Anything that depends on a subject judgment, such as likely level of interest, is unacceptable. The only acceptable criterion is whether the recipient has actively opted in to a mailing list. Any law that uses any other method to define spam is a bad law.

With regard to my comments yesterday about DVD writers, James Chamier posted the following over on the messageboard:

Bob,

Shame neither Plextor writer you mention, (along with all the NEC, Sony and other makes), drives support changing the Book Type field on a +R or +RW disc.

The 504A is an OEM version of the NEC1100A drive, and so is the HP300. I was able (using tools on the net) to flash my Plextor with the HP firmware.

Now I can change the book type.

This is stunningly useful as I have just made +RW disc's read in my 2003 model IBM ThinkPad T30, and have the full compatibility options.

Nero allows me to change this when the API is available. Unfortunately only Ricoh and HP deem it important to make this API available!

Shame the DVD+RW alliance didn't force the manufacturers to include this as part of the specification.

The - format doesn't have this feature. Philips set top box recorders (VCR replacements) have this feature built in as standard... they call it a compatibility bit.

James

Thanks. As you know, but others may not, the issue is that some DVD players and DVD-ROM drives refuse to read discs whose Book Type field is set to DVD+R rather than DVD-ROM. Some DVD burning applications, such as Nero Burning ROM, allow you to specify the Book Type field as DVD-ROM, which allows some of those DVD players and DVD-ROM drives to read the resulting DVD+R discs.

All DVD writers that I'm aware of by default write the Book Type field as DVD+RW on DVD+RW discs. Most DVD writers by default write the Book Type field as DVD+R on DVD+R discs, although I believe HP DVD writers write the Book Type field on DVD+R discs as DVD-ROM. Changing the Book Type field requires hardware/firmware support. Some drives support changing that field. Others, including Plextor, do not.

Those that do support changing the Book Type Field to DVD-ROM (other than HP, which does it by default) recommend changing it only when required for compatibility. Frankly, I'm not sure why they make that recommendation. It would seem to be a harmless change that would ensure compatibility with a wider range of DVD players and DVD-ROM drives, but apparently there must be a downside to doing it or everyone would do it by default. I speculate that using a DVD-ROM Book Type field on a DVD+R disc must cause more compatibility problems than it solves. Otherwise it would be nonsensical not to do it by default.

When this subject first arose some months ago, I did email Plextor and ask whether they planned to add this feature to their firmware. They replied simply that they did not plan to do so, without further explanation. I find this whole situation very puzzling.

I will say, though, that ultimately I regard the problem to be caused by the DVD players and DVD-ROM drives that require an incorrect Book Type field rather than by the DVD writers that are writing the correct Book Type field to disc.

14:17 - I send the following message to subscribers this morning.

Mozilla 1.5 was released today. You can download the 11.7 MB Windows version from:

<http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.5/mozilla-win32-1.5-installer.exe>

or the 13.8 MB Linux version from:

<http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.5/mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.5-sea.tar.gz>

The servers are already very busy and likely to remain so for the next several days.

I downloaded version 1.4.1 when it was released five days ago, and it has most of the 1.5 features. I've not yet had a chance to install 1.5 and play with it, although I am looking forward to doing so. Both 1.4.1 and 1.5 are significant upgrades to version 1.4. The 1.5 version is officially the last monolithic Mozilla version before they split it into the separate Firebird browser and Thunderbird email products.

If you're still using an earlier version of Mozilla or a legacy browser like Internet Explorer, I strongly recommend that you download Mozilla and give it a fair trial. If IE is your main browser now, you may hate Mozilla for the first day or two, but I think you'll find that once you're used to Mozilla you won't be able to go back to IE.

[Top]

Thursday, 16 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: But Wait! There's More! RE: Five (!) new Microsoft security flaws
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:13:23 -0700
From: James Cooley
To: 'Robert Bruce Thompson'

MS03-047 : Vulnerability in Exchange Server 5.5 Outlook Web Access Could Allow Cross-Site Scripting Attack (828489)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-047.asp

MS03-046 : Vulnerability in Exchange Server Could Allow Arbitrary Code Execution (822363)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-046.asp

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Plextor PX-708
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:37:51 +0200
From: Thorarinsson, David
To: Robert Bruce Thompson

Mr. Thompson,

You mentioned Plextors DVD Writer, model PX-708A in your Tuesday post. This unit has been catching a bad rap here in Sweden and so has Plextor. If you look into their documentation for this unit they say that it supports DVD+MRW. However, users over here have found out that this is not the case and furthermore, this has been acknowledged by Plextors support in Brussels. A Plextor support technician called Peter Vermeulen told an IT newspaper over here called "Computer Sweden" that they knew that it was stated on their webpages but the information was wrong. He says Mount Rainier does not work on DVD disks.

What Plextor is getting a bad rap for is that they haven't changed their documentation or removed this statement in the specifications for the unit.

Do you know if it is true that Mount Rainier won't work on DVD disks?

[Top]

Friday, 17 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

The PX-708 does, indeed, support DVD+MRW.

I don't know where the confusion occurred since I was not in the conversation with our European support. However, in itself, Mt Rainier is a bit confusing, since it contains a number of components, for both CD and DVD.

Background formatting for one, which is a component of DVD+MRW and is supported by the PX-708. However, there is another component called "Defect Management". Philips has only just released the spec for DVD+MRW Defect Management, so few, if any, DVD drives support Defect Management for DVD media.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Information Request
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 21:02:27 -0700
From: requests@unbrowser.com
Reply-To: toryanse@aol.com
To: webmaster at ttgnet dot com

I need a plug in that will perform a "power series" curve fit. Excel can perform linear and log fits using "linest" and "logest" respectively. I need the equivalent function for a power fit (ie y = a * x ** b).

This message was sent for toryanse@aol.com using UnBrowser. UnBrowser found you listed on www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/1999/0830RTDN.html as a person who can answer this request. Please ensure you are sending your response to toryanse@aol.com not an address at unbrowser.com.

UnBrowser is free! Visit http://www.UnBrowser.com to try a new way to search the web or to see how UnBrowser can be used in your business.

The web site can also show you how to stop receiving these messages.

Thanks!
www.UnBrowser.com
Find People - Not Pages

[Top]

Saturday, 18 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

[Top]

Sunday, 19 October 2003

[Last Week] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] [Next Week]
[Daynotes Journal Forums] [HardwareGuys.com Forums] [TechnoMayhem.com Forums]
[Five Years Ago Today]

[Top]

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Robert Bruce Thompson. All Rights Reserved.