Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Vista Bad - Texas Bans Vista For State Gov

LINK :: Microsoft Vista Bad - Texas Bans Vista For State Gov

The malignment of Windows Vista has reached a new height: A Texas lawmaker added a provision to the state budget that would effectively ban Vista from being purchased by any state government agency.

The rider says that any agency must get written approval from the Budget Board before buying any Vista products, and the guy who inserted it said its intent was to block them from buying the operating system. Hinojosa, Senate Finance Committee vice chairman, said, “We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It’s not compatible with other equipment, and it’s supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it’s not.”

I would agree, it’s not an upgrade of any kind. Everyone says the problem is they changed the interface, only Apple did that with MacOS X and there has been almost 100% acceptance of that OS vs. the crap that is VISTA.

UPDATE :

So me being as a person that uses facts to build an opinion I contacted 10 (round number and easy to work with) IT people I know at 10 different companies about this topic.

10 People 5 of which are in Medium Sized companies (over 3000) people, and 4 in small (under 1000) companies, then the last person is a consultant, which becasue he is all over the place shines the brightest light on this topic from all angles.

Before we get into the 10 people I talked too, my current employer is a Microsoft friendly company with 25,000 users and the only VISTA installed is for testing. It’s not allowed in production.

Back to the 10 IT people. So three groups:

LARGE (5)
SMALL (4)
CONSULTANT(1)

5+4+1 = 10

Just doing the math to throw you all off.

Of the LARGE group only one admitted to having more than 5 copies of VISTA inside their company. The other 4 said 2 -3 at best. It was because some senior level person had purchased a PC and not talked to IT and just got it with VISTA installed or in a few cases demanded that they get VISTA. In all 5 none of them have deployed VISTA. This is interesting in that I would have expected 2 of them, being large Microsoft shops, would have deployed more VISTA than they have.  But it was not the case. I then asked WHY?

The answers we all about the same the only variance was the level of detail provided. Mostly Education of the new product, cost, compatibility, and performance.

The SMALL group had almost the same experience. In fact one of them admitted to having to remove VISTA on a large number of PCs that were purchased and replaced it with XP due to a compatibility issue with te hardware that came with the certified VISTA PC and some application they ran. It could crash VISTA no matter what they did and all Microsoft would do was blame the hardware vendor, which was certified to work with VISTA. Interesting. 2- 3 per company was the norm and for all the same reasons.

So out of the first 9 IT people there were no large VISTA installations, and not plans to move to VISTA in the next 2 years. So far it seems my opinion in short that VISTA SUCKS is pretty much spot on and IT people in the US are agreeing with me without even knowing they are.

The last hold out was the CONSULTANT. He sees everything and is very PRO-MICROSOFT! With that said I know on his PC he is using a Mac with VMWares app to run XP. He does not run VISTA anywhere except at the office and he has admitted that it only as a reference. That of course is very telling.

He has many many customers from 2 -3 users to over 100 in an office and the majority of them are on XP and one has moved from Microsoft Desktops and Servers to Mac Desktops and XServe Servers for everything. That was the most delicious part of his answer. Seeing companies do he “impossible” according to Microsoft. He also stated that the VISTA users he does have are split on their like or dislike of VISTA. He did say that most customers don’t know they have a choice when buying a new PC and just take VISTA and that he has been un-installing VISTA and replacing XP about once or twice a week for the past 4 months. It’s not a large number but it is important.

So what is the over all verdict?

All 10 I think were pretty honest. I don’t think any of them knew were I was going with these questions of that I would use it to make an argument against VISTA. I think most of them thought I was trying to figure out if I should move to VISTA and were giving me hints that I might want to think twice. After getting this information I don’t see VISTA being the HIT Microsoft planned for it to be. It’s the new WindowsME.

That is al!

Want List :: Lenovo releases new Linux Laptop

LINK :: Lenovo X41 Laptop with Linux

The X41 is small and light, weighing around 2.7 lbs with the 4-cell battery it came with. It uses a 1.50 GHz Pentium M processor with the Intel 915GM chipset. Other specs include: Intel PRO wifi chipset (fully supported by Linux out of the box), Intel graphics card, a 12.1″ XGA TFT screen, 512 MB RAM (Geeks sent us a 1 GB RAM upgrade too, reaching the overall RAM of 1.5 GB), fingerprint reader, a 1.8″ 60GB drive at 4200RPM. It features a modem port, an ethernet port, headphone/line-out, external microphone, infrared, expansion bus for IBM laptops, VGA-out, 1 PCMCIA slot, 1 SD slot, two generic USB 2.0 ports, and 1 IBM “USB” port (not compatible with most gadgets).

Lotus Notes to Sharepoint Blog

I have been reading as much as I can about Sharepoint and why it just is no comparison to Lotus Domino Application Development. There is a blog out there that is pointing all this out and I think the person posting is at the end of his or her rope and posted this recently:

“My time is either spent doing a lot more configuration(in Sharepoint) than coding, or I am fighting the platform with code to try to bend it to my will. I like using technology to solve problems, not fighting technology to create basic business process applications.”

This is about all that needs to be said. Sharepoint is not a drop in solution for anything Lotus has to offer. They are just not the same in any way shape or form.

So if you are thinking about moving to Sharepoint from Lotus, or for any reason. Know there are much better solutions out there than Sharepoint I assure you.

LINK :: NOTES MIGRATION BLOG

Moving from Lotus to Exchange is costly and a step backwards

You don’t need to tell me anything about how much a move from Lotus Domino/Note to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook is going to cost these days. It’s going to be expensive. Even with a light investment in Lotus and only  few production DBs, an average company is not prepared for the cost involved. I pointed out in  a previous post that it’s idiotic and stupid to move from the IBM i or any installed technology to a different solution ( LINK ).

No some comments have surfaced on Network World that are interesting and true.

We stopped the move to Exchange

“I work for a 15k+ organization, and we stopped our migration to Exchange, in part because of the costs to migrate, but also because we found out we could save money moving to Domino 8.5. Our application developers are excited about Domino as a development platform again, and that alone will prove to be a huge ROI.”

Read the Article that sparked the comments.

I know of a company in Denver that I worked for at one time that has about 3,000 - 4,000 users who in my words . . .

Lotus did not fail them, they failed Lotus.

What does that mean David?

Let me tell you!

Lotus is not just mail. Lotus is many many things. Of which 20% is mail. The rest is Web Serving, Mail Archiving, Database Server, and Application Server all wrapped up into one. Many companies get Lotus installed and get t working then fail to use all it;s pieces. Sadly if you would have spent the time and money to develop some applications in Lotus Notes and deploy them your company would benefit from them. I even suggested a few years back that IBM give away 80 hours of consulting time to help the new company deploy an application so they could see the value. That 80 hours would have gone a long way in consulting dollars later on.

See if you just focus on the Mail bit you are missing the point. Microsoft is good at making sure you only focus on the mail and oh you want to do something with your applications? We can move those to Sharepoint. Well I am telling you it’s not that easy. Moving applications from Domino to Sharepoint is like expecting a VW Bug to out perform a Ferrari just because it has round rubber things and run on gas.

They are not the same. Lotus does all of these things well, and you can have them all on the same server if your smart bout it. In Microsoft world you can’t have your Exchange Server on the same servers as your Chat Server along with your Sharepoint Server. If you did you would be the oldest man in IT from lack of sleep and general frustration.

There are also the CIOs and IT Managers who read the propaganda Microsoft is sending them that says “Everyone is moving to Exchange” and they think, crap I don’t want to be left out….so they start moving to Microsoft, no matter what the cost, but the biggest question is what about the investment you already have in your current solution? How does the CEO allow that to get thrown out the window? You spent  and continue to spend to keep Lotus Notes, and yet a 4 to 8 times increase in cost is worth it for the benefit of increasing energy consumption, increase cooling needs and increase the number of servers you are going to have to deploy vs. keeping a few Lotus Domino Servers to manage large numbers of users and applications. Plus Lotus is not nearly as expensive as Microsoft’s solution. Plus how much is a .NET Developer license again? Lotus, last I checked, does not charge for the developer license. It’s apart of the client.

If you are thinking of moving off Lotus Domino/Notes to Exchange/Outlook/Sharepoint/Communications, ask yourself….is this the best way for use to spend money right now and would this money not be better spend hiring a Lotus Designer/Developer to increase our productivity and also increase the ROI we could be getting out of Lotus products?

Well this is good news:

LINK :: More firms switching from Microsoft’s Outlook to Lotus

Biased CIOs spend more money and don’t solve problems, they create them

What happens when an IBM AS/400, iSeries, System i, i5/OS, POWER System, Lotus Domino/Notes) IT shop doing fine, keeping the company running and is stable, has happy employees, happy users and then out of no where a new CIO or IT Manager is hired who:

1. Does not understand IBMs offering from both the IBM Systems side and the Lotus side?
2. Is biased towards another major technology company for no other reason or with out any logic or facts.

Bias is defined as; a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Now that we have established what bias is we can move on with the problem.

So there you are a loyal and hard working IBM i Admin, you and the Lotus Admin work hard to keep the company running. The companies main application for work is housed on the IBM i and everyone uses mail that comes out of Lotus Notes, plus Lotus has a feature no other application server has out there, rapid visual development, and there is always the one Lotus Developer, building applications for end users so they they can store information, access different types of data and make use of the Lotus and IBM i applications, and extend them to the company.

Everything is humming along, working well. Cost are in check, and with even more consolidation to the IBM i you could save more money.

The one summers day, or any season for that matter, a new CIO or IT Manager is hired into your company. Right after he says hello to everyone, his next comment is “We are going to replace all that IBM technology with Microsoft (or SUN).”

Continued »

More details of the Lenovo Laptop with dual screens

Slashgear has more pictures of the Lenovo Laptop with dual screens. Still loving it.

LINK :: Slahsgear - Lenovo Thinkpad W700ds Details

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds mobile workstation: New images and details

I am an old Thinkpad fan. I use a Mac when I am at home and I am forced to use a DELL at work, that I hate, and would kill for a Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad. Seems the boys at Lenovo have been working overtime and made a Widescreen laptop, with a second screen. It looks like  aneat idea and I would love to see it in production.

“When news of Lenovo’s ThinkPad W700ds dual-display workstation broke last week we did wonder if the small photo was a fan mockup - the side display looked very much “tagged on”.  Now new, larger official images have appeared, and it looks like that original picture was accurate.  Happily we also have a new price range, which is much less than what early tips suggested: Lenovo will be selling the W700ds from around $3,600.”

Has Windows Vista been the WindowsME of this centry

With Windows 7 right around the corner and in my 27K PC company with no plans to move to VISTA. I have tried to use Vista and I have not been very happy with it to date. It’s not the best OS out there right now. Sadly XP is still a better choice for a desktop. Vista tries to WOW you with pretty icons and little in the area of work flow.

Full disclosure, I am a Windows user at work and a MacOSX and Linux user at home. I prefer not to use Windows, but do use it the majority of my day in the office. This is not a choice in the office; I am required to use Windows.

I for one and looking forward to Windows 7 and would love to see a new OS from Microsoft.

LINK :: Windows 7 Beta almost public

So what does this have to do with the IBM i? Well nothing other than IBM decided a while ago they were going to support Windows as the desktop of choice to work from. So all the tools, plug-ins and integration is for Windows. They have tried to look at Linux, but have completely failed with anything Mac based. I hope the struggles of Windows will help IBM look around and realize that this is clearly not a Windows world and other desktops are out there and that Microsoft does not always deploy a usable product. Plus OpenOffice just dropped 3.0 and it’s decent and ready for Linux and Mac from day one.

System i Network - Server consolidation article - Recommended reading

I try to stay up to speed on all things IBM i, even if they confuse me from time to time. Server consolidation has never confused me and it should be on your list of things to do, or at least think about in the next 12 months. IBM is pushing it hard and it just makes sense. I am going to link you to a really well done article over at System i Network and hope you enjoy it.

LINK:: System i Network ::  Server Consolidation: It’s Not Just for Data Centers Anymore

Windows Vista’s Security Rendered Completely Useless by New Exploit

Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection safeguards that Microsoft built into Windows Vista. These new methods have been used to get around Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and other protections by loading malicious content through an active web browser. The researchers were able to load whatever content they wanted into any location they wished on a user’s machine using a variety of scripting languages, such as Java, ActiveX and even .NET objects. This feat was achieved by taking advantage of the way that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) handle active scripting in the Operating System.

Neowin.net :: Windows Vista’s Security Rendered Completely Useless by New Exploit