Microsoft Has Set Us Back a Decade

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While looking at my geek code the other day, I realized that in my latest copy of the code I used "w---" for my Windows geekiness. The expanded entry for "w---" is "Windows has set back the computing industry by at least 10 years. Bill Gates should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt."

Why did I choose "w---"? I started thinking about this. And then I realized that it was true!
Windows has set back the computing in the world by over a decade!

While the computing market is driven by multiple forces, gaming is primarily a force that makes people upgrade. Think about it; have you ever heard someone say, "I need to upgrade my computer so I can run the latest version of PowerPoint!", or was it usually they wanted to upgrade so they could run a new game?

Gaming as a force has driven computing for a long time. However, not so much recently. Here's why... Microsoft happened; specifically, XBox happened. Gaming used to be the sole providence of the PC market. There were a few consoles available, but few offered a gaming experience that could rival PC. Knowing that gaming was driving the market, Microsoft wanted a piece of the pie and stepped in with a console called XBox. They were expensive too (you could sink as much into a new XBox which only ran games as you could into a new PC which had no limits as to what you could run), but since Microsoft started massively producing new video games, they released them initially ONLY for their system. PC gamers had to wait, and this draw slowly pulled them to using consoles as well for gaming.

Now let's take a look at the XBox itself. The latest version of the XBox, 360, has massive problems. Massive? 54% failure rate massive! Compare that to the 10.6% failure rate on the PS3 and a 6.8% failure rate on the Wii, and already Microsoft's gaming console starts sounding like a bad idea.
Okay, so maybe you've never had any problems. I have occasionally met people who say that to me. I can almost guarantee you though, that if you've never had any problems, then the people who were directly in front and behind you in the electronics checkout line have had problems. My brother is a die-hard XBox gamer. He's been through 7 XBox 360 warranty returns in the past 2 years!!

Now, let's take a look inside the XBox. The XBox360 uses a Xenon processor to power its gaming. This is triple-core processor, designed in the year 2002, capable of speeds up totalling 3Ghz.

When the XBox 360's 90nm "Waternoose" Xenon processor was released in 2005, it was already 3 years out of date. Just a year later, processors in PC's had already shifted to smaller and faster technology, like Pentium 4, Pentium D, and AMD's Phenom processor. These new PC chipsets were more than capable of running anything XBox could throw at them.

So, if these amazing technologies were released so many years ago, why haven't we seen another radical shift in the computer market to even faster processors? Simply put, demand. There is no demand. The International Roadmap for Technology Semiconductors shows that there is a trend of 70% scaling every 2–3 years. We've seen this trend played out over and over again. But everyone is busy playing on the nearly decade old architecture of the XBox. The new games on the market are being designed for the XBox. Why upgrade your PC to the newest thing if the older thing satisfies you?

So, even though PC's are far superior to XBox, Microsoft is stagnating computer advancement by holding the market forces behind with it's out-of-date technology. So, yes... I'm sticking with my "w---".
"Windows has set back the computing industry by at least 10 years. Bill Gates should be drawn, quartered, hung, shot, poisoned, disembowelled, and then REALLY hurt."

Why You Need A Grimoire

This article was published in Volume Twenty-Seven, Number Two, Summer 2010 article of 2600 The Hacker Quarterly. I wanted to share it, since it offered much good advice.

Why You Need a Grimoire
by Leviathan

No matter how long you have been hacking, surfing, or working in IT, and especially in these uncertain times when your activity can be sniffed, parsed, logged, and archived, you need a grimoire.
Dictionary.com defines a grimiore as "a manual of black magic (for invoking spirits and demons)." Those of us who have been pushing bits around for some time know that the things we routinely accomplish can sometimes appear to be black magic to the less technically adept among us. The sheer volume of information we have stuck in our craniums and bookmarks, and our ability to Google with precision, gives us an edge in finding and implementing all sorts of technology magic. This is all good.
But it's not perfect, you know. We forget things. A website that we KNOW contained the answer last week, is suddenly gone. The transient nature of that big beast we call the Internet means that all content is in flux. And by the way, are you tired of the many tech support sites, powered by ad after ad, where you have to register before they'll let you click on the answer to your question?
To paraphrase Dennis Hopper: "You, my friend, you need a grimoire."
To the uninitiated, it looks just like a plain, bound notebook. But to you, and to the minions who watch in awe as you use it, it is truly a book of spells. You have the answers, because everything of value you've come across in your technology dealings, you've recorded faithfully in your grimoire.
A grimoire is not pretty. It's not always well-organized. But the answers are there, because you put them there. It's your insurance policy, your journal, your database. In time you will come to know exactly where everything is.
Best of all, it's private. No amount of ISP chicanery, keystroke logging, or site monitoring will ever create another copy of your grimoire. It will never slip a cookie or prompt you to install another damned plug-in.
That, ummm, marginal URL that you really don't want in your bookmarks? Into the grimoire it goes. Default (factory) passwords? Never know when you'll need those. Write 'em down.
That UNIX command with the mile-long unreadable man(1) page? Write down exactly how you use the command in real life, using only the options that are most useful to you. That unsupported hack that made your video card come alive... what happens if you have you have to reload the OS? Catalog it with care.
Account names and passwords: be careful here. Most of us have a handfull of good, strong passwords we use all the time. Write down only the first two or three characters, and fill in the rest with random letters. Same with user IDs. No unintended reader will ever determine your complete password from w9xxxxxxxx. But knowing the starting letters will allow you to remember it.
Now this part should be obvious: my grimoire goes everywhere I go, no exceptions. It's always available to me regardless of where I am or what other resources there are.
If you accumulate as much information as I have (my grimoire is about 12 years old, with new entries written in the margins now), you and your book will become the stuff of legends. When I walk into a meeting and put it down on the table, I inevitably get the question, along with a stare of admiration: "Is that the book?" I smile in reply.
And if, saints forbid, you should ever be in an embaressing legal situation and you have to get rid of its evidence quickly, tear out the offending pages, shed a few tears, then flick your Bic. Let's see you clean up a hard drive that cleanly. Privacy, my friends; it is priceless. If your dealing are not quite that dramatic, your grimiore is a good reference at review time or when preparing your resume.
So spend a few wise dollars and obtain a good quality, bound notebook with lined archive paper, and start filling it with your accumulated IT wisdom. You and your grimoire will make history.

Excessive Video Game Playing Could Rot Your Teeth

This seems kind of like a no-brainer. I seriously want to know what kind of salary this person is earning to make an observation that dentists have known for the last 3 decades.

For that kind of observational talent, I could be earning big bucks too!

Don't Forget To Bring Your Chaperone

After all the child sex abuse cases that the Catholic Church has fielded in the past decade, this news item shocked me! I had two thoughts immediately that I decided to blog.

First, I was wondering if anyone would accuse the Pope of solicitation for this. I don't understand how anyone could fall for this a second time. Why would anyone who had been raped/sodomized under the guise of spiritual training, want to do it a second time with the leader of the church that raped them?

Second, this last paragraph caught my eye. "the Vatican has also sought to play down the crisis, accusing the media of exaggerating the problem." How exactly do you do that? How can you claim that the multiple sex-abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church and cost them over a billion dollars is just a figment of people's imagination?

Whatever... All I can do after reading this story would be to provide some advice to the victims. Don't forget to bring your chaperone when you see the Pope; one of you might end up pregnant.

Nerd Sniping

This comic makes me laugh a lot more than it probably should, especially since if I ever got sniped, I know I would totally fail. I've actually seen this problem before too and I never managed to solve it in the same day. I would be a very easy person to snipe.
Except you have no reason to snipe me; I'm not worth any points at all...

Linux, Where Crapware Goes to Die

Check out this interesting article I discovered.
I would like to use this article as a response to people who tell me that they don't like Linux because it doesn't run the programs they prefer. The reason I love Linux over Windows, is that Linux also doesn't run the programs that you don't prefer.

There are 3 reasons Linux doesn't run all the programs that Windows does, adequately covered in that article. I'd like to emphasize a few of the points and add a few more for emphasis.

I've heard people tell me that if my Linux computer isn't infected with crapware, I'm not trying hard enough - i.e.; downloading everything and installing it? I've also been told that if Linux was more popular then crapware would be written for it just as commonly as it is for Windows.

I'd like to emphasize that this simply will never happen, and I've probably tried harder than you to stress test my computer system. During the phase where I was purposefully trying to see what Linux could do, I went and tried to get a virus or spyware to install. I would try to install the programs that killed Windows, just to try and kill Linux. They wouldn't install, and the viruses did nothing. 50 viral programs and countless spyware, adware, and crapware programs later... and Linux was still triumphant.

#1 and 2 - Linux Is Hard To Infect And Easy to Disinfect - What makes me laugh on this is that this is a well established fact. And it's also well established that one of the best ways to secure Windows is run it through Linux.

There are die-hard Windows users, server administrators, network analysts, that I know who tell me that the only Linux they know is how to set up a Linux server and run Virtualbox, which they run Windows on. And why do they run Windows on a Linux Virtualbox? Because Windows is safer!! Windows running through Linux is 90% less likely to suddenly pick up infections, it crashes less, and it uses less memory.

This solution here is also the perfect way to get all those programs you want/need/prefer on Linux. Running a Windows Virtualbox allows you to run all those programs you absolutely crave, inside the security of Linux.

#3 - Linux programs are vetted (and there are thousands of programs available) - This is one point I like stressing a lot. While one of the rally cries of Windows supporters is that the selection of software is so much greater for Windows, none of the programs are vetted for usefulness and stability. There is NO MICROSOFT QUALITY CONTROL working to make sure that Windows programmers only write programs that won't hurt you, and keep your Windows programs safe.

I'm serious! And if you take the time to think about it you've probably already been in a situation where you realize that I'm right! What is the only thing that Microsoft, or Dell, or Compaq, or HP can advise you to do once your system is running slower than molasses because of all the spyware and malware and is infected and crashes when you try running spyware scans? Reformat!?!? Seriously!? The only option is reformatting!?

I don't like reformatting as an option, especially when on Windows it seems to be the only option. I would prefer a safer operating system experience with guaranteed safe programs (something Windows simply cannot provide).

Linux is safe. Every program is vetted through a testing group of millions of users before being released. Because Linux has a watchdog service is operation, there are standards that must be kept, and rules that are enforced.So while Windows runs more programs, only Linux can claim that the programs it runs are stable, secure, and free of malware. This is something that Windows has never been able to claim.

Oh, and another thing I'd like to add. Have you actually checked out the number of programs that Linux has in the repository? Before you claim that Linux doesn't have a lot of programs, you might want to install and play around with the 30,000+ programs that are there. And once you're done with those programs, check out Sourceforge and other places for more links you can add to your repository. I guarantee you will never be bored on Linux.

If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transport

Cartoonist Caldwell Tanner of College Humor suggests that web browsers can be compared to modes of transportation.Are his descriptions accurate?