Also, Microsoft bashing, offshoring, more
Cool doesn’t rule
In your Q&A with Microsoft senior vice president for server applications Paul Flessner, he says, “There is still a lot of cool [user interface] experience” in the soon-to-be-released Longhorn Windows OS. This remark exemplifies the biggest problem I have with Windows in the business environment: It has morphed into a productivity-killing entertainment center.
When is Microsoft (whose MSN.com homepage recently featured a link entitled “Bored at work? Try these exciting new online games!”) going to figure out that businesses need Windows to be an operating system, not a virtual playground?
We have begun installing stripped-down XP Embedded (intended for PDAs and such) into regular workstations; the absence of all the “user experiences” Flessner touts is an unparalleled relief. Microsoft, save the “cool experiences” for XP Home users, please!
Mike Heffernan
Computer operations manager
Administrative Services Co-op
Gardena, Calif.
Bash away
In his recent letter to the editor, Gary Olson writes of his weariness with “Microsoft bashing” and contends that the security problem isn’t Microsoft’s fault, but that of the criminals. While this is true from one perspective, it is also true that the entire Windows OS is inherently insecure.
Windows NT/2K/XP has the administrator account that is supposed to be the only account able to install software, thus keeping virus and other malware programs at bay. In practice, this is simply not the case. Most malware is able to install and wreak havoc on a Windows system regardless of the limitations placed on normal accounts. Hell, even WinMX can be installed on Win2K from the restricted user’s account (try it and you’ll see). Both Linux and OS X stop this type of activity. FireFox adds two or three different prompts alerting the user that something is about to be installed, which raises the user’s awareness of possible malware. ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer are the culprit in this instance, along with Microsoft’s inability to lock the restricted user’s account to nothing but the specified job.
Then you have to deal with other “quirks” in Windows, such as some programs that install files in the C:WINNT directory (certain mailing list software in use at my company), making normal users unable to access the file. In this case, the only thing there is to do is log in as administrator to use the software, which makes it really inconvenient for the user, so she is usually always logged in as administrator. The software can’t be installed in the user’s home directory to give her access to what she needs, so this is really the only solution.
The real problem here, as Scott Bradner has so eloquently put it, is Windows wasn’t written to be secure; it was written with ease of use on the end user in mind. In theory, this is the perfect model. We don’t live in theory, though. We live in a little place called “Reality,” and in this world there are people who want something for nothing and are willing to do whatever to get it. Linux/Unix were designed with security in mind from the beginning, locking everything into the user’s home directory or network share, keeping viruses away from core system files without hindering productivity. Some people still want something for nothing, so you have to make it as hard as physically possible for them to get to it. We have Windows, Linux, and Mac systems (both OS X and OS 9) in our office, and the only systems I have to work on are the Windows machines. We still have people targeting our *nix and Mac systems, but because of the design, they can’t get in. We are currently planning a full migration as soon as we are able to find suitable replacements for a couple of different apps that are Windows only.
Live and let live. If you want to continue to use Microsoft solutions and Windows, then by all means, go ahead. If you don’t want to read the “Microsoft bashing,” don’t read it. I myself find it refreshing to see others also are getting ticked at the problems that have been allowed to infest the world because of lack of planning on the part of Microsoft.
Kevin Peters
Memphis, Tenn.
Rocking the boat
Regarding your article “Offshoring… offshore?”: Cruise ship companies spend gazillions to reduce the sensation of movement for their passengers. I’ve only been on one cruise. It was a brand new, state-of-the-art, ocean-going cruise ship complete with internal gyroscopes and all kinds of stabilization technology.
The ship still moved around. And in mere 10-foot seas, it moved around a lot. The passengers noticed. The ship altered course to avoid the worst of the situation.
A ship anchored far enough offshore to be outside US territorial waters is not some gigantic home office, as the owners seem to think. Forces of nature could prevail to, er, sink this ill-conceived project – from motion sickness alone.
Jodi Colburn
Principal
Colburn Group
Los Angeles
Defining government’s role
I appreciated Johna Till Johnson’s thoughtful and balanced column on the role of government regulation. I am old enough to fondly remember relatively cheap universal phone service before AT&T was broken up at the request of businesses, so that business customers could end the subsidy of residential customers. That was a long-standing public policy, similar to the universal delivery of mail by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Every time I hear a new proposal to privatize the mail, I want to say, “Sure, just make sure they deliver to everyone for the same price.”
I’m a former postal IT worker. When the USPS was denied itemized billing by the Federal Telephone System in the 1980s because the capability just wasn’t there, we built our own digital private electronic network – more than a decade before FTS went digital. The backbone connected seven national data centers and 250 mail processing centers with fiber optic service, then a brand-new technology. We filed proposals for “overnight letters” that would be scanned at one post office, transmitted electronically and printed at the destination post office for guaranteed next-day delivery nationwide. This was in answer to the new technology of e-mail. The year was either 1986 or 1987. What went wrong?
The telegraph industry lobbied Congress to require that the USPS use the existing carriers (Western Union and so forth) for the electronic transmission since it appeared to them to be competition rather than new service, so the proposal was dropped as not feasible.
I agree with Johnson that government regulation should be biased toward protecting the most vulnerable parts of our society (cheap universal service) while not hindering innovation.
Hank Merritt
New York
Intuitive beats better
Regarding Dave Kearns’ column, “User project should send up red flags at Novell”: Users flock to Windows not because it’s a better platform, but because, as Kearns suggests, companies can quickly find solutions to Windows problems since it’s more intuitive for users to work with. I never upgraded my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer certification in Windows NT4 because in all the later versions of Windows, it only took a few minutes of poking around to find the solution to whatever problem I was having.
Unfortunately, Novell products, while better, have never been that intuitive. As a Master Certified Novell Engineer, I have pulled my hair out over Novell problems, only to contact Novell support and have them tell me (for a fee) about the undocumented command, or unlisted switch setting, or not-for-public distribution utility that solves the problem. Rather than deal with this, most users would rather migrate from Novell to Microsoft. This has cost Novell considerable market share over the years, and it hasn’t helped us Novell professionals much, either. However, Novell is also not the only vendor guilty of this sin.
Jon Banks
Marietta, Ga.
