Posts by Brett Weaver

Windows 95 to Windows 7: How Microsoft lost its vision

Pre-emptive multitasking?

If Windows really had a proper implementation of preemptive multitasking it would be fantastic. As someone who has used mainframes and mid range machines which have real operating systems - You have to gasp at the resources microsoft steal to do very little as far as an OS is concerned.

Just imagine if Windows really had a supervisor - If it could manage I/O controllers.. It will never happen but still one can dream...

Imagine if your mouse never stuttered, attaching additional USB devices did not slow or stop running processes, loading a DVD happened without disrupting a business program. Wouldn't it be great if networking was assigned to a separate I/O processor managed by a supervising windows process. Evidence show Windows is decades away from this...

Barnes & Noble's ebook reader takes its bow

You Can't Fool Me!!

We took a look

We saw a Nook

On his head

he had a hook

On his hook

He had a Book

On his Book

was "How to Cook"

We saw him sit

and try to cook

He took a look

at the book on the hook

But a Nook can't read

so a Nook can't cook

SO...

What good to a Nook

is a hook cook book?

...With apologies to Dr Suess...Yes, we got the joke of the name whoever picked it!

PC tune-up software: does it really work?

@dale_richards

"If SuperFetch is doing its job properly"

- Which it never does because its not designed to make things faster. Its designed to load stuff into memory, slowing your currently running processes with its excessive I/O.

Simply put. If SuperFetch worked on Vista, there would be a way of turning it off to prove it.

Give me unallocated RAM because Microsoft software does NOT reliably free the RAM stolen by its processes because it thinks it would be a good idea to load them.

Because you can't turn it off and prove its effect, SuperFetch remains a tax on your machine..

If you believe otherwise, thats it. Belief.

Vista runs slower than XP on the same hardware. Thats all the proof I need about "SuperFetch"

@dale Richards

Sorry - I was just shown how to disable "SuperFetch" on Vista.

Unfortunately there is no way (that I know) of stopping Exchange and SQL Server from indulging in the same activity...

Windows 7 OEM prices revealed

Sorry to be boring.. but..

If windows 7 will run faster than W2K3 on the same hardware, or run ONE SINGLE THING that I can't run on W2k3, then I will look at it.

In the mean time I honestly dont understand why anyone would buy it. As far as I know, as a business user, there are no extra capabilities and no bang for the buck over Win2003 or XP...

Thinking about the OEM version.. One of the reasons I run Windows 2003 is that it does not fire up huge amounts of unwanted processes everytime it boots up (unlike XP and specially vista). If loading the OEM version could allow me to keep the crap down to a minimum then that would be a GOOD THING should I have to implement 7 for some reason.

Microsoft howls as Google turns IE into Chrome

@Kotonoha

It is impossible that you are a developer on windows and retain those opinions. Vista is too slow. Full stop.

Now it may be that you can prettify your environment. That makes you, at best, a power user, not a developer.

If you ever become a developer with a real deadline you will appreciate why people get upset when their machine just stops for no reason, takes 15 minutes to read the table of contents on a DVD or starts going at half pace because Microsoft has initiated some unnecessary process in the background which is stealing memory and machine cycles.

All of these things happen to me on a quad core COMPAQ with 3GB of memory.

I await a true pre-emptive multitasking desktop OS... Maybe Google?

Poor porn protection hurt Firefox 3 uptake

Chrome does worse

By displaying the sites last visited on its new tab, Chrome shows your boss you are looking at job sites, your children you look at porn sites or your wife you are looking at new boat sites!!!

Opera defaulted to allowing me to choose what appeared - Chrome is to bloody clever by half! I will be deleting it.. Another example of a company moving from listening to its users to telling its users ...

Steve Jobs had liver transplant

As tempting...

As it is to ask whether the donors name was Lily...

I concur with the general tone. Steve is a talented guy who has made some brilliant decisions and created some really neat stuff.

If I had his money I would feel a responsibility and a desire to spend the rest of my time with my family - if he goes into work it just pure passion.

Stay as well as possible for as long as possible Steve.. You have been an inspiration for a long time..

Gartner: Windows 7 upgrade catch for XP converts

Well..well..well..

Gartner says:

I will give a decent donation to a charity if people can point to a real prediction Gartner has made that they have not been paid for.

Blears is latest to scurry away from Brown's Cabinet

As Douglas Adams said....

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Never a truer word spoken in jest.

IBM goes live with Smart Cube appliance server

AS/400 vs ?

The AS/400 was to many customers the Vista of IBM. Slow, overpriced, buggy, with difficult and time consuming management processes.

Although you are correct in saying that the AS/400 was a continuation of S/38 technology, most applications for the AS/400 were originally written for the System /36 which the AS/400 was meant to replace. It didn't. In fact the System /36 continued to be sold as an AS/400 model for the next ten years. Some applications were re-written for RPG/400 but most large packages still had huge amounts of S/36 code.

The AS/400 was the death knell for IBM in the small to medium business. It should have been a lesson for all OS suppliers. The new version of the software should be faster, with more features and better value for money. IBM went away from that with its s/36 customers.

Vodafone gives up on roaming charges

64p for connection?????

You can buy a cell phone for that in 3rd world countries like New Zealand

Court upholds 'hacking' charge against smut-surfing worker

I thought...

Shelby got nuked on the Simpsons... Oh! This is real life?!?.. Oh FFS....

Plod called in on MPs' expenses leak

Could somebody please?

The way that politicians get away with gouging the public is by hiding behind titles (Minister of Fiddles) or by articles like this that will not name them. Can someone please list the names and electorates of these miscreants?

It all down to you evil bandits who believe in and support democracy. I just wish it was only you they stole from.

Microsoft names Windows 7 RC1 dates

Stable and completed code for Windows ...

Hey!

Thats fantastic! Stable and completed code for Windows!

Thats enough trolling I guess...

Seriously, when is Microsoft going to develop any form of respect for its customers again? At the moment shutting down or starting up Vista is a gamble as to how long it will take, memory is stolen by processes you dont want running, and everything is just kludgier than it should be.

They should realise that if they delay their customers by 30 secs by loading crap in the background thats millions of productive man hours wasted. Now if a machine takes 5 minutes to start up or shut down ...

How about they write a small kernal OS with genuine pre-emptive multitasking?

BTW neither Linux or Windows has pre-emptive multitasking.

Maybe they could ask for help from IBM's mainframe division? In the 80's and 90's those guys wrote amazing capabilities for machines with a lot less power than is now required to run Vista.

Of course it would be scary to run a desk top where programs opened quickly and crisply and they disappeared completely as quickly when you did not want them any more...

Feds: IT admin plotted to erase Fannie Mae

"where sabotage by..."

"where sabotage by disgruntled employees is common"

BS - I have been in IT for 35 years and never seen it. I have never heard about a local case from anybody.

There is a difference between the perception and reality methinks. Actually competent BOFH's, DBA's and other folk with reponsible jobs tend to be honest. In fact, I believe honesty is inextricably linked with competency. The corollary is also true.

Parallel importer jailed for up to nine months in Microsoft case

What about?

If I use a laptop I bought in Wellington NZ in London UK on a business trip I am guilty of piracy?

Kick a mictosoft employee today.

Hard.

No, harder than that..

Really swing that leg..

OK thats about it.

LG shows off quad-band GSM watchphone

Yes

I want one. Its perfect. No holsters, no sagging inside pockets, no leaving on the counter at home... Fan bloody tastic!

Microsoft delays first Windows 7 public beta

Ha Ha... As Nelson would say..

Microsoft has never really "gotten" the internet has it....

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

@Tone

Obviously you have a version of Vista loaded which does not exist in my english speaking country.

The reason I said .net development files is that it creates a huge number of individual files compared with a database which has 1 entry for each db regardless of size and number of tables. Also I did not want to be accused of comparing some foreign configuration of file.

With indexing disabled on a brand new Vista machine around here it takes sometimes over 15 minutes to gain access to a DVD with over 4.5K files on it.

There is no logical reason why Vista should be slower at anything. Its got more memory, more processor speed, I run it on Quads.

As far as writing crap programs are concerned because I cannot understand the OS, when you are old enough and skillful enough to gain the respect of your peers you will probably reflect on the saying that "A wise man can learn from a fool"...

To the Vista / MS Apologists...

I have a simple answer to all of the "Vista is really good now.." comments.

Take a backup of files onto DVD. One with lots of .Net software development folders, documents and just normal Microsoft data. Fill a DVD with this backup.

Take said DVD to a Vista machine (any size or configuration).

Switch off indexing on the Vista machine first if you like.

Try to access any data on the DVD.

Repeat on XP.

Repeat on Linux.

MS through their Vista product must have cost billions of hours of lost productivity globally.

Their whole development team should be neutered so they cannot breed.

Private firm may run UK spy über-database

A Thesis Proposal...

Democracies, if they are ever to be said to work, must deliver laws and support customs that the majority want (or need). By celebrating and encouraging diversity, or compartmentalisation of society, politicians ensure that they can reassemble majorities from disparate groups rather than having to be accountable.

The only hope for a democracy is either under slavery, where all non slave voting "citizens" are similarly emancipated or where all citizens subscribe to a similar life phiilosophy (protestant or catholic anyone?).

The only form of government that works in a group of diverse culture is a benevolent (hopefully) dictatorship. As we know from Douglas Adams, anyone who seeks the job should be automatically excluded as a candidate.

I think giving the Royal Family more powers might be the answer.

Bank robber leaves pay stub at scene of blag

At Least

At least he had a job.. He was trying.. The criminal classes around here live on social welfare between blags.

As far as the IT angle, based on the sucess of the robbery, I'm guessing he was either an IT project manager or CIO.

Coffers Coffee Republic gets own cashless system

No Doubt

No Doubt the name,address age and sex information will remain confidential....

What moron would give yet another supplier a chance to defraud him (or her)?

Canada's biggest stock exchange back after day-long shutdown

I bet it was Vista

... or at least SQL Server ...

Anal whitening biz drops one million clams for Vibrators.com

@Big Pete

You don't wait to be told you need anal whitening cream...

Paris.. Because...

Barack Obama will be president

Am I the only one?

To keep running the "bob the Builder" theme tune through my head every time he said "Yes we can"?

.. Scoop Muck and Dizzy, Rolly too...

I'll get it while I hum my way out...

Windows 7 early promise: Passes the Vista test

Well.. to all those mictosoft PR agents out there

This is being written on a quad core AMD Compaq with 3GB ram and 256MB video card running Vista Home Premium - Basically Ultimate without bitlocker, whatever the hell that is...

I run a development environment and .. It hesitates the mouse while I'm doing stuff.. It keeps interrupting me while I'm working with "helpful" bloody popups or vista nonsense.

I want my machine cycles back! Microsoft are stealing my machines power to do stuff that has nothing to do with what I use the machine for. Network and copying speed are abysmal. I have the latest updates. Only scumbags must work at Mictosoft.

The Jesus Phone NDA - No one cares but you

@Mark & Napoleon

Incompetence and malevolence are both morally the same and so distinguishing is probably valueless.

Everyone makes occasional mistakes. That is not incompetence but a hazard of life.

Those that fail to acknowledge the mistake repeat it. That is incompetence. Lying to oneself is as morally reprehensible and probably more dangerous than lying to others.

$236m judgment lands on mom and pop spam shop

In the old days...

We would sell them into slavery. I reckon it wouldn't be too much of a punishment for people who indulge in these nasty lttle tricks with greed as their only motive.

Actually... a few board rooms on Wall street could supply some shipboard rowers as well....

Mines the one with the cat in the pocket...

Microsoft gives users six months longer to flee from Vista

Just a wee suggestion

My wife has a laptop with Vista. She has it because I found that it was not powerful enough for me to use after I bought it because it only has 1GB of memory - Its an HP supplied with Vista on it...

She likes to use it when we are away to play DVD's.

She has no real technical knowledge but she allows Microsoft Updates to download when she is online.

We are away last week in a different city, staying in a Motel with no internet (cheap place but nice actually) so we go to the shops and buy a DVD, come back to the Motel and insert it into the Laptop. The menu comes up and then MSMedia player complains that there is a problem with the DRM and shuts itself down. It suggests we download an updated driver of some kind if we are convinced that we have a valid DVD.

I'm afraid I got really angry with MS at that point. They had disabled the DVD playing because their own drivers which they had loaded onto my previously working machine were invalid.

As it turns out, HP had a DVD playing utility included with their software so we enjoyed some peace and quiet whilst my son watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

MS must hate their users. Its the only explanation.

Which leads to the suggestion....

The IT profession should righteously shun people who work for MS like tax collectors. They look like normal people, but by working for MS they show that they are not worthy to be full citizens, merely a sleazy underclass.

So next time you are going through a stack of CV's.. Shuffle the ex MS people to the bottom. Ensure your son or daughter is made aware of the lack of humanity in someone who works for MS. This will hopefully limit their breeding...

88% of IT admins would steal data if fired

12% of IT Admins are liars!!

Actually, there can be good reasons for taking sly backups of the situation when you leave....

If you feel you are likely to be held accountable by management for later disasters caused by your replacement its nice to be able to chapter and verse them in court..

For that reason alone I would recommend the offsite backup location to be your glovebox!!

Taking data and releasing it inappropriately are different things...

Red rag, meet bull: The software resilience gamble

@john latham

Lack of resiliance in software is the result of employing people who are poor at their job. It costs less to write it right than it does to write it wrong.

Its just that people fail to understand that development skills are just that. Skills.

Bill Gates estimated the difference between a good and a poor developer as being 10,000 to 1 ...

Unfortunately, corporates, especially corporates with strong HR departments, cannot understand, let alone retain talent in any department.

Thomas J Watson Jr is credited with the quote:

"A man is judged by the company he keeps - A Company is judged by the Man it keeps"

Trousers Brown Counterpoint: Is Gordon right?

Transport Costs

As a Kiwi, I have always wondered at the EU's continued reliance on subsidies for its farmers.

Yes, like the Africans, when we market meat, veges, wool and butter to the UK and Europe we have to transport it thousands of miles to your supermarkets. Independent surveys show that the total energy input involved with growing and delivering the our products is a small fraction of that involved with European farming practices. To be green, you should eat more African/Australian/NZ/South American produce!

Seriously though, the idea of a fortress implies an ability to be totally self reliant and isolated, but Britain was never stronger than when it relied on its friends around the world.

As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Gordon on this one. Strength comes from comunication, commerce and communion with others. Despite what bloody drop-kicks they all are :-)

2010: the 5TB 3.5in HDD cometh

@Mike

RAID5? Hopefully that format will be well dead by then. My clients mirror their devices. Its faster for writes and reads are nearly twice as fast.

Raid5 was almost justifyable when disk space was at a premium. Now it should not be on anyones SAN. And that includes Raid10!! Mirrored Raid 5! Who the hell thought that one up?

IBM's Power6 slaughters world+HP in transaction cranking

Stunning... I want one!

I see its running DB2 9.5.. We don't see a lot of that in the antipodes...

I see its running AIX as well.

Its unusual but not unheard of.. Its a bit like watching V8's race. I guess what wins on Sundays sells on Mondays.

I will leave it for someone else to make the Vista comment...

Delayed SQL Server 2008 hits release phase

I'm no MS fan particularly but..

Column compression and other BI improvements.. Significant tuning and configuration improvements. Unlike Vista, this is a real functional upgrade.

Silverlight 2 beta 2 - Go Live if you dare

Good Article

Interesting article. We need better 4GL tools for .Net and this seems to be opening the door.

As for the comment at the end of the article:

"In short: good work from Microsoft, spoiled by missing pieces and installation hassles"

You have to say that this is BAU for MS.

Russell T Davies bows out of Doctor Who

Billie Piper

They've been repeating the Christopher Ecclestone, Billie Piper episodes here in NZ... My, she makes a great sidekick and he did make a bloody good doc.

Is Vista ready for Business?

@Steven Hewittt

Steven,

Obviously your experience is different from the rest of us. Hooray, its nice that someone has had a good time.

1.. If you believe that any MS OS (including 2K3 server & Vista) releases RAM fast enough to justify the load-up process then you don't use the development, database or communications tools I do.

2.. I still want someone to tell me what Vista gives me on a machine of double the spec of an XP box that I can't get just as fast on XP? Sorry, I know nothing about games so if thats the benefit I can't use it. I'm talking about a normal everyday business benefit - You know, Vista does THIS.. and XP can't.

No one at MS seems to be able to answer that either.

British Gas sues Accenture

@A Consultant

I note that you didn't mention a successful project at all. You fudged.

Whats the point of your posting and your bland assurances when you can't even mention one successful project?

Good marketing makes for good business. In IT no supplier or management is generally blamed but 60% of all major projects fail to deliver.

Incompetence reigns over all IT management :-

You have project managers who can't write a "Hello World" in any language. CIO's who can't configure their email accounts.

Infrastructure architects who have no knowledge of how their clients conduct business.

Enterprise architects who think that a diagram is an important deliverable.

Managers who believe Gartner on any topic.

CEO's who still place IT under finance.

Accenture are probably unlucky to be the subject of focus. Except in a vanishingly small number of cases, the whole industry delivers crap results.

By the Power of Power, IBM goes Power System

@Robert Hill..Pah! etc

Robert, Robert, Robert..

The System/32 never had anything like a 10GB drive. The one I managed had a 13MB drive. I believe it had 32K of usable RAM as well.

It was faster than the System/3 I started on which had 12K of real core and 2.5MB removable drives

To be fair to IBM, A program written on a System/3 in RPGII in 1975 can be run with very little alteration on an i series today. Indeed, there are a number of banking and telco systems in use around the world which have been running, essentially unmodified, since 1981.

Reg Jobs gets a facelift

Where is it?

I look at the mast head.. Where is Reg Jobs?

Course it won't matter

There will be the usual fictitious jobs in London by the agency which wants to increase its labour pool..

The "great career steps" which sell you into slavery

The "fixed term Contracts" which want a contractor at slave wages

The "family friendly" jobs which mean low wages AND bad conditions..

Basically if they say anything , assume the opposite and if they neglect to mention something, assume the worst... Then you will be half way to surviving internet job seeking.

IT industry needs more women

IT needs women?

Alright, IT does.

Women who can program.

Women who can negotiate hard and insist on decent rates.

Women who take responsibility to get the job done.

I have employed developers for 20 years. Never have I even thought I would turn away someone with the skills I needed because they were female, male, of a different ethnicity or had a disability which did not restrict their ability to deliver work.

I would be surprised if a significant number of people employing skilled IT staff did not have the same attitudes that I do.

I think you need to look for other reasons why women are underrepresented.

Malaysian woman jailed for worshipping teapot

Maybe the best response...

Is to ask Dell, who supplies all of Australasia from Malaysia what they feel about supporting a nation with such a low regard for human rights.

Maybe the real answer is just to reduce the amount of business done with international companies that manufacture in countries we don't like.

Vote with your feet. It might even be effective in the end.

Quake rocks Britain

4.9 Thats not an earthquake...

4.9? Thats not an earthquake... Thats a truck going past...

Now if you lived here in New Zealand..... :-)

BOFH: Insecurity complex

Reminds me of "Centigrade Jack"

Anything you said had to be halved and at least 10 removed from it to convert to reality....

UK men would stay out of bed for 50in plasma telly

A sad indictment on UK Women really...

...nuff said

Experience overcomes Microsoft's broken promises

I'm confused

Why would anyone manage spatial data on MS SQL Server? Informix and one or two others do it well already. I guess to those that only have hammers every problem looks like a nail...

Accenture and BAE pull out of ID card project

Well its your own fault!

You poms are pretty good at whinging, but you know you'll allow them to do anything.

When was the last time you held a cabinet minister to account?

Mind you, all western democracies have the problem... If we get the governments we deserve, maybe we are all vermin?

Its all gone down hill since women got the vote. They couldn't help it, poor things...