All posts by onlyconnect

internet, microsoft, windows

Doing Web 2.0

What ever Web 2.0 is, I reckon Danny Bradbury is doing it:

In fact, I’m finding online applications replacing Microsoft’s products almost entirely. I write my articles in Zoho Writer and mail those to editors straight from the browser, so that I don’t have to worry about synchronising Word docs between machines. I’m managing my article deadlines and my newsletter schedule using Zoho Sheet. I only use Office, quietly grumbling under my breath, for one client which demands that I fiddle about with Word styles to accomodate its content management system.

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internet, open source, software

Sun’s Media Summit

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I’m at Sun’s Media Summit in San Francisco for a couple of days. It follows an analyst week, which prompted this great post from James Governor: Strong Leaders, Strange Bedfellows and The Art of War by Sun Two. Here’s a sample:

Jonathan [Schwartz] is quiet, understated and concentrates on running the business, rather than running down the competition. He may not have the raw charisma of his predecessor Scott McNealy but in my opinion he is a just as strong, if not a stronger character.  His decision to shell out a billion dollars MySQL also shows he is extremely ballsy – Wall Street is finally coming round to the idea of Sun as a going concern rather than a basket case, and what does Jonathan do? He goes and buys a little company from Sweden that builds an open source database which pretty much no one actually pays for.

So what would you ask Sun? Let me know, and if you’re quick I’ll try and get the question in.

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Tim Bray marks 10 years of XML, weighs into Microsoft

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Sun’s Tim Bray, XML luminary, marks 10 years since XML 1.0 became a W3C recommendation (10th Feb 1998) with a post on his blog: a history of the people behind XML which he explains was written ten years ago.

Microsoft played an important role in the popularity of XML. I believe the company saw it as a counterweight to Java. Java was about application portability; XML was about data portability and application communication. With XML, Microsoft could do .NET and still live in a Java world.

Back in 1997 there were fireworks at the W3C when Bray, who was co-editing the XML specification with C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen, joined Netscape as a consultant. Microsoft was worried, I guess because at the time Netscape was a big rival and Microsoft thought XML might be somehow twisted to give Netscape some advantage – a puzzling idea, in hindsight, but there it is. Anyway, Microsoft insisted that Bray be removed as co-editor; Bray protested and eventually a deal was struck which put Microsoft’s Jean Paoli alongside Bray and Sperberg-McQueen as XML co-editors.

Maybe this incident explains Bray’s hostility towards the company:

Some of the people in this story are companies. Ned is Netscape and Mick is Microsoft … Mick is a domineering, ruthless, greedy, egotistical, self-centered, paranoid bastard. Whether or not he’s actually a crook is, as they say, currently the subject of litigation; but he’s not good company or a good friend. The ruthlessness and greed would not be so irritating (we swim, after all, in late-capitalist waters) were they not accompanied, at all times, by Mick’s claim to speak not in his own interest, but selflessly on behalf of his millions of customers, whose needs only he understands. Thus, anyone who disagrees is conspiring against the interests of the world’s computer users.

Perhaps in his position I would feel the same way. But is Microsoft innately more evil than other companies? I’m not convinced, though note another of Bray’s comments:

This isn’t about technology any more, and certainly not people, it’s business. The Internet business, for all the visionary rhetoric, has to do with nothing but money and power and executive ego.

Again, a little too extreme for me, but only a little. Interesting to reflect on in the context of, say, the OOXML vs ODF debate.

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microsoft

A Word 2007 annoyance: disappearing vertical scroll bar

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This is odd. A couple of times in the last week Microsoft Word has decided I no longer require a vertical scroll bar. The only way I know to turn it back on is to go into Word options, Advanced, and check the option Show vertical scroll bar.

But how is it getting unchecked? My first assumption was that I must have inadvertently pressed an obscure key combination that toggles the vertical scroll bar, but I can’t find any such shortcut. A bug?

By the way, did you know you can get a complete list of Word commands and shortcuts? Click the Developer ribbon, then Macros, then select Word commands from the Macros in drop-down list. Select the macro ListCommands, then click Run. Word will offer you a document containing either Current Keyboard Settings, or All Commands. The All Commands list is 46 pages long, and contains roughly 2000 commands, none of which hides the vertical scroll bar.

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microsoft, software, windows

Hyper-V in Server 2008 RTM doesn’t like non-US locales

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s whizzy new virtual server manager, which uses new virtualization features in recent Intel and AMD processors to support more efficient virtual machines. Intel’s extensions are called Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel-VT), formerly code-named Vanderpool, while AMD’s extensions are called AMD Virtualization (AMD-V), formerly code-named Pacifica. Here’s what Intel says:

How does Intel Virtualization Technology eliminate the gaps in current virtualization solutions?
Three ways. First, the technology provides a new, higher privilege ring for the VMM. This allows guest OSs and applications to run in the rings they were designed for, while ensuring the VMM has privileged control over platform resources. It eliminates many potential conflicts, simplifies VMM requirements, and improves compatibility with unmodified legacy OSs. Second, handoffs between the VMM and guest OSs are supported in hardware. This reduces the need for complex, compute-intensive software transitions. Third, processor state information is retained for the VMM and for each guest OS in dedicated address spaces. This helps to accelerate transitions and ensure the integrity of the process.

Hyper-V is a good reason to use Server 2008 x64 (it is not supported on x86), but it is not done yet. Microsoft has shipped a beta of Hyper-V in the release build of Server 2008, and is promising a full release within 180 days from now. It is not something to use casually – Paul Thurrott quotes Microsoft’s Bryon Surace as saying:

Conceptually, it jacks up the OS and slides in the Hypervisor underneath. So we clearly don’t want that installed by default on servers that won’t be running Virtualization.

So don’t even think about using it for real just yet. When it does get finished, Microsoft recommends using Server Core rather than the full Server 2008 as the host OS. However, Hyper-V is interesting to developers as well as admins, so I wanted to take a look. Unfortunately, after I added the Hyper-V role to the server, the Virtual Machine Management Service failed to start, presenting the gloriously obscure message:

The service changed to an unexpected state.

This problem has been mentioned by others. Apparently the fix is simple but extreme: re-install Server 2008 using the English (United States) locale. Can’t you just change the locale in your existing installation? It didn’t work for me, and Microsoft’s Ben Armstrong says, “It is not sufficient to change the locale after OS installation.”

Once Hyper-V is installed, you can change the locale to what you want and it will still work, though I don’t know if this is supported.

Annoying. Yes, it is mentioned in the release notes – but what if Hyper-V beta had required you to set a non-US locale at install time. Do you think Microsoft would have flagged this problem more prominently?

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microsoft, software, windows

Vista SP1 shares same core as Server 2008

I attended a Server 2008 briefing yesterday and it was mentioned that Vista SP1 and Server 2008 share the same core. This is why Server 2008 declares itself as being Service Pack 1 even on its initial release. This isn’t news but I thought it worth a post since I’m not sure that the close relationship between Vista and Server 2008 is all that well known. If Server 2008 wins a decent reputation, which I suspect it will, then it may even help Vista’s tarnished image a little.

When Windows 2003 came out, some enthusiasts ran it as a desktop OS, because it ran better than XP and application compatibility was pretty good. There won’t be any point in doing this with Server 2008. Same code.

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Vista SP1 impatience is an opportunity for malware

The unofficial Windows Vista Forums have posted a download link for the final release Windows Vista Service Pack 1. No doubt there are many others. The post includes a health warning:

We must strongly note that using this file may violate the End User License Agreement from Microsoft.

but adds:

Given that some people are indeed having major technical problems and “bugs” with Windows Vista, we have made the decision to offer this download without malicious intent, strictly for the purposes of open technical support and community assistance for legitimate Windows Vista customers. We have not received authorization to distribute this file, but at the same time have received no request not to do so. This file will become unavailable should any request be made by Microsoft or any owner of this content to do so.

The downloads are digitally signed, so I should think they are the real thing but of course cannot guarantee it.

The real question: what was Microsoft thinking when it announced that the service pack was done, but said that users would not get it until mid-March?

In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com.

If for some reason Microsoft did not want its users to benefit from the service pack until mid-March, it had a simple solution: don’t announce it until then. Too late now.

Then again, why does Microsoft want to defer this release for over a month? It is putting users at risk, because they will resort to unofficial downloads like the one above, and that’s an opportunity for malware.

Microsoft: put SP1 up for download now and solve this utterly predictable problem.

Postscript

I should add that Microsoft did give a reason for postponing the SP1 release. It relates to what Microsoft describes as small number of device drivers which “do not follow our guidelines for driver installation”. Apparently this can result in non-working drivers, though users can fix the problem by reinstalling them. Mike Nash adds:

While we know that most customers who update from Windows Vista to SP1 will NOT be affected, our approach is to improve the experience for all our customers.  To do this, we will begin making SP1 available through Windows Update in mid-March, giving us time to work with some of our hardware partners to make adjustments to the installation process for the affected drivers.  As SP1 gets delivered through Windows Update, we will only offer it to PCs that we detect don’t have any of the affected device drivers installed.  We’re taking the next month or so to continue our work of identifying as many of these devices as possible.

The point here is that getting SP1 through Windows Update is not quite the same as downloading and running the large single file. If you go through Windows Update, you get a differential download and more intelligence about what is actually downloaded.

I still don’t get it. If there is a problem with the device driver installation, is SP1 really done? Further, what is to stop Microsoft offering the update for manual download with appropriate health warnings? Better than all these unofficial downloads, I would have thought.

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internet, software

blist: online database, Flash application, beautiful but flawed

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Today I was able to try out blist, an online database manager. This is a very different affair from Amazon’s SimpleDB. The focus is on usability, and it is aimed at end-users rather than application developers. It’s worth viewing the demo video to get an idea of what it does.

The UI is polished though a little cluttered. I found it easy to create my first list, by dragging column types from a palette to a grid. I made a list of programming languages with a rating for performance (please ignore the actual ratings).

The results looked stylish and I played around with a few other features. I found I could easily sort by a column, or create a filter/query called a lens. I created a lens called “Fast languages” limited to those with 5-star performance which worked fine.

I noticed that one of the column types is blist – that is, a blist within a blist. That looked interesting, so I created a sub-list called Implementations, with three columns: Name, Website and Open Source. The website column shows a lovely preview of the actual site when you hover over it.

Next, I tried to stress it a tiny bit. I created a lens to show me just the Microsoft languages. In other words, I wanted to filter on a value in the blist within a blist. The first time I tried, it didn’t work at all. I still saw all the languages. I tried again, and this time the filter worked, but didn’t display the fields in the sub-blist even though I had specifically selected them. The application also got dramatically slower, even though my dataset is tiny. I’m not sure how I would do more advanced queries, like “Show me the languages and all the implementations where at least one of the implementations is from Microsoft” – actually, I thought I might get this anyway; I wasn’t sure what to expect.

This is an early beta, so I’m not complaining. Still, it illustrates a point I wanted to make, which is that databases have an inherent complexity, and however stylish you make the user interface, the complexity tends to come back to bite you later. In my example, there is an obvious problem with repeated data in the Implementations field. If one of the companies changes their website, I will have to make repeated changes, or do search-and-replace, because the data is not normalized. I am not sure how blist could do this better, though I don’t actually like the idea of columns that are really tables, and would rather have a proper relational database.

Historically, highly usable database managers like Excel, Access and FileMaker tend to foster badly-designed and error-prone databases, if pushed beyond their limits.

Still, blist does look beautiful, and it is also an interesting example of a web application done 100% in Flash.

There are intriguing icons for features including transactions, users, and lens manager. There are also social or team features like discussions and reviews, which are not enabled yet. I presume that there will eventually be some web service API into blist, otherwise it will be of limited value.

I am not sure what the business model is, or whether blist is intended primarily as a business tool, or a social web site where users will place quick, fun and controversial lists to attract debate. The job vacancies mention a host of technologies including SOAP, REST and JSON (hope for web services), Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Linux/Unix, Perl and Python; and include little exercises so you can prove your mettle.

linux, microsoft, software development, web authoring

Windows Server 2008 is done, embraces PHP

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Microsoft says that Windows Server 2008 has been released to manufacturing.

Organizations will be naturally cautious about upgrading their servers. Nevertheless, I suspect that Server 2008 will get an easier ride than Windows Vista. IIS 7.0 is a major upgrade for Microsoft’s web server. Built-in Hyper-V virtualization lets you run multiple operating systems on a single server, Linux included. Server Core is a minimalist install that comes close to answering those critics who have always said, “Why do I need a GUI on a server?”

Here’s the most interesting part of the announcement, especially bearing in mind the Yahoo bid:

With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft is also embracing PHP hosting on Windows via the FastCGI module for IIS 7.0. PHP is a popular open-source scripting language used to build dynamic web applications. This allows IT Professionals to host PHP and ASP.net applications side by side. As a result, the PHP community will be able to take advantage of the increased reliability of PHP on Windows and simplified administration available on the Windows platform.

Quick way to deploy all those PHP applications, eh?

I’m surprised at Microsoft’s choice of language here. Microsoft is not really embracing PHP, as far as I am aware. Its web development platform remains ASP.NET. This is about compatibility and easing migration. Note that Mainsoft can do a fair job of getting your ASP.NET application running on Java, and there is also Mono, so portability between the Microsoft and *nix platforms is improving.

PS I first blogged about IIS 7.0 in July 2005. Nobody can accuse Microsoft of rushing this one.

microsoft, windows

Finding the preview pane in Vista’s Explorer

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I recently came across this (old but interesting) article on creating preview handlers for Vista.

If you have the preview pane showing, you can select a file in Explorer and see a preview of the contents. It is also used for email attachments in Outlook 2007.

This article explains how to use it to create a fast PDF preview based on Foxit, and another for previewing C# source with pretty formatting.

It occurred to me that I rarely see the preview pane in Explorer. It’s not enabled by default. So how do you enable it?

Explorer in Vista has a curious user interface. There are some handy features like favorite links, but adding links to this list is not particularly intuitive. Try drag-and-drop, or right-click the Favorite Links panel and choose Open Favorite Links folder. No, it’s not under Organize, where you would expect.

But I digress. In its default state, Explorer has a toolbar with two menus, Organize and Views. Other menus appear on a semi-random basis according to some broken algorithm which is meant to respond to the context.

If you dislike the capricious toolbar, you can show an old-fashioned menu bar, with top-level entries for File, Edit, View, Tools and Help. That is what I normally use.

Now you might expect that the option to show a preview would be under the Views option on the toolbar, and on the View menu on the menu bar. It’s part of the view, right?

Wrong. To get the preview pane to show, you need to select it under Organize and then the Layout sub-menu. It’s not in the menu bar at all.

Since it is on a sub-menu, it is not surprising that people don’t find it.

Further, I don’t get what concept Organize is meant to represent. It’s helpful to distinguish between things that change the view, like the preview pane or folder options, and things that change the files, like New Folder or Cut. So why is stuff in both categories on this single menu? Who would click Organize to find Delete? Alternatively, if Organize is about modifying files, what is Layout doing there?

Once you have found the preview pane, it’s probably best to turn it off most of the time. The problem is that when you select a Word document, for example, most of Word has to load in the background before it displays…slow. Still, if you have a bunch of Word documents with obscure names, and want to find out quickly what they contain, then the preview pane is really useful.

I hope a faster, more logical and more intuitive Explorer is high on the to-do list for Windows 7.