Windows 8 book authors dish on Windows 8

I try not to comment too much on Windows as I haven't used any version since XP for more than a few minutes. I found Windows 8 book authors dish on Windows 8 to be pretty interesting.

"So I thought it would be interesting to ask my fellow authors of the most popular Windows 8 books what they really thought about Windows 8. (Only Paul Thurrot didn't chime in, as he was on vacation.) Although I know many of them personally, the results still surprised me, not just because they're quite thorough, but also because they're so diverse. Like the blind men and the elephant [1], no two Windows authors see the product the same way -- and their combined observations lend a new dimension to the ongoing Windows 8 debate. On the following pages, in their own words, are the 14 book authors' candid opinions about Windows 8."

Windows Vulnerable to Attacks Against Closed UDP Ports

I saw someone post about this Microsoft Security Bulletin, MS11-083 - Critical : Vulnerability in TCP/IP Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2588516). This vulnerability is in Windows Vista and Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 and they've released a patch.

The interesting thing is that, "The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sends a continuous flow of specially crafted UDP packets to a closed port on a target system."

"The vulnerability is caused when the Windows TCP/IP stack processes a continuous flow of specially crafted UDP packets, resulting in an integer overflow...An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode."

Crazy. It makes sense, though I'm a little surprised such holes are still around. I wonder if they are in other systems' TCP/IP stacks.

Effectiveness of Apple and Microsoft Ads

Gizmodo pointed me at this New York TImes article about the Apple and Microsoft TV ads, In Campaign Wars, Apple Still Has Microsoft’s Number. Apple is spending a lot on it's ads and it seems to be helping.

Gizmodo quoted this paragraph: "On the other hand, Microsoft’s “Shoe Circus,” in which Mr. Seinfeld helped Mr. Gates buy shoes, failed miserably with consumers. After seeing the ad, both Apple and Microsoft users had a more negative perception of Microsoft in the areas of innovation, technology, trouble-free design, and warranty and pricing. “When you see an ad perform this poorly,” said Amy Shea, the executive vice president at Brand Keys who conducted the research, “you’ve got a real problem.”"

But left out this one: "The news was not all bad for Microsoft, though. “I am a PC” — the egalitarian response to Apple that Microsoft has settled on for its ongoing campaign — has worked well to lift PC users’ perception of the brand as technologically and environmentally advanced."

I blogged about the ads back in September in this post which got a few comments and in this one where I said the "I'm a PC" ads were better.

I also saw this Google Answer that says companies that advertised during the Great Depression did ok. "studies have demonstrated that during times of recession, companies that maintain advertising during these periods experience higher sales and profits during the downturns and afterward than companies who cut their advertising budgets."

Windows 7

I've never used or seen Vista, but this xkcd comic called Windows 7 (the next windows release after Vista, which is currently being tested), is very funny.

Microsoft's New Ads

Gizmodo has the new Microsoft ads, Microsoft's "I'm A PC" Ad Beats Seinfeld (But Not Hodgman). This is phase 2 of the campaign and they are better than the Seinfeld ones. There are a lot of comments to the post saying people (even mac users) think the ad is good.

I'm not that impressed. We know the PC is dominant and this ad isn't saying it's good, merely that lots of different people use it. Maybe the benefits will come in phase 3 of the campaign.

Bill Gates Email Rant on Windows Usability

An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant is listed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer so I assume it's true. It describes his experiences using Windows to download Moviemaker and buy the Digital Plus pack. It didn't go well so he sent this message to his managers. It completely echos my experiences using Windows and why I now use a mac. The whole thing is worth a read but here are my favorite lines:

"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

"Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?"

"Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up."

How to Turn Off Annoying MS Word Features

How to turn off annoying MS Word Features

Microsoft is Dead

Paul Graham has another interesting essay: Microsoft is Dead.

Vista Security Overview

The Register has this article Vista security overview: too little too late. There are a lot of details and it seems pretty reasonable. One of these days I'll be forced to play with Vista.

The Most Annoying Things About Windows Vista

PC World has The Most Annoying Things About Windows Vista. Mostly they seem reasonable but I do disagree with a few. First of it's good to keep your things in your user-name folder. They whine "it's not that the new names and locations [for commands] are harder to use, it's that there's no particular need for the changes. And the new names tend to be vaguer than the ones they replace. I agree with that, particularly with vague terms like "Personalize" but putting files in arbitrary places is the same issue. If there's no reason to store your resume in "Programs and Files", don't.

It's also good that you don't run with full administrator privileges. Making serious changes to the configuration of the machine should be rare, and always having those rights is just dangerous. Their recommendation to change this is just inviting security problems.

Vista Myths

10 Vista Myths

Bizarre Interview With Bill Gates on Vista

Steven Levy interviews Bill Gates in Newsweek. Gate's answers are bizarre at times as Levy asks some questions with how Vista compares with the Mac. Matt Asay writes about some of these things in InfoWorld.

I agree with Asay. Gates' answer for why someone should use Vista is really weak. Better security, ease of use, compatibility with more devices, are all better reasons. And what he listed is clearly catchup to the mac. And he (understandably) avoids the topic of the features (WinFS) that were removed in 2004 when the whole development process changed. The search stuff is also catchup to the release of Spotlight on the mac and even Google Desktop on the PC. I was surprised to see so many questions on the mac commercials, but Gates answers are confusing on those too. In one he says he hasn't seen it, in another he says there isn't slightest shred of truth to it.

Gates security comments seem very wrong. Windows is clearly behind the Mac and Linux and BSD systems. The mac is certainly not invulnerable but it's also clearly more secure. Sure the Month of Apple Bugs found some holes, though not all of them were in the OS and not all of them were in Apple code. Nevertheless, they pale in comparison to the number of Windows exploits that have been found (and probably to the number of IE exploits that have been found). The mac is more secure because the underlying unix code base is more secure, file permissions are set appropriately out of the box, and the root account is disabled by default. These things were not true with XP and MS had to do a lot of work for Vista to catch up.

Gates talks about adding layers, that's certainly vague and there were obviously API layers, but many of Windows security issues have come from putting things like Active X controls into the browser and putting browser support into Email, without any security features. Yes they added more power, but often not for good cause, and until recently MS added such things without any thought to the security consequences. This is what needed to change at MS.

Vista looks interesting, and it seems the long beta program worked for Vista, I've seen very few reports of issues with installation. My next PC (whenever that is) will certainly have it, though I'm in no rush to run out and upgrade my current PC. On the other hand, Leopard (the next Mac OS) will be out this spring, and I'm sure I'll get it quickly.

MS: Don't Copy 1.0 Features, Use Latest Rev

Apparently Vista has voice recognition commands. You can speak to the computer and have it do things. Slashdot reported on this article that says websites can play sound files that can say commands to delete files or shutdown your machine. Joy.

As the article says the mac has had speech controls for years. I think many people play with them when they first find out about them and then turn them off. I use them only to turn the page when reading long files with Tofu (an app that simply formats long text in narrow newspaper-like columns to make them easy to read).

Apple hit this problem years ago too and added a configurable prefix word that must be spoken before the command. I just tried it now, having a doc open in Tofu. If I say "Stanley move page right" it moves the page (you have to be really lazy to use this and my machine is named Kubrick). If I use Quicksilver to have the mac say "Stanley move page right", it doesn't move the page, and if I recognize the lights on the control it seems that the voice recognition is disabled while the mac was speaking.

MS should copy the latest rev of apple innovations not the 1.0 rev.

These kinds of problems is why voice controls haven't taken off. They really don't work well when cubicles are involved. The only voice controls I actually like are voice dialing on my cell phone (oddly I don't use them on my home phone).

The Joys Of Dual-Booting

TechWeb has a good article on The Joys Of Dual-Booting a mac between OS X and Windows. They guy's been running it for over a month and comments on the good and the annoyances.

TechWeb also has a good guide for Switching To The Mac.

Adobe Prevents Save as PDF in Vista

A great feature of Mac OS X is that whatever you can print, you can save as a PDF document. I do this often for web pages (particular receipts of online purchases). It's also a great way to take a document in a mac specific or proprietary format and convert it to an open one. Well kinda, only parts of PDF are being standardized by ISO. But PDF is appearing in more and more places. OpenOffice has the same capability as OS X, it can save any of it's documents as PDFs. Windows Vista was going to add this capabililty as well, after all, gotta keep up with the competition. However it seems Adobe balked and told Microsoft they couldn't include the capability in Vista for free, they had to charge customers extra for it.

There's no reason given but it just seems like greed. While Adobe gives away a PDF viewer for free, they charge for full Acrobat which can create PDFs. They probably let Mac and OpenOffice get away with having this capability because their market share is so small, but they'd lose money on Acrobat sales if Windows had the capability. That's my guess at least. If so, for shame Adobe, gotta be fair.

Mac Security

There have been a few articles in the press lately about Mac Viruses. They've mostly been poorly written but I haven't torn them apart yet. Instead Daring Fireball beat me to it with Good Journalism.

The one bit of FUD that annoys me is that intel chips will make macs as vulnerables as PCs. That's completely untrue. Viruses use weaknesses in software to spread, that's applications and operating systems. Windows is vulnerable because of Windows, not because of Intel chips. Macs are safer because of OS X. They're not invulnerable but OS X is much more solid than Windows.

I was a little disappointed to see that Apple isn't quite as speedy as they should be in releasing fixes for found security holes. But you do have to realize that it seems fewer than 10 people have ever been affected by Mac viruses (I am not sure of that, but it seems right) and millions have been affected by Windows viruses. Even saying that Windows has the larger market, it's only maybe 30x bigger, that's not enough to explain the discrepancy.

Vista Flaming

Slashdot has a posting about How Vista Disappoints. It's typical Slashdot flame bait kind of stuff. But I did really like this comment:

"The problem is, most of the actual features were ripped out and mothballed, while most of the anti-features were left in. For features you get a graphics card accelerated UI, some security enhancements that reviewers claim are really annoying and poorly implemented, Some dev tool improvements, and that is about it. For anti-features you get DRM restricting use of your data, intentionally crippled OpenGL performance, a built-in proprietary replacement for the open PDF standard in an attempt to lock you in even more, etc. You do get indexed files (done less well than Google desktop or OS X), you don't get a database file system, you don't get resolution independent UI, you don't get a usable shell environment, etc. All the reasons to get it were ripped out while all the reasons to avoid it were left in. This makes sense for Microsoft. You have to buy a new computer eventually so you'll be forced to buy a copy of Vista bundled with it, regardless of the feature set. It just sucks donkey balls for users."

And I got a pointer to this wonderful video of "Microsoft Vista feature presentation with the video replaced by a OSX desktop".

Office 2007 UI Preview

Microsoft as posted an Office 2007 Preview site with some screenshot of new UI elements. Jensen Harris, the Lead Program Manager on the Microsoft Office "user experience" team has a blog and also posted A New Look For Office.

The obvious change is a new feature known as the ribbon. The menus and toolbars that so cluttered Office have been replaced with what seems like a large tabbed toolbar. This seems like a good idea, giving more space to show complex controls than just a text menu or a single line of toolbar buttons can give. Here's the ribbon from Word:

Word 2007 Ribbon - Click to enlarge picture

One problem in Office is finding commands in a sea of choices. Previously they tried Personalized menus which hated. The idea was to rearrange the menu putting more commonly used tasks higher and removing unused commands. To me this just made everything harder to find because they kept moving. Now MS is using Contextual Tabs added to the ribbon. By default the ribbon only show options that you can use on the document. However if you do something like add and select a chart, a new Chart tab appears. It's a bit like right-clicking on something to bring up a context menu, but it has more space to show the commands.

But of course all this extra space is only good if you use it well. While these are just a couple of screenshots I'm a little concerned. Here's the ribbon for PowerPoint:

PowerPoint 2007 Ribbon - Click to enlarge picture

I'm not sure I'd know to look for font choices in a tab called "Slides" instead of the "Design" tab. Now look at the contextual Table tab in PowerPoint shown below. Notice how much space is taken up in "Table Styles" by seven large icons (which seems to be scrollable) that differ only in color. Wouldn't a button that popped up a color picker be better?

Table Tools in Office 2007 - Click to enlarge picture

My last complaint is an old one. I like to see as much of my document as possible and the limiting factor in this is usually vertical space. That ribbon does take up a lot of space at the top of the screen that my document can't use. I hope I can move it to the side and position it vertically. Or maybe make it a floating palette as found in many programs like Photoshop or even Office 2004 for Mac. The more things change...

Internet Explorer Unsafe

The Belgian company scanit has an interesting security study out. They wanted to compare the top three browsers, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera on their security vulnerabilities. In A Year Of Bugs their approach was to count how many days in 2004 a vulnerability was publicly known but did not have an available patch. That is, even if you kept the browser up-to-date, how often were you still vulnerable to publicly announced flaws.

Mozilla faired the best, there were 54 days, or 15% of the time where there was a known unpatched vulnerability. 30 of those days were for a MacOS-only flaw, so if you were a Windows user, only 24 days or 9% of the time were you vulnerable.

Opera is a lessor known but very capable browser. I used it for several years. It was vulnerable for 65 days or 17% of the time.

So the real question is Microsoft's Internet Explorer. IE was vulnerable all but 7 days of the year. That's 98% of the time it was vulnerable to known exploits. What's worse, 54% of the time there was a worm or virus in the wild, actively exploiting one of these flaws.

Stop using IE, it will make your computer sick. If your company forces you use to use it, convince them to change. I'd say try to convince MS to fix IE, but they've been trying for years (remember MS started a big security push in 2002) and can't manage to succeed.

Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?

This is an interesting talk by Charles Petzold about the current state of programming. He's been programming for many years and has written several Windows Programming books. He begins with a summary of how computers have been portrayed in movies, which I of course particularly liked.

He then gets to programming. First about IntelliSense, how enormous libraries make you dependent on it, and how it forces you to give up and top-down programming. Then he talks about how generated code (in particular that generated by Visual Studio) is often bloated and not exemplary of good programming practices. One quick example is how generated code uses really poor variable names like button1, button2, etc. It's also quite a different paradigm for the programmer from traditional programming methods. The general premise is that Visual Studio is designed to make us faster programmers, not necessarily better ones.

He's not dogmatica about it. Often saying he's not sure if what he's complaining about is significant. But I found a good (and also a long) read.

A Mac note: I read this article (as I do most long ones) by copying the text into Tofu, a simple program that just formats the text into easy to read narrow columns, like newspaper articles. I also enable speech recognition so I can literally just say "move right" to scroll the page. Great stuff.