Global Toad News

ATI (AMD) has new drivers for Linux available.  For some reason, even though the driver installed ok, I now have a square block for the pointer on the second screen.  But then when I went to the ATI (AMD) website to download the driver I was greeted with

The slim and lightweight A8Jr, based on Intel’s Core2 Duo processor, is the world’s first notebook series to utilize ATI’s Mobility Radeon™ X2300 GPU for stunning and crisp graphics. The key features include:

You might not know this, but AMD is suing Intel all over the world, and here is promoting the Intel Core2 Duo processor.  I guess they might be a little confused over there, which could explain my square pointer.

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From the Times, there is an article about how Google desktop could have exposed  personal information to hackers.  While Google states that  there are no records of the  hole being exploited, it has now fixed it.

Yet another reason to not run out and install the latest widget just because it looks cool.

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Microsoft hasn’t given me a Vista laptop, so unlike the people who have one, I have to form my impressions about it from what other people say at the moment. I hope to have more and more programs running “semi-natively” under Wine however so I hope to never have to run Vista natively, and avoid the whole licensing thing. Though if someone wants to ship me a licensed VMWare machine, I’ll take a look at it. There was that one company called Moka5 that claimed to have something to download, but I found it to be horribly slow and I couldn’t stand it. Maybe it’s the hardware that I have, after all it’s driving four screens, maybe it can’t handle a Virtual machine of Windows Vista.

In any case, there is an article at the Register, that says, after using Vista Ultimate for a while (which I am thankful he did because I wouldn’t want to take the time):

The privacy conscious are, as always, encouraged to use Mozilla for browsing instead, and leave IE in its default configuration, to be used solely for manual sessions with Windows Update.

Wow! That was awfully mean, I can’t believe that this is a supposed journalist. But it is a well written article. Let’s go to page 2, here’s some notes about Mircosoft Mail (the replacement for Outlook Express, which I think is based on some old Microsoft Mail code that someone recycled, but I’d have to look at them both) :

There really ought to be a junk button that one can use to mark memos as spam and delete them with a single click, as there is with Thunderbird. It would be nice if the default rule for such a junk button were to be blocking the sender, rather than the sender’s domain. One can always block a troublesome domain manually if need be.

Interestingly, an email from Microsoft Press Pass – a mailing list of self-congratulatory press releases for tech journos – was automatically flagged as spam. I find it hard to disagree with that call.

So Microsoft seems to have only tested the spam filter against Microsoft’s own marketing. That’s brilliant. Like setting up your work email and blocking all the emails from work. Maybe that explains things.

This next part is positively hilarious, I think this is so funny. I use Linux and one of the nice things is when programs force me to run them in limited user modes and use the correct security settings with groups and limited user accounts. Heck, Linux is a fantastic operating system with a lot of options.

In any case, the Register talks about the new program protection system:

UAC is all well and good in theory, but here’s the problem: it’s never going to work. And the reason why it’s never going to work is because MS still encourages the person who installs Vista (the owner presumably) to run their machine with admin privileges by default. I was delighted, when I set up Vista for the first time, to be presented with an opportunity to set up a “user” account. But moments later, when I saw that I was not invited also to create an admin account, I knew that the “user” account I had just set up was indeed an admin account. And so it was.

Well, I thought it was funny. I don’t think Bill Gates is laughing though.

Furthmore the Author of the Register’s Article, Thomas C Greene in Dublin, states :

Now, for the Vista Security Centre. This has been controversial, involving MS in skirmishes with security software vendors who claim that Vista’s built-in product is anti-competitive.

Obviously the Author hasn’t been on Windows as long as other people, because he doesn’t think that all of these new features are great improvement over the previous versions of Windows, which is all Microsoft really pays attention to.

Who really uses Linux as their host/firewall system while running Windows in a Virtual Machine? Does Microsoft really know? How many people are running some iteration of windows past, I still get upgrades for some 16-bit software, that I could get running under Wine.

I’m not sure why anyone would worry. The Security Centre doesn’t do very much except remind users, “Message: We Care”. It’s a little craplet with a stereotypical icon that looks like a shield, and it simply informs you of whether or not the firewall is on, whether or not you’ve got anti-virus software installed, and so on. It is integrated with an improved version of the malicious software removal tool, or anti-spyware tool, in the form of Windows Defender.

So what do you get for your money with Vista? Opportunities to spend more money to replace all the things that used to work with new untried software. I think I can wait a little longer.

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Recently I saw the movie “The Departed”.  In this movie there was a fellow who was constantly switching sim cards.  All I could think is that is was wonder he wasn’t found out.  A more common way to switch sim cards is to use a product that allows access to multiple networks, like the SIM MAX IV.  All you have to do is push a button on the phone and you are on a different network.

Of course, then you lose a shot of someone pulling the battery out of their phone and switching the card out, which at least tells the viewers that something is going on.

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Microsoft has released SP2 for SQL 2005.  One of the nice features is the addition of the vardecimal storage for decimal and numeric data.  Also for whatever reason, in the past Microsoft did not install the ability for maintenance plans  in a server only install, that is  fixed.

Microsoft also restored the SQL 2000 feature of backup expiration.  Apparently no one at Microsoft had used it, so it was initially left out of the 2005 version.
In any case, it looks like a good update.

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Some people apparently went out and got Vista, now their computer is slower and works worse. For instance Scot Finnie at ComputerWorld says:

…most people will prefer Vista over XP once they’ve had a chance to live with Vista for a while.

And it’s happening already at http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/536910-windows-vista-problems.html:

Hey i got Windows Vista installed it but dont like it and its messing with my other software since it isnt compatable yet.. and went to uninstall it and i cant.. When i put in my old disk for Windows XP Media Centre Version it says i cant instal it since i have a new version of windows on the computer so i cant delete it.. Help me please.. im just trying to get windows vista off and go back to windows xp media centre edition..

Gee, guess another reason why Vista is the Best! If Microsoft would allow people to use LiveCD’s to try Vista (like every decent Linux distro does) then people wouldn’t have these issues. But Vista is not about choice, it’s about control. It’s about keeping the money flowing to Hollywood and the recording industry, not about making your life better.

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