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Wednesday, September 03, 2003
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The Ski Boy and I had a great time last evening. John, Jim, and Susannah, my GCI Seattle-based work, wine, food, and fun buddies, came over for lasagna (I got to use my new All-Clad lasagna pan!), Peter's drop dead Ceasar salad, Cosentino wines (Cigar Zin and The Zin), cheescake, and a Sex in the City view-a-thon. A total hoot was had by all.
What made it extra special is that for the past six weeks, Jim, John, and Susannah have been pedal-to-the-metal immersed in the new GCI-ALaska Airlines mileage partnership. Yesterday was rollout day. So, several times during the evening, we'd run up to the computer and check out the real time counter to see how many new customers we'd gained.
8:42:32 PM 
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Yesterday was a momentous day.
The Blue Tarp came down! And not one hour later, the heavens unleashed a torrential downpour. Fortunately, the newly repaired and high-tech-sealed deck held up. But what a test!
I'm going to miss the blue tarp. Now our house will seem a bit ordinary. The blue tarp provided just the right touch of je ne sais quois.
7:18:50 PM
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Great article in Network Fusion on Microsoft's overhaul of their patch distribution infrastructure. Here are few excerpts:
...Currently, the company [Microsoft] uses eight different patch installers across its product lines, and those installers don't report that a patch has successfully installed. The tools used to verify a patch is installed often give conflicting results, leaving users vulnerable even though they think their systems are patched. This issue was highlighted during the recent Blaster worm attacks and the MS-SQL Slammer worm intrusions into SQL Server systems earlier this year.
...Microsoft also is working on a standard set of installer options that will mean every patch has the exact naming conventions for deployment operations, such as quiet rollouts that reduce the number of dialog boxes. In the works is a standard title for patches that will include documentation information, platform, service pack and patch version. These efforts are designed to make it easier for users to understand the patch just by looking at its title.
My jaw is just dropping in this one. Just another indicator that Microsoft really does not understand enterprise environments where strict naming conventions are critical and an accepted part of business. Plus, not to provide notification as to whether a patch was succesfully installed or not is beyond the pale. I ran into that very issue during the whole MSBlast debacle.
Granted, they're "fixing" the problem now (closing the barn door after the horse has left). But, you've got to continue to wonder about the maturity of level of their corporate culture.
Do I sound bitter? Hell yes, I'm bitter. The Department of Justice and a complicit judge determined that even though Microsoft had been judicially deemed a monopoly, not much needed to be done. Microsoft could basically continue with business as usual. Which is as a monopoly that produces substandard products. But because they're a monopoly, they have no competitive incentive to improve.
7:16:55 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Stephanie A. Kesler.
Last update: 3/5/2005; 8:35:48 PM.
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