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Wednesday, July 20, 2005 |
Microsoft's eye on open source. Software giant's Martin Taylor soldiers on, evangelizing that open source may not be all it's cut out to be. [CNET News.com]
Right...here is what I posted on C|Net:
I am trying hard not to laugh. The pull quote "Most IT professionals don't want to be in the business of maintaining system-level software," rings so true. Most IT professionals do not want to be in maintenance because maintenance at the system level is boring unless you are a pure coder. But even then, there is an assumption that the majority of IT professionals, and I use the term lightly, just as Microsoft does, would not have the first clue as to how to maintain systems at the application level, let alone the system level.
That being said, I find it much easier to manage and run my Linux systems than I do my Windows systems. Case in point. I have a small fleet of Windows 2003 servers deployed. They were deployed without SNMP services installed on them and they are scattered around the United States. To add SNMP to them, the Microsoft way, I have to copy a large bundle of files to each and every server, remote in and launch a GUI interface. Ah, but wait say the "experts!" All you need to do is create an file and then use syocmgr and you can do it from the command line! Well, yes, if I know exactly which DLLs I will be asked for, a process that has thus far chewed up more than half a day, identifying the DLLs, writing the answer files (after researching just what the variables should be, which took a half a day trying to find the document with the information on what variables needed to be set to what) and building the bundle. Total time, in excess of 8 hours (I am still testing the answer script since many of the "required values" are set by GPO so I see no point in setting them but the server will not install the SNMP package correctly). Oh, then I have to deploy it to the servers.
On my Linux machines, that I deployed without SNMP, I simply compiled the bundle from source code - no hunting and pecking for DLLs - made some quick edits to a well commented configuration file, tar up the file and push it and install it on all the servers with a six line script. Total time, 3 hours which includes the transfer.
Most IT professionals, the ones that are true professionals and understand how to secure, deploy and configure systems absolutely want to understand and know how the system works so that they can better do their job and thus help their customers. What Microsoft continually forgets is that it is not a receptionist answering the phone who is managing these systems and it requires MORE than just a pretty picture to make them work. As more and more functions are abstracted by the GUI layer, more and more IT professionals are throwing up their hands because it takes more time to do the simple things and it becomes almost impossible to do the complicated things with Windows.
3:55:33 PM 
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Kodak Shedding Up to 10,000 More Jobs (AP). AP - Eastman Kodak Co. said Wednesday it is cutting as many as 10,000 more jobs as the company that turned picture-taking into a hobby for the masses navigates a tough transition from film to digital photography. [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]
10,000 at Kodak, another 15,000 at HP. That is 25,000 jobs scheduled to be eliminated from the economy, which, if I remember correctly only added 200,000 so far this year. So, that is 10% give or take. I suppose that is trivial, unless you happen to be one of the 25,000 who are on the street.
3:23:52 PM
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Army Cites Drop in Suicides Among Soldiers (AP). AP - The overall mental health of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has improved from the early months of the insurgency, with a significant drop in suicides, but a majority still say morale is low, the Army said Wednesday. [Yahoo! News: U.S. National]
I am not sure whether to say that this is a good sign, or to be more concerned. Especially given the Army's last report that the number of soldiers who have reenlisted exceeded their goal.
12:53:14 PM
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Bush vows to safeguard U.S. transit against attack (Reuters). Reuters - President Bush pledged on Wednesday to increase protection of U.S. transit systems against an attack in the aftermath of the London bombings and urged Congress to renew provisions of a post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law. [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]
Let's get this straight, the Patriot Act will do nothing to improve the security of the public transit systems any more than the TSA has done to improve the safety of the flying public. The infrastructure of the United States (in fact the world) was not designed to prevent terrorism. Sure you can increase the number of explosive sensors and up the number of heavily armed guards, but if someone wants to crush the transportation grid, it takes very little effort.
In some ways, we really were safer with horse and buggy.
12:51:39 PM
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'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies (AP). AP - James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85. [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]
Rest in peace. You will be missed.
12:45:29 PM
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Apple has sold thousands of iPods, in just about every form, from the massive 40GB version that you can use as a back up hard drive to their tiny Shuffle that is little more than a RAM chip wrapped in plastic. It seems everybody has one, the secretary, who spends her time surfing the Internet, the coder, pounding out the next big thing and the executive schlepping from meeting to meeting, who uses it to catch up on the news, downloaded by his assistant. While I do not want to disparage the things (heck, I own an MP3 player, it was the natural evolution from the cassette driven Walkman where I used to make my own tapes, but I do not as yet own an iPod) but today I saw a use for them that even the Gumby style iBody guys hand not yet thought of. Mirror. No, really, today I saw a lady applying her make-up, looking into the shiny back of her iPod. The iPod has arrived, it is both a commodity item and an a necessary part of our day...even if you use it for listening to music.
10:49:54 AM
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© Copyright 2005 David Lane.
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