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Blog: Pete LoshinDecember 21, 2007Least and most useful articles on support.microsoft.com?I suspect that this--How to Remove Linux and Install Windows XP--may be one of the least useful articles on support.microsoft.com; my previous sporadic encounters with installing Windows have never been notable for having trouble destroying everything on the hard drive to make way for Windows. On the other hand, it is about installing Windows XP, not Vista; it turns out Pirates Stealing XP Twice as Much as Vista, Microsoft Doesn't Know How to Feel. Given that, perhaps this--How to go back to Windows XP after you have upgraded a Windows XP-based computer to Windows Vista is the most useful article there. July 16, 2007Talend Updates: More VC $$$ and New ReleaseIt's been a busy time for open source data intregration vendor Talend: last week, they rolled out version 2.1 of their Open Studio data integration suite. This week, they're announcing $3.5 million in second round funding from AGF Private Equity and Galileo Partners. While not the only (or first) open source ETL/data integration software (here's a roundup of open source Java-based ETL packages), but Talend is the first vendor to put together a comprehensive open source data integration suite. November 10, 2006Windows Vista: Deal or No Deal?Here's a nice little essay that's worthwhile not just for pointing out that Vista may not be worth it, but also for reminding us of why we should upgrade (or change) any software package: 4 Reasons Why Windows Vista Is Just Not Worth It. Continue reading "Windows Vista: Deal or No Deal?" » October 5, 2006What Price Vista? The $5,000 Upgrade!Here's an interesting discussion about the true cost per desktop to upgrade to Microsoft Vista at Slashdot.org. What prompted that? A little article, The Vista budget vacuum, in which James Gaskin estimates in his column in ITworld.com Small Business that the cost of new hardware, software, and servers related to the Vista upgrade may be as high as $5,000 for each and every one of your PCs. James is a great guy, smart and funny and very knowledgeable, and he makes a good point: existing systems won't be usable with Vista, and you'll need to upgrade more than just the OS to make it worthwhile. However, if your company assigns a usable lifetime to end-user PCs for a periodic replacement schedule, you'll have already budgeted for company-wide system replacement over that period--so your costs may be negligable. The bigger worry will be about maintaining interoperability between different Windows versions for the duration of the replacement period. September 19, 2006More Jobs? or More Total Cost of Ownership?A Microsoft-sponsored study by research firm IDC came out last week to boost a claim that rolling out Vista in Europe will drive $40 billion in economic activity and create 100,000 IT jobs in the six European countries that account for roughly two-thirds of all European IT activity. Google Vista Microsoft IDC Study Create Jobs and you'll see a lot of articles (I saw about 270,000 hits) that reference the study, but check my first link if you want a .PDF of the actual report from IDC. It is very interesting to note that much of the study points out ways in which Vista is going to increase costs (while being good for Microsoft-related businesses): more spending on the new hardware, software, support and services related to Vista. Take a look at the bar graphs that show relative amounts spent on Vista itself, hardware and services, and you can see how a major Windows upgrade can create a major new cost center that you've now got to plan for. December 6, 2005More New Software: Fedora Directory Server 1.0Sure, it's good to know about new software releases, but you don't need to come here for that kind of information. What's nice, for me as blogger, about new software releases is that they give me an opportunity to write a little bit about what the software does and how it is (or isn't) significant in relation to open source enterprise and business intelligence applications. So: here's the announcement of Fedora Directory Server 1.0. What's that? The Fedora Directory Server Project is " a robust, scalable open-source server designed to manage large directories of users and resources", based on Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (technical specification in IETF RFC 3377). What's good and interesting here? For one thing, scalability. The project claims support for "thousands of operations per second, tens of thousands of concurrent users, tens of millions of entries, hundreds of gigabytes of data SSLv3, TLSv1, and SASL for secure authentication and transport." That's pretty good. For another, there's the professionally written documentation. Well, it's actually documentation for Red Hat Directory Server, but that's more or less the same thing as Fedora Directory Server, because the Fedora Project is more or less where Red Hat tries out technology, in an open source way, for their enterprise-worthy commercial releases. So, if you need enterprise calibre open source systems, you can try out Fedora at no cost and, if you need the enterprise calibre support you can move easily to Red Hat. Another thing that's nice about this is that open source directory servers use an open standard, LDAP, that was developed as an open technical standard through the same organization, The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that developed all the other protocols that run the Internet. And, as usual, it reminds me of how it seems to me that Microsoft has historically approached the implementation of open standards: start out with a competing closed standard instead, and then eventually give in to market pressures and support the open standard by extending and embracing it. Here's a Microsoft technical report on LDAP, Active Directory LDAP Compliance. December 2, 2005Apache Web server UpgradeWhen a big proprietary software publisher releases a major upgrade, there's usually a terrific fuss kicked up in the trade press; when an open source project revs, there's less fuss because there's less budget for fancy PR campaigns. So you may not have heard that the Apache HTTP Server Project just announced availability of Apache 2.2.0 (new feature overview). Apache last revved with a general availability release, 2.0.35, in 2002, so this upgrade has been a long time in the making. Don't look for any budget-busting paradigm shifting here, though, since most of the changes are relatively modest. One very important new feature, though, is support for SQL connection pooling in threaded Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs). This should make SQL database access both easier and more efficient through Apache-based websites. Other new features include improvements to authentication and authorization modules, caching, configuration; load balancing for proxy modules; support for large (>2GB) files; smart filtering; and more. Open source developers are very conservative when it comes to numbering and naming releases, so when a GA release like this one comes out you can bet it's rock solid. Just how does Microsoft's IIS compare? November 10, 2005Database Upgrade TimeAll kinds of new database software is coming out lately. You've probably heard about the release (finally) of Microsoft's SQL 2005. From what I've read, it's only a couple of years late, and still missing some key features, such as the ability to do database mirroring for automatic backup, at least according to this Computerworld article. Even so, will MSSQL 2005 be eating Oracle's lunch by next year? There is plenty of competition, free and not free. |
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