Technical Projects

Just was thinking of why I use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer this morning after reading some of the online discussion on Vista. Now, I’m thinking of Internet Explorer as a result of those discussions due to it being both a Microsoft product, and Microsoft’s next big, “public” release. By this, I mean a product that is heavily used by a lot of people, in a VERY direct manner. An operating system generally lets you do what you need to do, and gets out of the way - that’s my take on it. The operating system should be stable, transparent, intuitive, etc. The applications are the real reason your using windows/linux/OSX - not the operating system itself. If the operating system can help those applications run more efficiently, great!

Now, with that said, I do NOT think applications should have any direct interaction with the operating system - for example, Internet Explorer. Integrating that so deeply in Windows was a mistake of the largest order. For one very simple reason - security. Allowing the browser to have that much control over the operating system, means any website you go to, if there’s a bug or hole in Internet Explorer, has access to your operating system. Protected environments are a VERY good thing - Internet Explorer never did any of this. Even if they’d integrated the toolkit as a system DLL that other applications could use, it should NEVER have been integrated so deeply into the operating system. This was a mistake, and one reason I don’t use Internet Explorer.

Second reason why I don’t use Internet Explorer - I use multiple operating systems. I use OS X, Linux, AND Windows. My main system for home tends to be OS X/Windows (games). At work, I use Linux mostly for application programming, and OS X as a backup to that (I’d use OS X more, but laptop is about 3 years old, desktop is MUCH faster at this point). Firefox is the only browser that works across the platforms fully. Konquerer/Safari sorta does, but not really. It’s also not near as full featured as Firefox, and has a harder time with some rendering issues. Firefox, I know that when I go from machine to machine to machine, I will always get the same interface, the same experience. This can be a VERY big deal, particularly when using web applications.

Third, standards support. I can’t think of how often I’ve had to write web sites for funky Internet Explorer code. I remember spending 4+ hours one time trying to get float tags working in Internet Explorer, or another time where I spent several hours trying to get transparent PNG’s to work. Now, Internet Explorer 7 is supposed to fix some of this stuff, but I trust Firefox far more when it comes to standards - they are continuously working towards standards. And, if there’s a bug with rendering CSS or html, they fix it, and pretty dang quickly too. Internet Explorer still is trying to be backwards compliant with all the REALLY buggy code - it’s a pain to work with, and encourages bad design. And, look at how long Internet Explorer 7 has been in development now. How many releases of Firefox have been in that time period?

Fourth, open source. If I see a bug in how Firefox is doing it’s displays, I can submit it, get input from the developers that “yes, this is a bug and will be fixed”. The internet explorer team supposedly is open and has a blog, and a public bug database, but how long is it going to take to get this stuff fixed?? Further, Firefox I could at least get a patch file for the bug, if it was a critical enough issue for my users, and deploy a customized version to fix their issues. That can be a BIG deal from an IT perspective.

Last reason (at least for now) - performance. This is a REAL big issue, as you can see from my previous post. Firefox is increasing steadily in performance. Testing the new Bon Echo (Firefox 2), it’s displaying pages so much faster it’s unreal. That’s a LOT of hours in a given year I’d have lost, having to use Internet Explorer. I’d prefer to use that time working, rather than having to wait for a browser to figure out how to display things properly.

SO, yes, I’m a power user. Yes, I use multiple operating systems. Yes, I do a lot of things Microsoft may not directly support/condone, but on the other hand, I also have to support a ton of users using Windows products (including who knows how many friends/family?). I write web pages, write html on a daily basis. I use the web for a LOT of my activities. When it comes down to it, the only choice I’ve really got at this point is to use something as efficient as possible for my time - Firefox is that tool right now. If Internet Explorer could catch up in some way, I’d consider using it again, but right now, not going to happen.

I wanted to post an email I just sent to the Internet Explorer team over at Microsoft. Basically, the gist of the email was that Internet Explorer has lost the browser war. Let me repost my email:

I’m a developer for the University of Missouri, and wanted to email you with regards to a concern I have after testing both IE7 and Mozilla’s Bon Echo. I’ve got numerous web apps, and am developing more as time goes on. Normally, our users use Internet Explorer.

Here in the last few months, I’ve started recommending to EVERYONE that they switch to Firefox. Now, I won’t deny I’ve always had a preference for Firefox, as trying to write HTML that works with IE has always been a pain, where Firefox seems to handle CSS/HTML standards with no problems. Interestingly enough, as people use FireFox, I’ve seen more and more websites clean up their code, once they realized how badly their HTML appeared when a fully standards compliant browser viewed their site. But, let me return to my recommendation, and why I’m recommending it, as well as why I’m email right now:

Simply put, Firefox in the web applications I’m testing performs VASTLY faster than Internet Explorer. And, I do mean VASTLY. Bon Echo, the new beta of Firefox renders pages in some cases twice as fast as Internet Explorer, with a seemingly smaller footprint. I’m using an eclipse.org webapp, called BIRT, to do reporting in our future web applications. Internet Explorer took almost twice as long to render the same HTML as Bon Echo. Using another public toolkit, called Echo2, the performance difference was also noticeable (although not as extreme).

Over the course of a year, those performance differences add up to a LOT of money for users making use of an application. If someone saves 1 minute an hour, 5 days a week, 52 days a year, at just $12 an hour, that’s $500 a year difference. Multiply that by 300 people, and that’s over $100,000 saved by using Firefox. That’s a number that’s very hard to ignore - particularly when considering all the other features that Firefox provides over IE 7.

The question now becomes this - what are you guys going to do about this? I’d be happy to recommend Internet Explorer over Firefox, if it could even render close to the same speed, or if it handled standards at a quality level even close to Firefox. However, right now, from what I’ve seen in performance, apperance, and numerous other features, Internet Explorer has just lost the web browser race.

So, what are you going to do to get back into it? IE 7 doesn’t seem to be enough in any way shape or form at this point.

I sent this, and I very much mean it. Right now, IE7 has totally lost the browser war. Firefox is so much faster, that when you start looking at numbers for people using web applications, Internet Explorer isn’t a viable option. Think about it - one business saving in time over $100,000 in a year by switching to Firefox? And, that’s probably a conservative estimate, when you consider things like extensions that Firefox has that can make it much more functional for some users, how easy it is to maintain/install/etc. (no reboots, for example), and how usable it is over Internet Explorer. This is even more the case if you consider IE7 (if you’ve tried the latest beta out). Things like how the menu system is driving me NUTS right now, and I know all of our users will be complaining about where their favorites went - URGH. I do think IE7 is going to be a royal pain in the butt for a long while.

More and more, I can’t help but see Firefox as the only real browser that’s even close to usable right now. And, looking at the garbage that seems to be Internet Explorer 7, frankly, Microsoft has lost this race.

I’ve been thinking about something for the last week or two that I felt I had to get some additional input and perhaps provide some discussion on an idea that came to me. I was helping a coworker out with a task, and afterwards, I did some serious thinking about how difficult it was to explain some basic concepts. I realized a few things afterwards that I want to share, but first, some basic background:

I was helping this coworker out by trying to explain how we image machines for end users. This radically simplifies the task of setting up machines. Instead of having to custom install office on every machine, we can just install it on the image, make sure the image is patched, and then use that as a base, and add components in afterwards as needed. This concept is used pretty heavily in the industry (basically every OEM machine that ships has an image of some sort on it). However, while trying to explain it to my coworker, he kept wanting to jump to the end, or had trouble thinking that one part of the process wasn’t the same as another part.

For example, we use ghost to save the image we create to a network share. We use another application, sysprep, to generate the system images. There was such a struggle on my coworkers part to understand these were two different applications that I realized something about how people think. Further, after looking at it a bit more, I realized that this relates not only to computers but any modern understanding of technology. What it comes down to is a pretty simple principle:

People as a general rule think of things as a whole. They have a “gestalt” mindset which refuses to think of things as individual processes. Engineers, good programmers, creators of any level of technology, scientists, and more “modern” (in my view) thinkers look at things not as a whole, but as a series or combination of processes with interrelated concepts, parts, communications, etc.

The easiest way to describe this concept that I can think of is to look at the simple concept of a car. Most people when they look at a car, see a whole unit. They don’t see a crankshaft or piston or any other part of the vehicle. They look at the car as a whole unit. When something goes wrong, it’s mysteries - most people have a general idea of how to fix things because they’ve gleaned enough information elsewhere or from people who do know to have an idea. Oh, lights are out, need to replace a lightbulb. Oh, 3000 miles, need to change the oil. Or, I hear loud noise - perhaps my muffler? They know enough to know there’s a problem or the vehicle isn’t acting normally and to know that they need to take it to someone to fix it.

Computers and other areas of technology, science, and who knows what else can all relate to this same difficulty in looking at things as individual processes. In computers, most people say “My computer is broken” or occasionally “The internet is broken”. They don’t think about things like “oh, my network cable or modem cable is unplugged” or “my power strip is turned off” or “my monitor has blown a tube”. I see this every day in computers - people complaining about problems when the real problem is a completely unrelated issue. Or, people complain about problems that are out of my control - i.e. the main campus mail servers go down, which our department has no control over, and people complain to us about their email not working.

This type of thinking, gestalt, vs. process oriented thinking is the reason I think there are so many difficulties with technology and with modern thinking. I know a lot of IT people who look at things in a gestalt manner and have no clue how things work behind the scences. Such people when I’ve encountered them can usually manage the basic tasks, such as installing an operating system, installing various hardware components, because they’ve learned by rote how to do so. They have enough understanding to allow minimal variations in the task. The level of variation depends on the person and the flexibility of their thinking of course. However, there are few “true” technicians who can debug a problem.

Difficulties in thinking of things as a series of processes vs. looking at things as whole systems is perhaps one of the greatest challenges people today face. I’ve lately come to think that that’s perhaps the basis for a lot of misunderstandings and inability to cope with modern technology, science, or to advance ones self beyond the basic level of a “User”. For the human race to progress into the future, I’d argue that people MUST start thinking in terms of processes instead of as whole systems.

There’s numerous other thoughts that go with this, and the concept of gestalt vs. process oriented thinking can apply to many areas other than technology. I have a friend who mentioned history as another example. To quote Laura’s response, “One can get a reasonable view by looking at the surface of things, but to really understand the reasons behind the situations, you have to look at all the processes that got everything to that point.” I’ve mentioned cars already, but I’d imagine other areas this issue of mindsets can apply would be to things like politics and more social aspects as well.

First, this is mostly in relation to a post by Scoble here earlier. Before I begin in my rant, let me say the only places I really use Microsoft products: On the desktop as a gaming platform, and on a fileserver/print server/active directory system to manage those desktops. Everywhere else, I’d prefer to use a Linux server, and this is why:

1. The place to begin is perhaps on the education side. I know of MANY teachers who can setup a server that allows 20 students to connect in for free - no licenses required and no effort. These teachers are usually pretty technically adept, in both windows AND linux. Linux isn’t that hard if you are technically capable (the difficulty of using linux is a pretty big myth). Often, they can do this on older hardware, so for them, the price is non-existent to get a full web server system up and running for a bunch of students to play around with. They have access to a system that’s pretty common elsewhere on the net - apache/mysql. Further, they then have an entire development system in one box, without having to have everyone purchase copies of C++ for windows or to download additional software onto their machines. It’s hard to beat that price and ease. I’ve had several classes which have had custom servers built by the professors because it was easier to do something along those lines when dealing with multiple people than the other option of using multiple windows servers. Oh yeah, and one other aspect of that - try comparing the resource use of 20+ linux sessions into a single box with full ssh access doing programming, vs. that many users with a remote desktop connection into a windows box doing programming. Guess which one uses less resources. And, though windows may be “easier” - I’d rather have students who can do things from the basest of systems, and work from there. You learn a LOT more doing so.
2. Let me go now into some of the reasons we use linux at work, even though we have the option of being all windows pretty cheaply. We’ve got probably 15-20 windows servers, all running windows 2003 and 3 or 4 linux servers. The university here has a big contract with microsoft, so the price is essentially nil (or miniscule enough not to be of consideration) so price isn’t too much of a barrier, and as such, we have the option of being entirely a windows environment. We aren’t for some very specific reasons: Stability under load, and Oracle database support. Oh yeah, and 64-bit support too. Let me explain:
   1. All of our windows servers have at one point, usually with-in a month or two at the VERY outside, gone down. Either it’s an error with a printer driver on a print server, a new patch that’s been released, some bug in Explorer.exe that crashes things, or something else along those lines. We’ve got a linux server box, that even with patches applied, has had an uptime of a year. No reboots. At all. At the end of that time, we shut it down to upgrade the kernel and move the server to a new location. This server has been under constant load with a fairly heavy OLTP style Oracle database, web server, mysql database server, smb file server, etc. etc. That’s hard to argue against.
   2. Oracle is another reason we use Linux instead of Windows. Yes, Oracle runs on a windows box, but I’ve always had FAR better luck getting Oracle working on a linux system. Or any unix system. First, there’s no registry to mess with - which is a pain with Oracle on windows. Startup/stops are simple shell scripts, not depending on anything but files. Linking is far easier, as is getting numerous other oracle integration systems working. And, if things ever do go wrong, removing Oracle on a linux box is FAR easier. Stability, performance also seem to be easier. The only thing that’s maybe not quite as easy - the initial configuration and finding applications. And frankly, if you’re using oracle, you should know the “oemapp” commands or how to use sqlplus in an efficient manner.
   3. Third aspect here - 64-bit support. Windows is getting there - slowly. I’ve had 64 bit systems here for quite a while, with all their applications full 64-bit enabled. I know of a ton of applications that aren’t anywhere close to 64-bit windows ready. On this linux box, ALL of the software that I’d need/want is already working fine.
3. Another major aspect that Scoble missed - ease of configuration. I’ll grant windows 2003 does a lot of things well configuration wise. Group Policy objects work pretty well in most systems - particularly on the desktop/client end. However, configuring a windows IIS system remotely for multiple virtual directory/balancing systems, in an efficient manner is a ROYAL pain. I guess IIS 7 is supposed to help with that, but Apache has been doing so for a LONG time, very efficiently. Or, trying to dig through a registry file to fix a shell extension issue said server has? Um, OUCH - even worse if it’s somehow the part of the registry which handles exe files has been corrupted. I’ve hit all of those issues before. On a linux server, if I’ve got a problem, it’s usually fixable very easy - and usually very quick. The configuration files are text files which are easy to edit, very well documented on each option, doing includes to have a custom frame for multiple users with each having their own virtual server type system, etc. is very very easy. I can’t imagine running a trusted web server on a windows environment.
4. Now, some other things that I think deserve mention:
   • Support for things like symbolic links which make life a lot easier for applications. Ever had a link that suddenly stopped working, b/c it couldn’t find the location? And, had that link decide to change locations?
   • What about things like the “locate” command - which allows INSTANTANEOUS finds of things in the server. I’ve yet to see a windows find system work as fast as a locate database. Not quite as handy for constantly manipulated file sharing, but still VERY handy overall.
   • What about the ability to remove a program, merely by doing something like “rm -rf /oracle”.
   • Oh yeah, did I mention being able to REALLY kill a process? Easily? and have it happen instantaneously instead of waiting forever for windows to kill that process? Or, having that process auto-restart because there’s another process depending on that one? And easy looking at the various processes?
   • Have I mentioned the plethora of software that’s easily available for install? i.e. things like nessus, nmap (and nmapfe), tcpdump, bash shell scripting (which REALLY makes development easier sometimes), etc.
   • I could go on and on here, but there are a number of reasons why I use linux. That’s a good chunk of them. In the end though, there’s a few things personally for my daily use which lead me to use linux:

     A decent shell system. I’m constantly doing commands in a terminal which take extensive time to do in a windows environment. I can do with vim/bash/gnome-terminal/sed/etc. things that people only dream of doing in windows. That kind of scriptability and functionality is hard to get easily in a windows environment - particularly when you consider the cost - FREE. Having multiple command lines open, and having the power of those command lines, is far, FAR faster than having to mmove a mouse around. Even knowing windows commands, linux is far faster from that aspects.

SO, to conclude, I’d say get a gentoo system up and running. It’s easy, let’s you learn about your computer, and gives you all the software you could imagine to do development work. You’ll never have to “upgrade” your operating system, but merely patch it on a regular basis to switch “versions” - one of the advantages of that linux system over redhat or other commercial distros. You can get a custom built, optimized system for your environment, with the libraries YOU want, not that someone else chooses for you. Etc. etc. Etc.

And with that, enough ranting on the wonders of linux, and the horrors of windows

I’ve just added a new “Projects” page for some of the projects I’ve worked on or developed. That list is fairly short right now, as I’m not including everything I’ve ever done, but there should be a few things of interest, including the original poetshome.com blog source code. It was a fairly efficient script thrown together when I first started up a blog. It’s no where near as powerful as Enlightenment, but it does have the feature of multi-user support that wordpress doesn’t have. However, it and some of the other code in there is pretty rough, so be careful with it. The rest of the links are pretty self-explanatory at this point. I intend to add more projects that I’ve worked on to the list as time goes on, and that’s also the page where I’ll be doing updates. If anyone has any questions on the source code, don’t hesitate to ask!

I wanted to do a quick post on something that stopped me and brought back a memory. I started doing java application programming around 4-5 years ago. At the time, Java looked like an excellent system due to cross platform development, object oriented, excellent database support, etc. I’m VERY glad I did, as Java is my “preferred” language 90% of the time. Of course, there are exceptions, as a language is a tool - and you should always use the right tool for the job. Java has just been an extremely flexible tool to me. Anyways, when I started doing Java program, I hit several limitations with various components in Java.

The thing that got me started thinking was the JComboBox component in java. The default Swing implementation was pretty simplistic and didn’t allow one feature that I’d really desired. The concept of shrinking the list to fit a specific set of criteria the user was typing in. As a result, me and a coworker ended up coding a custom implementation of a “ShrinkingComboBox”. We extended JComboBox, and created a custom editor, custom key/action listener, and a custom array list to handle matching values. It took a fair bit of time to complete this object. Cayle Graumann, a coworker who I work pretty closely with, spent a LOT of time and the majority of the effort getting this component to work. In the end, we had a solution that worked pretty well, but I don’t know that I’d consider it “optimal”. It’s something though that I’ve never seen anywhere else though, until today.

I was looking at the Oracle blogs when I saw a reference to a page on doing automatic completion with a JComboBox. Stopping and looking at that page, I was kinda amazed at the level of work involved in their implementation. It brought back all kinds of memories on the work involved in our implementation, and how much of a “hack” it was to get it all working. I’m not saying our implementation doesn’t work well or isn’t a good solution, but their implementation is interesting in the level of detail involved in the explanations of how they got it working. Further, they did something I’ve always wished I could do - released the source code for their implementation. This is why I love Open Source:

Imagine if I’d released the source code to our implementation a few years ago when we first created it. I KNOW others look for such components. I’ve got another component right now for NextApp’s Echo2 that several have expressed an interest in. If I could release the source code for the component, that means others could not only use that component, but then help me improve it. The guy who released the source code for JComboBox - I can’t imagine where it would be if I’d had some assistance there from the very beginning.

Now, I just gotta see if I can get the boss to let me open source some of the components. NOT the application of course, but a couple of the common components I’ve generated…. would make life a lot easier, long term, if I wasn’t the only one working on this stuff.

I’ve been watching an issue going around the net which deals with security, and keeping “secrets” with regards to a vulnerability. I feel that I needed to post a link to an article I agree heavily with, as well as say a few words. Toms Hardware has an article discussing some of the things that bother me so heavily about what happened at a security conference. I find the behavior here to be totally inexcusable. Further, due to Cisco’s actions, I’d also urge a total boycott of ANY of their products. Find an alternative. Any vendor which does this kind of behavior is simply evil in every way I can imagine. Instead of fixing a problem, they use litigation to try and make the problem go away. That’s a vendor I’ll refuse to do business with.

I’ve said this before to multiple people, and I’m saying it again now. Censorship, on ANY level is bad. I can understand up to a point, and ONLY up to a point, keeping some knowledge secret for a time period due to national security issues - some things have to be kept under wraps for a little while. Hoever, I firmly believe that after a time, that information MUST be released. Only in a society where secrets are kept can secret police, persecution, and other such horrific actions occur. In a society where things are public knowledge, eventually things will be brought to light. Look at the photos of the prison in Iraq, look at Guantonimo Bay (I ask pardon for the spelling here). Here in the United States, we’ve already got too much censorship - I have a great many issues with what’s going on in office right now, but that’s another discussion entirely, and not technically related.

What sums up my annoyance is this: a vulnerability such as this will be found. The internet is a public place, and there are no secrets there. At least, not any that last long at all. ANY company that chooses to try and hide their problems, instead of facing and dealing with them is a company I don’t want to deal with. That kind of attitude is totally dishonest, and a disservice to the company itself, and any organization dealing with that company. This is one reason I’ve been more impressed with Microsoft lately - they’ve been much more forthcoming on discussing and acknowledging their problems instead of using litigation to handle them. Even more, you have bloggers such as Robert Scoble and the whole blogs.msdn.com site acting as a very public entity, discussing problems and bringing some of the previously hidden systems to the public. I’m pretty impressed with Microsofts attitudes and allowing people to talk so publicly with no litigation backing. Even more, things like Microsoft’s treatment of a blogger who complained about their hiring practices, how instead of suing her, telling her to be quiet, take down the post, instead, they asked her what they could do to fix the problems. THAT is an company I’m much more willing to deal with.

Now, I still prefer to deal with open source vendors, as the code is public, you can’t hide vulnerabilities like the one Cisco is facing. It’s also putting yourself out in public in an extreme sorta way - I respect such attitudes greatly. You’re presenting yourself to the world, showing all your faults, asking for help dealing with them, etc. I just wish Cisco had been better about dealing with their problems. They could have taken any number of different routes - instead, they chose litigation, harassment, and fear.

PLEASE companies/people - fix your problems. Don’t use the law to try and hide them. Realize that if you try and use the law to do so, that’s a sign it’s time to no longer use your products.

As one slashdot reader put it so aptly, hell has frozen over and the devil has taken up hockey and ice fishing… Why you ask? Because not only is Apple switching to intel for their processors, but now, to add icing to the cake, they’ve finally released a multiple-button mouse named the “Might Mouse”. And it does look mighty nice indeed….

Reposted from my personal blog

First, a note. Let me say that I’ve been a massive Mac nut for the last 5 years or so. I switch back when OS X first came out, and haven’t looked back. At all. I’m still a heavy linux/windows user (mostly linux, but I need a gaming system), but for my “mainstream” work, I use a Mac. This includes all my programming and development work. I’ve been impressed with the stability, unix core, ability to use linux applications, scripting, etc. etc. etc. The reasons are numerous. With that, todays switch to Intel was somewhat of a shock.

Apple has been using PowerPC’s and NON-intel chips since the beginning. The fact that they’re switching to Intel after 20+ years is fairly amazing. Taken a step further, it’s like Ford saying Chevy’s engines are better and they’re going to start using them - a pretty big switch overall. It’s a massive, massive change. And, with that change there’s a lot of trepidation.

I was talking to Christian about it, and fairly well freaking out. Apple is switching to Intel…. what does this mean? Is it the end? It’s a cold day in hell, that’s for sure! Something I never dreamed of happening is finally coming about. I’ve done a LOT of thinking about it, and I’m still very… shocked? upset? Scared? Hell yes, scared - because I don’t know what will happen the next few years. I almost, but not quite, want to spend the $1500 to get the development system to try out OS X on an intel system. And, here’s a few reasons why:

1. Let me first post a link from insidemacgames.com. They have a post of comments from various mac game developers. The post to look at is the one from Ryan Gordon - a MAJOR mac developer/porter of windows games to Mac. That alone made me stop and think, and wonder if this might not be a bad idea, long term.
2. Another issue is that though Apple is switching to Intel, no other details exist on this yet. A major difference between the two systems has been OpenFirmware. I can’t help but suspect that you won’t be able to run OS X on any Intel hardware - you’ll need an OpenFirmware enabled system. And that’s going to be a major major change, long term. I’m waiting and seeing though, because who knows what other considerations there might be?
3. Some other notes. IBM really has dropped the ball on this. I like IBM as a company, particularly for what they do for Linux, but they REALLY screwed up with how they worked with Apple. I can’t help but think Apple should sue the crap out of IBM for failing to deliver on their promise of a 3ghz G5 with-in the given time. That’s a MAJOR money loss, not to mention loss of face, and overall, that kinda thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I believe you keep your commitments. IBM failing here is saying to me that the company really can’t be trusted.
4. What does this mean for Microsoft? This could be the BIG issue. What happens if you could order a machine with OS X or Windows? Frankly, for me, there’s NO comparison. I’d choose OS X in a heartbeat. And, I know a LOT of other people who would do so as well, they just didn’t want to have to buy the machine. SO, if all of a sudden you can get a commercial Operating System that runs on fairly cheap hardware, that you can build/upgrade/etc. yourself, windows really should be concerned.

I want to stress another point on the Microsoft side of things. The server side in particularly. Windows Server is one of the only, really “easily” installed server operating systems for Intel chips. OS X Server is a NICE server OS, allowing easy configuration of almost every server component. I’ve often wished for those admin tools to exist on linux systems. This could be a MAJOR challenge to Windows Server. Linux works REALLY well, and blows both away, performance wise, but configuration has always been a pain. Not to mention thinks like library issues and other problems getting software to work on Linux systems. I don’t mind myself - I have fun doing the configuration, and know what I’m doing. BUT, what about all those non-tech admins? Those who just want a simple system to maintain, easy to configure, not have to know a lot of details, etc.? Windows Server has been one of the only options. OS X Server could change a LOT in the server arena. And I do mean a LOT. Let’s take a quick look here:

Windows 2003 Server, Standard Edition retail, with 5 client access licenses runs something around the range of $1000. OS X Server right now, with UNLIMITED licenses runs that same price. For 5 licenses, it’s about half the price. And, considering it can pretty well replace without any difficulty, a windows 2003 server, and you’ve got a big change here. It’s all graphically based for all those normal users out there, easy to administer, etc. On top of that, you’ve got MAJOR Open Source server applications included, such as Apache, OpenLDAP, MySQL, etc. Some may not know what these are, but to give you an idea, about 60% (from memory - may be quite a bit more) of any sites you visit on the net run Apache. That’s a major web server in an easy to administer system running on a great platform, known for security and ease of use. Frankly, this is where Microsoft should be sweating.

Long term, who knows what will happen - I know I’m keeping my eyes and ears open, and hope to give that whole developer license system a good tryout God knows, I’d love to be able to run OS X on my home custom built AMD box (but, the AMD vs. Intel war is a whole different story, and one that hasn’t even been discussed in relation to OS X). For right now though, I’m looking on with trepidation, but also a lot of hope - hope for a future that’s far brighter than the one I’d seen with the dead end that IBM was giving out.

Just saw this link, and had to post this, although I haven’t looked at it too heavily yet. For free virus protection for Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. check out ClamWin. It’s another port of the ClamAV project, and there’s also an OSX port available.

I’m not sure if it’s as good as Norton or any of the other anti virus vendors, but it very well could be as good, if not better. Check it out, and clean up your computers!