The psychology of operating systems

Traditionally, among the taboo subjects you should not bring into a social event or a simple conversation between friends, colleagues or even strangers are religion, politics and sex. But nowadays, there's another subject, which can easily bring the worst of people or simply have people start acting on the defensive and that is operating systems. I am talking about Linux, Windows and also Apple Mac.
••• Fanaticism at its best
Each one one has its own horde of followers and fanatics, known as "fanboys" with its own "fanbase", thus "Linux fanboys" (check), "Apple fanboys" (check), "Microsoft fanboys" (?). To the latter, I'm not sure that there are actual fanatics of Microsoft in the same way there are 'religious' followers of Linux and Apple. This is, in addition, a male thing. I have yet to see a woman, and for that matter, a pretty and feminine one, who is an operating system fanatic. Nope. Hard to find. They may know the stuff but never, ever boast about it. It is usually guys, who without a doubt, think they are smart for the fact of having picked either Linux or Mac. •••Oh, glorious command line
A sign of a true geek, a tired notion, something that some guys never were able to overcome, is that, he doesn't care about grooming. Look at his desk, home, car, at his persona (a lot of incongruent "stuff" all over the place) and that's, perhaps, why they love the console, that little screen, usually with a black background, to type "commands". The console is the altar of, specially, Linux geeks. Typing commands, like in the prehistory of computers, is a "macho thing", the thing to do, to know, to practice, to live by, to google about, to chat about, to text about, to talk over the phone, most of the time with another Linux guy(s), who is geekier than thou. GUIs are for "sissies", then. Apparently, real Linux geeks don't care about "appearances", just about "the power", "the speed"... and that bring us to...
•••The beauty of software is a non-issue?
Have you noticed the elegance, the usefulness, the creativity of the new, or rather revamped, search engine Bing, compared to the traditional minimalist Google home page? Well, I believe this disdain for design, good visual design, is typical of open source guys, mostly hard-core Linux guys, and some software companies (IBM?). Like old fashioned engineers all they care about is that "the thing" works, the rest is fancy schmancy. Don't you find for example ugly and unfriendly Lotus Notes? Lately, in the Linux world they have improved considerably with nice GUIs like Ubuntu and OpenSuse, particularly KDE. I personally have installed, last year, and seldom used, Ubuntu, but I definitely prefer OpenSuse, in its new incarnation. After all, my first contact ever with Linux was back in 2002 with Suse Linux, and then in 2004 with Fedora and Red Hat, and finally in 2009. It's basically a copycat of Windows functionality, including the keyboard shortcuts. What innovation, computerwise, digitalwise, have Linux accomplished? I always wonder. They just reproduce commercial software: OpenOffice as a copy of Microsoft Office, GIMP as a copy of Photoshop, etc. The list goes on. I will keep an eye on that, too, anyway. And speaking of look and feel, that brings us to usability...
•••The line between looking nice and being secure has been blurred
For traditional Microsoft users, Linux is a cryptic operating system, not easy to use, etc. and that's because they have not seen the latest "distributions" like the ones I just mentioned. For traditional Linux users, yes, Linux fanboys, Windows is not secure, is not as sophisticated and don't give you complete access under the hood, and that's because they have not seen Windows 7 and much less Windows Vista. But I believe the distinction between these two operating systems is now blurry, and the war of operating systems is over. Who won? Apparently nobody, the status quo is the same and Linux continues to be an also-ran operating system after more than a decade of comebacks... Apple, on the other hand, has all not only the beauty but also the power of a modern OS and its based on Unix (!). If Windows and Apple were free, no money needed to get them, who would care about Linux? I ask.
•••Do you actually need the source code of your operating system and/or your favorite applications?
Really. Linux followers claim that if they get their hands into the source code to tweak your operating system or any application to do what you want to do... I mean, what else in the world you want to do? All the functionality you can think of is already there, the designers of the software thought of it all, trust me. Software is what it is, like geometry and algebra, there is only so much room for improvement, this science is already there, new "ideas" on how to open and close a door are redundant. It's like the automobile. The paradigm of and engine, a steering wheel, the front wheels, turning right or left, stopping and accelerating, that is already done, thought out. You can improve how the fuel is burned and processed to make it greener, etc. but THAT is about it. How many times do you you need to disassemble your radio, TV, cell phone, iPod to make it do exactly "what you frigging want it to do"?!!! Everything is already there, you don't need to go under the hood. You don't need to do anything else. Why? Almost nobody buys or downloads or acquires software because they have the ability to get the source code. There are other more important motives. That selling point for open source software is, in my view, moot, a non-issue. Of course some high priests in the temples of Linux, the 'initiated' actually compile their own kernel and distributions... and, sure enough, boast about it, and some even take it further and compile their own operating system and that's why you see some many "flavors" of Linux around. But don't get me wrong, developing, creating and 'debugging' software is and will continue to be a source of joy, pride, and yes, jobs. I love software, myself, creating it and using it, but it is not a religion for me, just a tool.
•••You get your money's worth
If you get something for free and something fails where do you go to complain? To the Internet social networks, to the blogs...? And having the source code will make your problem any easier to solve? How many users have that ability to read and interpret source code? Perhaps less than the 0.000001 %... If you pay for something, you have more rights, as simple as that. I make a living with computers, which are my tools. Shouldn't you pay for the tools of your trade? I always do. You, Mr. Electrician, do you expect not to pay for your tools?
Finally. No, Linux did not invent the GUI
An IT guy told me with a straight face that Apple and even the Xerox Alto machine were based on Unix, and that they "copied everything", when in fact that first modern computer visual interface was programmed using BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language), a language created in 1966, a few years before Unix was born... The rest is history: Apple took the GUI ideas and concepts from the Alto computer, etc. Linux is basically a spin-off of Unix (the kernel) and a knockoff of both Windows and Apple look and feel (KDE and GNOME). Now it looks nicer, and it may be user-friendlier, but operating systems based on text files are so 20th century! Yes, the power of the command line... 30 years ago. I know, Linux is used intensely to run the Internet.Yes, because it is brute force, a good workhorse, like a BIOS software, you set it and forget it. But that is the subject of another post, which I'm not going to write and don't care about... this subject is everywhere in the blogosphere.

Internet Explorer 8 (and below), security, Trojan horses...

There's definitely something wrong with Internet Explorer (Weird things that I don't see happen in Firefox or Opera with exactly the same Websites). These are the facts: 1) Pages with Flash player ask for an "update" even if the latest version is installed; 2) When going to msn.com (from New York City) it always asks me if my location is Canada or the US and no matter how many times I say I am in the United States (!), it will revert to asking the same question; 3) Trojan horses have a way to get into your system through Internet Explorer AND Firefox (that's my assumption) and spread to other applications (see MS Access screenshot on the right). For this last occurrence take for example the Trojan horse iolo System Shield caught the other day (IFrame.gen). I looked it up, but, curiously enough, the iolo System Shield that caught it did not provide information about it, so I googled it, and one of the search results "happened to be" (?!) a Website for a Chinese "antivirus company", which surely enough after having visited it my menus changed to Chinese language (!!!). To Microsoft credit I have to say that once I downloaded and installed the security updates and fixes, this menu option in Chinese disappeared. PLEASE NOTE: the Trojan Horse was however in the Firefox cache (!) so now I'm not sure if I should try Opera or Chrome instead.
And all of these is happening when I reinstalled Vista in a new hard drive. Other that these Internet Explorer annoyances my system is working perfectly well, thanks. So, I would ask the Microsoft techies (and yes the Firefox techies, too!) to please fix these annoyances and security lapses asap! For the time being I'm avoiding Internet Explorer as much as I can but I'm becoming uneasy with Firefox as well. In addition, let me say here that Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus, antimalware and antispyware (also installed in my computer) never was aware of this Trojan horse. On the other hand, do not trust Google or any other search engine to find information about viruses, the search results links provided are loaded and will most likely get you directly into the hands of the virus, malware and spyware bad guys, go directly to the trusted Internet security companies Websites, instead.

Merry Xmas and get ready for 2010!

Well, another year, another Christmas time, another victory on the road to living a good life. Let's celebrate with friends and family while enjoying a delicious fruit salad of glorious pomegranate and smooth Granny Smith apples. For all you who read this blog I want to send my best wishes for this holiday season and for a great New Year! Hang on! The best is yet to come ahead for those of us who have persisted and endured through difficult times. Life's many rewards await us.

Microsoft Security Essentials does the trick, does it not?

After one several years of using System Mechanic from iolo Technologies, and coinciding with the fact that my subscription was up for renewal this past Halloween, I decided to drop the entire security suite and go for the free Microsoft Security Essentials proposition, with antimalware, antivirus and antispyware included. However, something funny happened on my way to getting back my system to its usual stable state and that included a blue screen (the first one in more than a year!) but not before having my system frozen three times... I have to add here that I had also installed ZoneAlarm free firewall, another good product that I used for many years in Windows XP and previous versions. ZoneAlarm shuts down the Windows Vista firewall and everytime I turned it back on, my machine froze or got the blue screen, as mentioned. I gave Microsoft Security Essentials the benefit of the doubt and uninstalled ZoneAlarm. Now I'm back to normal.

Just a matter of knowledge and money

I would say that there are three major reasons why some people (regular folks) still use Windows XP (and I want to refer only to those who are very vocal against Vista):
1) They lack good IT skills and the knowledge necessary to understand why Vista and Windows 7 are SUPERIOR to XP, hands down.
2) They don't have the right hardware and/or don't know how to configure it correctly (see reason 1, above), and
3) They're cheap (cheapskates). As simple as that.
Companies, on the other hand, don't upgrade for the same reasons above, and the guys from their IT department are usually to blame (reasons 1 and 2). They usually are too comfortable using their old stuff (hardware and software) and too lazy to learn, so they advise companies not to use, for instance, Vista, because "it's buggy and slow, etc." Basically something they read or heard somewhere and never bother(ed) to try in the first place. I have withnessed companies using XP on machines with the Vista logo. How clumsy! they bought new equipment and bought also all the nonsense circulating about Vista and downgraded to XP (!), and on top of that they're still using Internet Explorer 6 (!). Again, if you still want to use Windows XP that is (literally) your problem, but what I find plain silly is getting a brand new computer (for those who can afford it) designed for Windows Vista and Windows 7, and then reformatting the hard drive to install XP (!) and then start comparing apples with pears...

SP2: Applications

1) 957388. Hotfix. December  2008 Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Update.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957388 2) 954366. Hotfix. The August 2008 Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Update is available.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954366 3) 951618. Hotfix. A black screen issue occurs on a Windows Vista-based computer or a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer that has Onekey Recovery 5.0 installed when you upgrade the operating system.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951618 4) 950636. Hotfix. FIX: SQL Server 2005 is not installed on a Windows Web Server 2008-based system.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950636 5) 947562. Hotfix. May 2008 Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Update.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947562

SP2: Base Technologies (1 of 9)

1) 968275. Hotfix. Windows Media Player may crash when you remove a USB device from a computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968275 2) 967670. Hotfix. The NFS services stop responding after a certain period when you use a Windows Server 2008-based server that has NFS installed to export NFS shares.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967670 3) 967666. Hotfix. After you sync a file in Windows Vista or in Windows Server 2008, the Date Modified time for the destination file may be updated to the current time.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967666 4) 967657. Hotfix. You cannot access a CD or DVD disc on a shared optical drive after you replace one disc with another on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967657 5) 967586. Hotfix. When you run a 16-bit application on a Windows Vista-based or Windows Server 2008-based computer that has the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service installed, some controls are not painted correctly.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967586 6) 967571. Hotfix. Error when you try to recursively delete a directory structure on an NFS share that is exported by a Windows Server 2008-based computer: "Permission denied".  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967571 7) 967535. Hotfix. FIX: A hotfix is available to fix two problems in ASP.NET on IIS 7.0 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967535 8) 967477. Hotfix. A WSD printer device displays a truncated IPv6 address in Device Manager and in the Function Discovery Browser utility on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967477 9) 967339. Hotfix. FIX: Error message after you use the ServiceKnownTypeAttribute class to specify types in an interface in the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1: "InvalidOperationException:Type 'System.Object[]' cannot be added to list of known types since  another type.”  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967339 10) 967326. Hotfix. Data loss occurs after you use the Dfsrmig.exe  tool to migrate the SYSVOL share from the FRS to the DFSR service in a Windows Server 2008-based domain.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967326 11) 967191. Hotfix. The Windows Experience Index rating and the WinSAT command do not work correctly on a Windows Vista-based computer that has more than 8 logical processors.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967191 12) 967168. Hotfix. Event 1005 occurs on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that is running Server for NFS when there is an unmapped user in the advanced mapping list.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967168 13) 967124. Hotfix. Hyper-V performance counters in Windows Server 2008 are displayed incorrectly or report incorrect data when you remotely query the counters from a Windows Server 2003-based computer.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967124 14) 967111. Hotfix. You cannot access a symbolic link by running Client for NFS if the path length of the symbolic link is too long.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967111 15) 966319. Hotfix. During user logon or logoff, you receive stop error code 0x00000050, and the system restarts automatically on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/966319 16) 965494. Hotfix. Stop error when a registry management problem occurs on a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1-based computer: "0x0000007E".  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/965494 17) 963676. Hotfix. FIX: The CLR fails with a fatal execution engine error, and a crash occurs when you run an application by using the .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963676 18) 963047. Hotfix. If you cancel the Select Certificate dialog box on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you are prompted two times for user credentials to access a WebDAV site whose SSL setting for client certificates is set to “Accept”   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963047 19) 963044. Hotfix. On a computer that runs Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, after you rename, delete, or move the files in a network share that is hosted on a Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008-based computer, files are still listed in the network share.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963044 20) 962969. Hotfix. Error message when you run Dfsradmin.exe to set membership properties in Windows Server 2008: "The property MemberSubscriptionReadOnly cannot be used".  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962969 21) 962932. Hotfix. FIX: Some East Asian glyphs are not displayed correctly on a Windows-based computer when you run  .NET Framework 3.5-based applications.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962932