Any trash supervisor can search my trash can if they want to. I just don't know if it's worth it - two big labradors generate a fair amount of dog shit, and that is the last thing in the can before trash day.

Yeah... I'm thinking that the Pirate Party can do without pedophiles.

I agree with your assertion that it's a problem for the industry as a whole. In terms of products for home users the market is really sparse, and I don't like having to hassle through any of the stuff either, even on the enterprise side.

A quick google of "update checker" brought up this result: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

Sounds like that might help some. I haven't tried it but running that once a month, then hitting Windows Update would probably keep your bases covered pretty well.

Anyhow, I'm not disputing that the situation sucks, but I am disputing the notion that there aren't ways to address patching. Cheap? No. Available? Yes.

Sorry, that's not the case. I'm not happy about this month's load of patches, but there are perfectly good patch management solutions out there that can manage multiple vendors and products with ease. I've had pretty good luck with Patchlink, and expect that in the next day or so I'll have a reasonable amount of information to go through to determine what needs to be patched. And when I have a question I know I can contact someone there to get more specifics.

I think what a lot of people don't like is that there's not a *free* patch management solution that is as effective as some of the paid ones (such as Patchlink). But that is a complaint based on price, not on availability. There are working solutions out there, it's just that many of the good ones often cost money. As an enterprise user I need the resources and continuity that a commercial product can contractually provide.

As for package management as it relates to Windows, that's different than patch management. The benefit that an OS like Ubuntu brings to the table is a dead-simple updating mechanism that can cover multiple products. It can be used to roll out patches, sure, and it is. But it is also used intensively for rolling out cursory product updates which have more to do with bug fixes than security flaws. Is that because Ubuntu or other Linux flavors are more secure? Probably - but a lot of that also comes down to market share more than programming quality.

One way or the other, the statement that patch management is a total nightmare isn't the case - it just depends on the approach and purchasing priorities that you set.

Disclosure: I don't work for nor have I ever worked for Lumension, and I haven't received anything (and won't) for posting this.

Good point - but then you're hitching the proverbial wagon to not just one vendor now, but two. While you could approach the problem this way, wouldn't it be a lot more efficient to just work with the web app vendor to build in compatibility?

Clearly it can be done - I'm betting that Hong Jen Yee would be up for a nice paycheck for this kind of work.

The problem isn't that companies can't deploy Firefox - it's that most vendors are IE-centric. It's easy to put together a default Firefox profile with the requisite bookmarks and customizations, but tougher to get the same "experience" when it comes to things like Sharepoint and SAP, among others. Once you can get some of those vendors (ok, maybe not MS) to play more nicely, the rest will take care of itself.

I'm not saying it's all Mozilla's fault - in fact most of it isn't. But some corporate evangelism would go a long way towards getting traction within the enterprise.

I agree with you that it's exercise - but the focus of the story is a gaming console. And that console is focused on entertainment.

There are games that involve exercise that can be fun, yes. But they're not ones that I'm going to come back to as often. After all, does playing what are essentially Marble Madness-type games win out over possible game of Mario Kart, Splinter Cell, or Gran Turismo (to name a couple)?

Not usually.

Unit sales don't automatically equal usability.

I'd agree with that statement if not for the fact that I've got a Wii Fit board sitting in the garage gathering dust. It was fun for a week or so, but it didn't endure as an enjoyable thing to do.

Perhaps if I was overweight I would be more motivated to use it, but it became more of a chore than fun. That's not a good indictment of a game console / hardware accessory.