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Microsoft

Submission + - CEO dares Microsoft to sue him by flouting software licensing rules (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Virtual desktop vendors are up in arms about the preferential treatment one company seems to be getting from Microsoft. To protest, tuCloud CEO Guise Bule is forming a new company that will intentionally violate Microsoft's licensing policies. The move is highly unusual, given the fact that vendors re-selling Microsoft software are typically unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them. "If they sue that business, I'll appear in court and shout and scream 'antitrust, anticompetitive behavior,'" Bule said. "I don't think they want that because they can't justify their licensing.""
Open Source

Submission + - How Red Hat killed its core product—and became a billion-dollar business (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "A decade ago, Linux developer Red Hat faced a decision that would make or break the company: whether to stop producing the very product that gave Red Hat its name. The company was built on Red Hat Linux, but when executive Paul Cormier joined the company as vice president of engineering in 2001, he knew Red Hat's devotion to open source alone couldn't create a business model capable of standing up to the Microsofts and Oracles of the world. He pushed for drastic action. Despite internal dissent (some engineers called Cormier "crazy") Red Hat dumped its free (as in beer) Red Hat Linux for the pricey, subscription-based, yet still open source Red Hat Enterprise Linux, creating a business model without disregarding the principles on which it was founded. Almost a decade later, the decision has paid off many times over: Red Hat will become the first billion-dollar open source company after its fiscal year ends Feb. 29."

Comment Always use vacation time (Score 2) 948

by jbrodkin (#38680524) Attached to: Do Companies Punish Workers Who Take Vacations?
Wow, in 12 years in the workforce it has never once occurred to me not to use all my vacation time, and I've also always insisted on comp time for traveling on weekends. I understand the reasoning (and as a work at home type I probably do too much work at odd hours) but most people need time off to recharge. As long as you prove your worth during your days on this shouldn't be an issue.
Nintendo

Submission + - Mario and Zelda: My 25-Year Love Affair (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "Hopefully this year's 25-year anniversary of the Zelda games didn't make you feel too old. One Nintendo nostalgist took a long look back and several decades of Zelda games — and Mario, Nintendo's other most beloved franchise — to try to figure out why these characters have remained fresh and lively (and lucrative) while others have faded."
Apple

Submission + - The first time I used an Apple computer was... (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "When I saw the news that Steve Jobs had died, I thought about 1984 (give or take), when I was about 5 years old and my parents bought an Apple IIe. It was the first computer I ever used. Even as a child, I knew there was something fundamentally new and exciting going on, that this was a step forward in human capability. At the very least, typewriters suddenly were archaic. We used the Apple to write school reports and play video games. We used floppy disks to load software and save files, and sometimes when I was bored of video games I played another game called "see if you can destroy a floppy disk." After years of using Windows as an adult, Apple crept back into my life with the iPod, and never quite left. As an occasional history buff, I marvel at the impact Jobs and his competitor Bill Gates had on my life and the lives of so many others. But mostly, I remember what it was like when I first used an Apple computer. All of us technology nuts have stories like this, so I asked my colleagues to share theirs. Here's what we came up with."

Comment Better than Chrome on Mac but worried about addons (Score 1) 495

by jbrodkin (#37460900) Attached to: Mozilla Contemplating Five Week Release Cycle
I switched from Firefox to Chrome 2+ years ago because at the time FF was constantly crashing. Just this week I switched back to FF because Chrome on Mac has had numerous problems for me over the past month. So far I am liking Firefox, but I am relying on a few plugins or add-ons. The quick development cycle will make it tough for users who have to rely on add-ons that may not be updated to support new browser versions immediately upon release.

Comment Re:Ziff Davis doesn't publish PC World. (Score 1) 53

by jbrodkin (#37408676) Attached to: Ziff Davis Secretly Paying Sites To Track Users

Parent is correct. Admittedly this story is up to /. standards, but the editors should fix the post. Parent is wrong about "published". PCMag isn't in print anymore, but is still a busy web site. Disclosure: I have written for them for many years and run the Security Watch blog.

Well, as an online writer I use the word publish to mean anything published online or in print. Hell, I read all my books on the Kindle now. Anyway, I used to write for IDG so I noticed the error right away.
Android

Submission + - 2 phones, 1 device: Samsung virtualizing Android (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "VMware’s mission to bring virtualization to the mobile market gained a major supporter last week when Samsung pledged to use VMware software to build business-friendly smartphones and tablets. The project known as Horizon Mobile will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android, in much the same way virtualization works on servers and desktops. The user essentially has two completely separate phones running on one device, and can switch from the personal one to the corporate one by clicking a “work phone” icon. With Samsung pledging to add VMware software to the Galaxy S II phones and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 tablets, virtualized Android devices are expected to ship within "the coming months.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Microsoft is still a giant no matter how you measure it, but its position as the world's dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk. The primary factors (cough, Apple and Google, cough) can be debated, but this article argues that Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses are in search, Web browsers, Web servers, mobile devices, and Windows itself. Microsoft was provided the list in advance of publication, but for the most part declined to provide specific responses."
Microsoft

Submission + - Reverse engineer Microsoft patches, launch attacks (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The security company Qualys this week demonstrated how to reverse-engineer a Microsoft patch to launch a denial-of-service attack on Windows DNS Server. The proof-of-concept shows the steps hackers could take to attack Windows and highlights the importance of deploying Microsoft patches as soon as possible after their monthly Patch Tuesday release. 'We reverse engineered the patch to get a better understanding of the mechanism of the vulnerability and found this vulnerability can be triggered with a few easy steps,' Qualys says. Qualys used a binary-diffing tool called TurboDiff to compare the unpatched and patched versions of the affected DNS Server files. Once the vulnerabilities were identified, Qualys set up two DNS servers in the lab and crashed one of them by typing in a few commands."
IBM

Submission + - IBM: The PC is the new mainframe (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "On last week's 30th anniversary of the IBM PC running Microsoft's MS-DOS, IBM CTO and PC co-designer Mark Dean said PCs are "going the way of the vacuum tube." But a more accurate description — courtesy of another IBM luminary — may be that the PC is going the way of the mainframe. While the mainframe still brings in lots of cash for IBM (yes, really), even IBM executives know that it's no longer the center of innovation in the IT industry. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a 41-year veteran of IBM and one of Linux's biggest champions at Big Blue, says PCs will become a legacy platform like the mainframe, "but the bulk of the innovation will now happen in the mobile platforms, smartphones and tablets." IBM realized this is selling off its PC business, and perhaps HP is now doing the same."

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