Practical Technology

for practical people.

October 15, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

No, that’s not the Google Chrome OS

I know lots of people who really want to see Google’s Linux-based Chrome operating system. I should. I’m one of them. But, alas, that story going around that there’s been a leak of Chrome isn’t true.

The tales goes that this guy was knocking around Google’s Chromium file archives, when he found the code for the operating system. He then announced his findings and released the code on RapidShare, a pay to download Web site.

Interesting download site choice don’t you think? That’s what I thought. I then looked at the screen shots and I thought this looks real familiar. Of course, it did. I quickly recognized an early version of Google Chrome Web browser for Linux.

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October 15, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News

The good news is that Microsoft says it thinks it can get most of your data back. The bad news is how the problem happened in the first place.

OK, here’s the good news about the Microsoft/Sidekick data loss fiasco: Microsoft corporate vice president Roz Ho claims that “We have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage.” Here’s the bad news, the data was lost in the first place because of a “system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up.”

I’ll get back to why that’s bad, but first, let me point out that Microsoft isn’t saying the problem’s all better now. They’re saying that they think they can get most of the data back for most Sidekick users. Microsoft engineers are working on restoring customer data, starting with contact lists and then moving on to other information. But, “Before Microsoft begins this process, the company must first check the data to make sure it is stable and finalize the data restoration plan.”

In other words, don’t hold your breath. I’ll be interested in seeing how many of the burned Sidekick users actually get all their data back at the end of the day.

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October 14, 2009
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Snow Leopard hungers for your data

Usually, Microsoft makes the big security blunders, but with Snow Leopard Apple shows they can also compete with Microsoft when it comes to making really awful security mistakes. How awful? How about making it possible to easily lose all of your data? Is that bad enough for you?

And, here I was feeling sorry for the Sidekick users who lost all their so-called smartphone data )! It’s one thing to lose all your mobile phone files that should have been kept safely on the cloud, it’s a much bigger disaster when you lose all your PC’s data.

Apple has admitted that Snow Leopard can sometime lose everything a user has in his or her home folder. The company also promises a fix Real Soon Now. Don’t you just hate that?

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October 14, 2009
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot

I don’t just write about the Linux desktop, I use it every day. At my desk, I tend to use MEPIS and Mint. On the road, it’s Ubuntu on my Dell netbook and openSUSE on my Lenovo ThinkPad. I do this because they work well and they’re as safe as a desktop operating system can get. So why aren’t more people using them?

The biggest reason is Microsoft. Microsoft is a jealous monopoly and doesn’t want to share the desktop with anyone. Desktop Linux is just another target in a long list that has included OS/2, DR-DOS, and, that eternal thorn in their side, the Mac. It’s no surprise then to see that in the history of the Linux desktop Microsoft has always tried to crush it.

For example, the very first attempt at a mass-market Linux desktop, 1999’s Corel Linux Desktop lasted less than a year. Why? Because, in 2000 Microsoft paid off debt-ridden Corel to kill it.

Much more recently, Microsoft, caught by surprise by the rise of Linux-powered netbooks, brought XP Home back from the dead and offered it to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) for next to nothing to stem Linux’s rise on low-end netbooks.

OK, it’s hard to beat a monopoly that will do whatever it takes to make sure people don’t see that there’s a better, cheaper alternative I get that. At the same time though Linux has shot itself in the foot quite often.

How? I’ll tell you how.

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October 14, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

Financial Management for Hard Times

Businesses are at a critical point. Global financial markets are under stress; they are not following fundamental economic principles, and companies cannot get loans and financing easily, if at all. On top of that, demand for products and services is falling, and risk avoidance is paramount.

As a result, businesses are refocusing on short-term, financial imperatives — cost savings, cashflow preservation, meeting financial covenants, maintaining access to financing, and better risk and credit management.

All of that might make you feel like a mouse in a house full of traps and cats. But if you can identify the key issues — with the help of a good enterprise resource planning (ERP) or e-commerce system — you can still assemble a solid financial management solution for hard times.

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October 13, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

Sidekick: Microsoft’s biggest failure yet?

You can’t make stuff this bad up. Many T-Mobile Sidekick smartphone users lost all their contacts, calendar entries, photographs, you name it, when Sidekick’s back-end software provider Microsoft, Danger, went down.

Danger turned out to be an all too apt name. Sidekick users use the Danger servers to synchronize their smartphone’s content with a cloud-based storage service. When the servers went down, during it seems, an upgrade of Danger’s SAN (storage area network), all the online user information disappeared with it. You see, while neither Microsoft nor T-Mobile is saying exactly what happened, it appears that Danger didn’t back-up its servers before launching into a major, and failed, SAN upgrade.

I don’t know about you, but any where I’ve ever worked, not running a backup before any major upgrade is a firing offense. And, not just any firing, this is a “don’t let your feet touch the floor as the security cops run you out of the building” crime.

This isn’t just a tech problem though. This is an organizational problem. This is a case where firing them all, from the top down, and letting unemployment sort them out is appropriate. There is simply no way on Earth that Microsoft should have tried this ‘upgrade’ without knowing that a backup was set, checked, and ready-to-go.

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