WorldCAD Access

Prediction: MSFT/YHOO

My prediction: Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo will screw up Microsoft even more than it is now. Read more →

Ban the Crease

Dennis O'Reilly of CNET's Worker's Edge starts of the new year with this announcement in Dual-boot Windows and Linux, step 1: Get Ubuntu: This is the year I kiss Windows good-bye. Well, maybe not entirely, but the writing is on the wall for Microsoft's flagship operating system, and all other desktop bloatware. He plans to install Ubantu on his computer, and the first entry talks about downloading latest version and then burning the ISO image on a CD. I trust he will have better luck than me. I suspect he has, because the column reads like it was pre-written in... Read more →

Many Vista Irritants

Zero Bytes Free Windows Explorer reports the amount of free disk space on its status bar. I like that. Open the Recyle Bin, however, and it always reports the same amount of free disk space: none. Disk free space: 0 bytes. That's not true, and is odd when you realize that "Recycle Bin" is just Explorer pointed to the recycle bin folder. Stupid Explorer Toolbar Choices Microsoft really fell down the GUI mountain with its ribbon bar design. I won't get into all the problems being caused by it. Then there is the poorly done, ultra minimalist redesign of Internet... Read more →

Vista Can't Subtract

Another reason to avoid Vista: it cannot subtract. (I suppose we already knew that with the math bugs being found in Excel.) According to Microsoft propaganda, the company hires the smartest people in the world. Yet, they cannot subtract. My uncle had one of his sermons posted to his German church's Website. My parents wanted to hear it, but are not savy in the Way of The Podcast. So, I downloaded the 30-minute MP3 file, converted it to WAV, and then wanted to burn it to a CD -- which they could listen to in their car. Upon inserting the... Read more →

Next Reason To Avoid Vista: PhotoSmart

None of HP's PhotoSmart-line of printers is supported by Vista -- neither by Microsoft nor by HP. This Web page compiles the short list of printers supported by HP on Vista: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument I have an HP PhotoSmart P1100 printer, which has worked flawlessly in the 5-6 years I've owned it, so I don't need a different color printer for printing photographs. The printer will work from Vista, but the grainy result isn't worth it. Before the Microsoft fanboyz chirp up with silly excuses like, "Do you really expect a 5-6-year-old device to be supported today?", I'll point out that Vista... Read more →

Triple Vista Update Screws Up Hardware

With Vista being such a poor operating system, I was hoping this weeks triple update would fix some of the problems. My Vista-equipped HP notebook computer downloaded the 22MB of updates, rebooted, and then was screwed up. Neither the mouse nor the built-in nVidia graphics board worked. (I could use the built-in pointing device, and had to run the widescreen LCD at an eye-straining 1024x768 -- due to the incompatibility of Vista's preset resolution and the widescreen LCD, the display is blurry.) The nVidia driver complained that the resources it needed were unavailable. I uninstalled the three updates, each one... Read more →

Windows Experience, Live

I discovered the utility on my new HP TX1220 notebook computer that tests how "good" it is for Windows Vista. (What happened the the good old days when the OS was good enough for the hardware?) I started the utility and it takes a while to run. After a while most of the screen went white (better than going blue, I understand), and then displayed this error msg: (The image is a photograph, since screen grabs no longer worked.) Read more →

Another Reason to Avoid VistaLousy Sound

I've mentioned it before, but now a Microsoft employee admits to the problem in his blog. Windows Vista does not properly playback sound -- whether from CDs, MP3s, or DVDs. The problem is that Vista has so much going on that sound playback occasionally gets a low priority, resulting in a split-second blip or gag every few seconds. The problem is severe enough that I reinstalled my 15-year-old Pioneer cartridge-CD player in order to listen to music. What Microsoft hasn't admitted yet is the reason Vista has so much going on that music becomes a low priority for my computer's... Read more →

The Man Most Feared by China

Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org lists the two men most feared by the Chinese government in All hail, Bill Gates the Great. Number 1 on the list, Bill Gates, because he wants to control all transactions that occur on the planet. (Number 2 was, at the time, Pope John Paul II, "because his followers were committed to honoring an authority far higher than the state.") Put yourself in China's place: if you feared Mr Gates the most, how might you deal with him and his organization? Read more →

The Failure of Vista

During the life of Windows XP, it was popular enough that Microsoft Canada (1) never put it on sale; and (2) consistently over-charged customers for it, relative to the Canada-US exchange rate. The upgrade price for XP Home was almost always $149 in Canada, $99 in USA -- even when the exchange rate would have priced the monopolist's product at $129 and lower. Not so with Vista. Mere months after it became available as a retail product, it is being sold at a discount nearly non-stop. Yesterday, on Amazon.ca, some of the myriads of Vista variants are 15% on sale,... Read more →

There's Just No Money In Being A Headline Writer

Techmeme this Sunday afternoon records the following headlines from many "different" news sources: Podcasting News: New Zune Coming Monday iLounge: New Zune on Monday? InsideMicrosoft: Major Zune Announcement Monday ClicZune: Zune Announcement on Monday? Gizmodo: NEW PLAYER? Zune Announcement This Monday Engadget: New Zune at Microsoft event on Monday? CrunchGear: Major Zune Announcement on Monday! WaggEd must be pleased. Read more →

Are Windows Error Msgs Easter Eggs?

Easter Eggs are hidden bits of code designed to surprise and delight you. I sometimes wonder whether messages from Windows fall into the same category. Your Recharging Computer Needs to Be Recharged Last year I reported on the warning from Windows that my notebook computer's battery was low, and that it should be plugged in to recharge -- even as Windows also displayed the lightning bolt icon that indicates the battery being recharged (which it was). This Temporary Change is Permanent This week I set up my dad's new 17" Toshiba notebook. He still uses dial-up, and to test his... Read more →

Vista's Chains Free Us From Microsoft

Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications lists the following messages from Vista that block your workday, an operating system that took ten thousand people five years to ship: * You must be logged in as administrator to change this setting. * Upgrade has been disabled. * Windows is trying to determine why Internet Explorer is not responding. * To help protect your computer, Windows Firewall has blocked some features of this program. * Genuine validation required for Windows Vista. A properly licensed copy of Windows Vista that has passed Microsoft Genuine validation is required to enable certain features and obtain non-security... Read more →

In the Persuit of Change

A friend writes me: I'm writing this with Windows Live Mail Beta. I'm trying to figure out how this is better than the old Hotmail interface, and how Microsoft is going to reconquer the Web with their Live initiatives. I think I'll be wondering for quite a while. There's nothing here that is new, innovative, or even better. And some parts just plain don't work right (like the address list). Yes, it's beta, but so is Google Mail, and GMail is a dream compared to Windows Live Mail. And he's a techie. My wife uses Hotmail, and occasional gets email... Read more →

Different Decade, Differently-worded Headlines

Today's headlines: * ComputerWorld: Microsoft uses Zune to stab friends in the back * Cybernet News: My Experiences with Windows Vista…and Why I’m Still Using XP * Stowe Boyd: Microsoft Eats Its Young * Barrons: Microsoft Music Partners Get the Shaft * ComputerWorld: Iowa antitrust case: Microsoft exec called software developers 'pawns' These headlines are remarkable, because journalists today feel free to write the truth about Microsoft. The oppressive hand of Microsoft PR no longer casts its black shadow across the happy people of Techville. Ten-15 years ago, the headlines would have read differently: * Microsoft uses Zune to pat... Read more →

Microsoft: Two Monopolies Are Insufficient

From today's Globe&Mail, Bill Gates adds "way" to his name: Gates aims to be digital content king: Microsoft chairman, in CES keynote speech, sees his company as an all-purpose gateway. The monopoly in OS and office software is insufficient. Gates now greedily wants to control the flow of all things digital. It would appear that the Gatesian dream has changed from "information at your fingertips" to "information through my fingertips." He is no longer satisfied with providing tools that let us acccess information more easily; the world's richest man now schemes to determine which information we will be permitted to... Read more →

First Timebomb Explodes in Vista

Last week came proof that Peter Gutmann's thesis is not FUD [fear uncertainty doubt]. The computer science professor from the University of New Zealand describes how the Vista operating system is fundamentally flawed. The Gutman paper lists several doomsday scenerios. The most serious, in my opinion, is Microsoft's ability to remotely shut down all Vista display drivers should a security flaw be found. (Your computer would still run in VGA mode, at a tiny 640x480 resolution and a mere 16 colors.) The security flaw could be something like a cracker finding a way to copy videos -- a security issue... Read more →

The Zune Failure as Case Study

I think that the Zune's failure to launch will become a textbook case study for students of business and marketing. Here is are links to the outfall, as Microsoft's external marketing firm, Edelman, is frantic at making a recovery. Frantic, because a failure this big could cause them to lose the Microsoft account. The blogosphere is ensuring the recovery is fumbled: * Valleywag: Zune Abandons hostile blogosphere. Microsoft's marketers had entertained a fantasy: that the blogs, which increasingly determine buzz on products, would embrace it; the virtues of digital device would spread, virally, as people exchanged music with their friends;... Read more →

Microsoft: Millions Sold

Two headlines (based on Microsoft press releases) this week make it sound as if the convicted-monopolist is successful in areas outside of its monopoly: * Reuters: Microsoft to ship over 10 million Xbox 360 units by the end of 2006. * Associated Press: Microsoft: 1M Zunes to be sold by June. To you and I, these headlines read like consumers are snapping up those hardware products. But Microsoft's definition of "sold" differs from your's and mine. What it sells is not necessarily what we buy. Thank you to Reuters for including Microsoft's definition of "sold": That "sold" number refers to... Read more →

Browser Downloads

Following the announcement of the official release of updated Web browsers: In the first 36 hours, three million copies of FireFox 2 were downloaded. In the first 96 hours, three million copies of IE7 were downloaded. Read more →

On the First Anniversary of Microsoft Live

"Microsoft officials declined several requests for interviews to discuss the company’s first year progress on Live -- the initiative which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently pegged as Microsoft's number one priority." -- Mary Jo Foley, All About Microsoft The sound of silence tells us there is an internal crisis, because Microsoft PR hasn't determined yet how best to spin the bad news. (Perhaps they were exhaused from their hard work condeming those who revealed flaws in IE 7 earlier this week.) A search engine research firm last week noted that Microsoft's share of the search market fell from 8% to... Read more →

Getting Shot in the Head

Pete Wright used to write books and programs for Windows. On Sept 11, on his Weblog, Strange new worlds, and programming languages..., he describes his bitter experiences with Microsoft, ones that strangely parallel my own: "Good bye Microsoft; Pete has now left the building!" On getting the ice treatment for not towing the Microsoft line: I'm on Microsoft 'influencer' lists, email lists where Microsoft people try to get me to tow the company line and say great things about them and their products because it's perceived that I have an audience. The times that I've deviated from that line though... Read more →

Why does this pair of headlines (both appearing yesterday) worry me? * Microsoft to sell software tools for games - AP. * Microsoft warns game developers of security risk - Yahoo. This appears to be proof that Microsoft still doesn't get it -- akin to its disastrous decision to allow VBA macros to be stored in Office documents. Read more →

Microsoft's Lie to XP Upgraders

My son wanted to upgrade his computer from Windows 2000 to XP -- for the sole reason of being able to play certain games that work only with XP. He did the legit thing: purchased the overpriced XP Upgrade box from Future Shop. (Why overpriced? Because the American list price is $99, the Canadian exchange rate is about 1.10, so Future Shop and other Canadian retailers should be pricing the software at $110 -- but choose to sell it for $20 above the fair price.) He called me from the store: "Dad, the box says it upgrades from Windows 98,... Read more →

Apple Does It, Too

It's not just Microsoft's pr people who terrorize journalists. Other vendors do it, too. A billion-dollar-a-year corporation threatening a law suit is a great way to shut up a journalist. It's been done to me. Tom Yager of Infoworld documented how Apple recently sent him their terriers to adjust his incorrect thinking. Here are some of the tactics used on him: "... they felt I had given a year-old story a fresh coat of paint..." The terriers try to spin the story as an old one. Other versions I've heard include "Let's move forward", "That's not relevant today," and "Our... Read more →

12. Feel the Ice

There is an annual event called COFES, a kind of exclusive weekend for elite members of the CAD world (computer-aided design) locked away in a luxury resort on the outskirts of Scottsdale Arizona. I've been to three of them. At one of them, I was even the recipient from The CAD Society's "Community Award" for the (by now) twenty years I've spent reporting on CAD software. (Oh, and I've been recipient of the "Best CAD/AEC/PLM Editor of 2004" award from Strategic Reach.) This particular year, the Microsoft attendees were being pouty. I suspect the contingent, with their joined-at-the-hip PR advisors,... Read more →

New Name for Vista

Windows XP SP3 Read more →

11. Unleashing the Inner Rottweiler

In an earlier entry on Microsoft's mistreatment of me, I reported how the company's pr firm harasses member of the media. It's one of their psychological tactics to ensure information about Microsoft is disseminated in an manner approved by the Higher Masters. With Microsoft's purchase of Visio, and with my involvement with Visio, the "relationship" with Microsoft began anew. In mid-July 2000, I was invited to meet with numerous Visio-turned-Microsoft employees to talk about the future release of Visio 10. Towards the end of the day-long meeting, I was introduced to my new pr contact. She was young, from one... Read more →

10. The Day the Visio Books Died

In the last installment, I wrote of how WordWare Publishing asked me to write a book about Visio. I ended up writing nine: "Visio 4.0 for Everyone" "Learn Visio 5.0" "Learn Visio 5.0 for Advanced Users" (customizing and programming) "Learn to Diagram with Visio 2000" (a very basic book) "Learn Visio 2000" "Learn Visio 2000 for Advanced Users" "Learn to Diagram with Visio 2002" "Learn Visio 2002" "Learn Visio 2002 for Advanced Users" - co-authored with Frank Zander (You can purchase the last two as PDF books from my eBooks.onLine site. Click their title names, above.) Through to the Visio... Read more →

9. The unFunded Newsletter

My second last experiences with Microsoft came through Visio. WordWare Publishing asked me to write a tutorial book on Visio, and it sold so well that I wrote several. While Visio Corp was still independent of Microsoft, the company treated me very well. So that I could write a better book, they sponsored me for a week's training in shapesheets and the like. Microsoft bought Visio for $1.3 billion in January 2000, and the software became nearly invisible. Aft first, I was treated well, because I was still dealing with many of the same employees. But in amongst all else,... Read more →

Scarey Article for People Who Hope to Keep their Jobs at Microsoft Longterm

Nicholas Carr asks on his Weblog: "Will Google win the enterprise?". He quotes the CIO [chief information officer] of The Weather Channel: "We're not far from fostering greater productivity with Google's name on it." The CIO earlier notes how productivity increased when software moved from mainframes to desktop computer; he figures the next leap will occur once Web-based apps are stronger than those running on desktops. Why will Google win over Microsoft and others? + Google is unencumbered by legacy architecture. + Google has a utility computing infrastructure already in place that more advanced than what any big enterprise IT... Read more →

Invite the Librarians

Several posts ago, I described Microsoft Marketing's tactic of inviting in a group of users to talk about how they employ software in their narrow niche. The true aim is to use the invited opinion-leaders to spread the word about the new software relatively cheaply. It appears Microsoft continues to use the tactic. " Dean" of UBC Google Scholar Blog.folio and other librarians were invited down to Seattle. ...a group of librarians and information professionals (and, as we learned yesterday, a number of publishers) were brought in to review Microsoft's Academic Search. The librarians were asked to comment on the... Read more →

Religious Fervor

Weblogs are buzzing over this statement Steven Ballmer made in an interview with CNN: My children -- in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod. Atheists complain about religious-minded parents brainwashing their children with anti-facts (faith), but here is the head of the most influential technical company (well, maybe Intel is) in the world brainwashing his kids with anti-faith (facts). Now who's irrational -- the technonerds or the there-must-be-more-to-life-than-what-our-brains-can-sense crowd? Reminds me of me and my... Read more →

Why Do I Need Vista?

In my younger years (and when I still lived near Jericho Beach in Vancouver BC), the lyrics from one mid-30s female singer at the annual Folk Music Festival stuck with me: "Ladies! Can you hear it? It's your biological timebomb." The dilemma of holding off having children, yet knowing the deadline was approaching. Microsoft's multi-year delay of Vista reminded me of that moment on the beach. In today's case, the dilemma for the software monopolist is being late selling software no customer needs. Almost all the computers in our office run Windows 2000; the exception is my new notebook with... Read more →

Am I Smarter than Bill Gates?

There was a time, before his handlers reigned him in, that Bill Gates would respond to media questions with this preface: "I don't know how technical you are...". His arrogance resurfaced last week in the widely publicized putdown of competitor's attempts to bring computing devices to the Third World. * When Bill Gates predicted the TabletPC would be the most popular computing device by 2006, I disagreed, and I was right. * When Microsoft said Windows Vista would ship in 2006, I said 2007. And now Microsoft agrees with me. Shouldn't I be the brains behind Microsoft? And the new... Read more →

10 Reasons to Not Care

PC World gets a lot of advertising money from Microsoft, so naturally they're pretty excited about the next cash cow: Vista upgrades, plus all the advertising from hardware and software upgrades that Vista will force on you.Here is Michael Desmond's list of Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista and my commentary: 1. Bidirectional software firewall -- already have that through the free ZoneAlarm. 2. Internet Explorer 7 -- Opera 8.x is much better at the same price (free) 3. Righteous eye candy -- I always turn off all effects, such as cursor drop shadow. The only effect I use is... Read more →

12 = 2007

The headline from The Register says it all: Microsoft in Office 2007 shocker: What was wrong with Office 12? The accompanying article makes no mention of it, but the headline is poking the eyes of Microsoft Marketing with a blunt stick. I've mentioned before how Microsoft Marketing uses psychological warfare to keep reporters in line. One of the threats is against calling the next release of Office by its real name until permitted to do so. Toe the line, you keep on being fed. Read more →

8. Control Freaks

Microsoft marketing uses a variety of psychological tricks to control journalists. These typically consist of making silly, inconsequential demands. One example: journalists will be told they cannot mention one specific feature, or cannot show screen grabs. Here is another example I came across today, which illustrates that Microsoft continues to engage in this behaviour: Microsoft is now referring to the next version of its desktop office suite, code-named "Office 12," as "Office 2007." Microsoft watcher Steven Bink is reporting that Microsoft officials used the Office 2007 name at IT Forum. -- from Microsoft Watch When a new release of Office... Read more →

7. Swallowed Up

For final years of the 1990s, I had no contact with Microsoft marketing, to my relief. In 2000, this changed. A tributary of the The Microsoft Chronicles involves Visio, the maker of a diagramming software package. Visio was located in Seattle (near Microsoft) and always made its software very compatible with Microsoft's. In summer 1999, the executives of Visio decided they'd like to cash in by selling themselves to Microsoft. They gave these two primary reasons: 1. Visio stock was languishing, while Microsoft's was galloping upwards toward $120. 2. Visio sales would benefit from Microsoft's international sales force. The price... Read more →

4. The Strange Incident of the New President

Perhaps the strangest incident of Microsoft marketing's anti-media campaign I experienced was The Strange Incident of the New President. I was a part-time editor at a city magazine, which had decided to add a four-page computing supplement. We had no problem getting editorial content; we needed advertising to fund the fledgling effort. Around this time, a Microsoft marketing firm invited us to the downtown office to meet the new head of Microsoft at an international division outside of the USA. Ah, a human interest story, perked up the managing editor of the magazine. So we headed downtown. The managing editor... Read more →

6. The False XBOX Shortage

When some gamers went wild about the launch of the XBOX 360 in North America, observers wondered about the cause: - Was the shortage artificially created by Microsoft? - Was the demand created by a few gamer crazies who buy the first new gamer box, no matter the brand. - Were the shortages caused by the 44,000 sold on eBay? No matter, what the cause, Microsoft marketing did its share in hyping the potential frenzy. As I documented in an earlier posting, Microsoft reported on the expected lineups and shortages a day before the gaming computer went on sale. The... Read more →

5. September 16, 1996

The first editor to stand up to Microsoft was over at InfoWorld. Nick Petreley checked out a claim Microsoft made of Windows NT Server [version of NT for server computers] and Workstation [for desktop computers]. (Windows 2000 and XP are based on NT.) Microsoft claimed the two products were different: "...the source code for the kernel has embedded statements -- #ifdef statements. These cause the compiler to produce different executables depending on whether the target is a server or a workstation." Petreley revealed the lie: the core of the two products was identical -- "...Windows NT's own file-compare program will... Read more →

Why I Am Not Excited About Vista

I finally let Windows XP SP2 into my office through a Trojan Horse: a new Compaq notebook computer. It sports a sticker: "Designed for Windows XP." This means that the hardware and operating system work well together -- although, given the post-modern philosophy infecting our society, it could have no meaning whatsoever. Which, as this story illustrates, is the better interpretation of the sticker. On my first cross-continent flight with the brandnew notebook, I used it for a while. (A bit difficult, given the "lady" in the seat ahead slamming her seat back shortly after take-off, and leaving it in... Read more →

3. Don't Tell Us What You Think

The Microsoft marketing event that began to sour my opinion of the software monopolist was the launch of Word 2. I received a fax from Microsoft Canada's marketing firm, inviting me to an author's seminar. Microsoft wanted input from authors on how we created documents. I spent some time putting together a presentation that listed four types of document production I used every day: 1. Quick notes -- I use Notepad. 2. Email - I use Eudora. 3. Lightly formatted documents, like letters -- I used WordPerfect at the time. 4. Heavily formatted documents, like desktop publishing -- I use... Read more →

2. Grassroots and Munchkins

Some of Microsoft marketing tactics that did not affect me have been documented by mainstream publications. Almost forgotten now is the fake grassroots campaign of 1998 and the earlier Microsoft Munchkins. I'll allow Tech TV to refresh our memories about Microsoft's astrotufing: Let's outline the Los Angeles Times's discoveries. Apparently the paper got hold of a large binder of memos promoting a complex scheme to hit various states with fake letters to the editor, editorials, and op-ed pieces paid for by Microsoft and planted by teams of PR agencies (headed by Edelman PR) ... From the Times article: "According to... Read more →

1. NT Security

I've dealt with Microsoft marketing since the early 1990s. At first, I was flattered to be noticed by the most important software company in the world. But then things began to puzzle me. An editor for a Canadian computer newspaper, for example, would asked hard questions, and Microsoft marketing wouldn't particularly answer them. That was the first thing to catch my attention. Then strange things happened to me, and by the mid-1990s, I began to read the experiences of other editors as they finally became brave enough to expose rot behind the aura of hubris Microsoft marketing cast about the... Read more →