Showing headlines posted by Herschel_Cohen

LA Times (original source News Day a Long Island, NY paper) readers introduced to DSL Linux and how to get it running with some words of warning: " ... left out the first rule of DSL Linux as it pertains to inexperienced computer users: It may not work with your hardware. All companies that manufacture printers, mice, video and sound cards - pretty much everything that gets plugged into a computer - also create drivers, little chunks of software that make the hardware gadget work with an operating system. In most cases, that operating system is Windows XP."

[ED: So be polite. if you cannot be helpful yourself do something better than "RTFM" that is known to have endeared many new users to Linux. Stories like this will do more to get some to try to escape miind control. So just remember the problems you had as a newbie or turn them over to someone less skilled than yourself that has social skills that you lack - HC]

[ED: How MS is going to Win the Linux Wars, not quite there yet but with these wise words of warning how cannot they not Win? - HC]

"Raising the caution flag:

Linux is still a maturing platform, and with youth comes uncertainty. "The [Microsoft] value proposition is always a good sell, but it doesn't hurt to back that up with a really long hard look at what the risk factors are," notes Tim Beamer, technology ... "

[ED: Be assured Windows is rock solid, and when it's not it gets fixed, and when it's fixed late it's fixed mostly right, and when it's not right it's done over until it's done right! Who could ask for anything more? Windows is a mature insecure system. It will be even better when it's fixed per incident fee - HC]

"Competing with Linux once filled Microsoft partners with dread, but now many are taking on the open source operating system with growing self-confidence -- and success. Here are the tactics for winning the fight."

[ED: Even here they note they are not winning every battle, so they buck up the troops letting know of all the Linux shortcomings and how they can Win with Win(dows). They cite some big independent sources, e.g. Gartner, etc. It's always good to know your enemies plans - HC]

[ED: Here is an author that has caught a lot of flak due to his errors reviewing Ubuntu/Kubuntu in the comments section when his review appeared on LXer. Since he is one of the few that seems to "get it", as a matter of fairness, he deserves his chance to reply - HC]

I've been receiving a fair amount of e-mail from people who are sure that I don't know Linux, but their notes are really showing me that they don't know reviewing. I don't hold that against them. Few people know how reviews really work.

Read on.

The open source community is up in arms after the publication of a 'misleading and confusing' report that said more vulnerabilities were found in Linux/Unix operating systems than in Windows last year

[ED: Pretty good write up with a nice ending - HC]

"You should look at the number of critical vulnerabilities. It's a better comparison to look at the critical vulnerabilities that affect customers due to the platform they use. There are fewer critical vulnerabilities, and they are fixed faster in Red Hat Linux," said Cox.

"There is also the issue of timing. With Linux products, critical updates are available within a day. If you look at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, the average patch time is under a day. With the recent critical WMF (Windows Meta File) vulnerability, it took Microsoft seven days."

Microsoft was not available for comment at the time of writing.

Massachusetts has appointed an acting CIO to fill in for Peter Quinn, who's walking away from the job after bringing OpenDocument and a concomitant fire of controversy to the Commonwealth.

[ED: This is an evolving story where some ID* is really needed - HC]

[* ID == "Intelligent Decisions"]

Californian applications and database management firm Quest Software Inc is adding more flexible messaging capabilities to its email archiving system after buying-in technology New Zealand-based AfterMail Ltd.

[ED: Here is the key phrase that perhaps make this item have some significance - HC]

" ... archiving email data to make it more accessible to knowledge workers and adhere to corporate compliance regulations."

[ED: I know this is a duplicate, however, rather than being a simple recitation of a subset of questionable facts some pertinent items are mentioned explicitly. From those you can see these figures are incomplete, measurements with no idea given as to the margin of error -HC]

"NetApplications, ... measure, monitor and market Web sites for Small to Medium Enterprises (SME)"

[ED: Meaning they measure a fraction of the total market and of that fraction - what portion they have as clients that are measured? How random is its subset or how typical are its clients are unaddressed issues, hence, these are near meaningless numbers to advertise themselves without the slightest nod towards statistical error. If you believe these figures, we need to talk business (I really have a sure money making proposition for you on the East Coast ...)- HC]

Regarding marketing see the lower portion of this article: "HitsLink(tm) is NetApplications' flagship product, providing advanced website statistics and analysis for webmasters and eMarketers alike."