LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

I Want to Know What Live Is


By Larry O'Brien
Email    print   
December 1, 2005 —  (Page 1 of 2)
I missed the Webcast of the introduction of Office Live and Windows Live because I was on the phone with my sister, blindly walking her through the process of troubleshooting her suddenly failing DNS services. Her problem turned out to be that her third-party personal firewall had somehow become misconfigured and blocked resolution. How did that come about? Beats me. According to accounts of the show, though, the demonstration was at least somewhat marred because the demo machine lost connectivity. The demo machine. At a Microsoft introduction. Of services that integrate the Web into all of your computing experiences.

Larry O’BrienAm I the only person that’s noticed that networking failures are a thousand times more common than operating system failures? If Microsoft had shipped the Internet, it would be regularly held up by the Redmond haters as the most egregious of their failures. Of course, Microsoft did ship the networking stack, and it’s the local network stack, not the Internet, where the problems occur. Either that or overly fragile “security” software. I’ve tried three major systems in the past year looking for the one thing that’s indisputably needed: anti-virus scanning. McAfee, Panda and Symantec have all caused instability on my systems in the past year, as often as not by insisting on hooking into areas where I didn’t want them.

All of which goes to a repeated theme of mine: Computers suck. They are nowhere near as stable and easy to use as they should be. As happy as I am that the industry has clearly passed the bottom of the post-dot-com malaise, the return of pure hype, this time in the form of fluff about “Web 2.0” and the joy of browser-based experiences, makes me cringe. Once again, we have to endure inanities about the network as the operating system and the joys of thin, thinner, thinnest clients. The most mediocre experience is once again touted, by virtue of being implemented in a browser, as a breakthrough. I can look at a map! In a browser! Let Wall Street tumble! (Am I bitter because the street I live on isn’t even in the online map databases? Perhaps.)




Pages 1 2 


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/28997
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Branching and merging: the heart of version control
Providers hold their own views of the landscape, but the Git SCM system is drawing looks from them all
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
Microsoft pivots toward business intelligence
The goal is to make business intelligence accessible "to the masses"
From the Editors: Node.js is unruly, but that’s where the fun is
The time to get involved with Node.js is now; Hadoop is about to break its own barriers
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
EPM Live Acquires EPK Group’s EPK Suite, Enhances WorkEngine
WorkEngine will get a deeper level of portfolio management, according to EPM Live Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

Bloomberg opens its API
Bloomberg's APIs could lead to a future standard for accessing market data.
02/01/2012 04:41 PM EST

The case for piracy
In the aftermath of SOPA and PIPA, some copyright holders have begun to embrace piracy as inevitable...and even beneficial.
01/30/2012 02:39 PM EST

Tablet sales boom, but applications lag
The installed base of tablet computers and e-book readers is growing rapidly, but no killer app has yet emerged -- hint, hint.
01/28/2012 05:48 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb