Microsoft

It's been awhile since I've written anything for blogspot. Over the past few weeks I've been very busy with non-computer related issues. I'm very glad to report that I now have my Microsoft MN-720 wireless adapter working with SuSE 9.2 without any crashes during the module load, or when I shut down my system.

The key is NOT using the Microsoft mn720-50.inf driver, but a homebrew driver created by the good folks at Ankhcraft, a web development business. The driver is located at: http://ankhcraft.com/drivers/mn720-ankh.zip.

Last year Microsoft started it's "Get the facts" campaign about how Microsoft Windows Server was suppose to be less expensive than Linux. Microsoft cited studies which they originally claimed to be by an independent group, which turned out to be true, but sponsored by Microsoft, which means not so independent as Microsoft led people to believe.

Eweek has an interesting article about the cost of Linux:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1782587,00.asp

Here's my own simple TCO study:

Take a beautiful product, severly cripple it, throw in a few cheap nuggets as a 'bonus,' and you have the iRiver H10. The H10 has a beautiful full colour LCD screen, can record conversations and radio, which it also plays. You can also store images and text data on the H10. So far, so good. Well, good goes out the window at about this point. Normally I try to see the positive in a product, as much as possible, but the iRiver H10 is crippled in so many ways that it's really hard to say good things about something which frustrates you so much!

With all the crusading about homeland and national security you would think that executive decision makers would start to get a clue about security. Unfortunately it seems that some decision makers still don't understand security. Take the 'brass' at the USAF, United States Air Force, for example. SC Magazine reported in December that the USAF plans on consolidating 38 contracts by standardizing on Microsoft software. Air Force CIO John Gilligan explained to SC Magazine that the problem has to do with patching all the different kinds of computers the air for maintains.