Day: March 11, 2008

And, we are not talking some guys in the mail room! These are folks that should be very competent Windows users. Check out the article excerpt below…

Microsoft emails reveal problems with Vista

“Senior Microsoft staff complained about misleading advertising and Windows Vista incompatibility issues in a series of embarrassing emails made public during a court case. In the emails, published online by The New York Times, corporate vice president for Windows product management Mike Nash said he ‘got burned’ after purchasing a notebook computer advertised as ‘Vista Capable’ that was incapable of running the full version of the operating system. Even more embarrassingly, Microsoft chief operating officer Jon A. Shirley chose not to upgrade one of his computers to Vista after discovering it was not compatible with several of his peripheral devices including a printer and two scanners. Microsoft staff also discussed a decision to lower Vista’s hardware requirements to encourage sales, with one manager warning the move would result in ‘a complete tragedy.’ In one email sent to senior Microsoft staff including general manager for Windows Brad Brooks, Mr Nash said he had wound up with a ‘$2100 email machine’ after buying a notebook that was incapable of running the full version of Windows Vista. ‘Are we seeing this from a lot of customers?’ Mr. Nash asked in the email. ‘I know that I chose my laptop (a Sony TX770P) because it had the vista (sic) logo and was pretty disappointed that it not only wouldn’t run Glass, but more importantly wouldn’t run Movie Maker.’ ‘Glass’ is an internal code-name for the standard Windows Vista user interface shown in advertisements, officially called Aero. Movie Maker is a video editing program that comes with the operating system. The messages, which reveal senior Microsoft executives suffered the same problems with Windows Vista reported by consumers, were made public as a US judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed against the company.”

Whoa! No wonder so many businesses are telling suppliers to take Vista off the new computers they order! No driver support, ton’s of issues, and a sorry excuse for an operating system… yep, sounds like M$!

This is, without doubt, the easiest way to install Apache, MySQL and PHP on Microsoft Windows! I have used it in both test and production environments, and it is rock solid… now, there is a new, updated version.

WAMPserver Web Site

If you haven’t tried it… go for it! If you already use it, it is time to upgrade, the versions of the software included are:

• Apache 2.2.8
• MySQL 5.0.51a
• PHP 5.2.5

A new communications suite called: “Unison” was introduced at CeBIT this week. It combines Open Source technologies and offers both Windows clients and a single, unified Linux-based server.

Everything in Unison on Linux

“Software developer Unison has launched what it claimed is the world’s first fully-unified communications suite based on Linux. Announced at CeBIT, the suite (also simply called Unison) combines IP telephony, email and instant messaging with diary, address book and presence capabilities, all in a single Linux server. It is available free as a public beta. ‘You can get all these elements separately on Linux, but this is the first time they have all been in one server,’ said Rurik Bradbury, Unison’s chief marketing officer. Other unified communications (UC) schemes, such as Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS) can require three or more servers to do the same thing, he added. ‘If you’re reasonably familiar with Linux, you can deploy Unison in a couple of hours, and have a complete system running for a company of perhaps 50 or 60 people in half a day,’ he said. The server software works with a Unison client program for Windows PCs. This provides a genuine alternative to Microsoft’s combination of Exchange and Outlook, Bradbury claimed. ‘We’re amazed no-one has done this before – build both a client and a server. Others have either one or the other,’ he said. He added that a Linux version of the client will come later this year. Unison is aimed at 20- to 300-seat organizations, but the US-based company plans to add server clustering in the future to support more. It is partly based on open source technology, such as Thunderbird for email and Jabber for instant messaging, and partly developed by Unison’s own programmers.”