Downtime (from sfsw.net)

Zone Alarm

After posting articles supporting the growth of the Linux operating system, maybe, someone possibly rejects my wild claim that Linux is a more secure system than Windows. And maybe I am wrong. What I mean I guess is that Linux is a more trustworthy community as it is generally populated with a slighly older mix perhaps, but the basic essential detail that Linux has some security and if you use it effectively, a Linux system is reliable and easily rebuilt in cases where back doors may exist.

The thing that Microsoft has going for it is that its system is now considered (and factually is) proprietory. The point that the Linux/Unix hacker misses in deleting his references from our logs is that those logs may also be automatically backed up, and as well as there being many resources for hackers there are available resources to defend your computer, including the wonderful abiity to install Linux on as many hard disks as you need or want without having to check it is it okay with your licence agreement terms.

Second only to software patents (which are like the now expired patents on fire, and the wheel), the evil of too much legal jargon is a major problem in the emerging ecommerce world; computer programmers may be able to read them, but the average person is not that so foolhardy as to agree with terms they do not understand, so why do we?

I for one am going to exclusively support sites without huge threatening terms and conditions.

Web hosting companies have to stand by the internet as a safe playground for your credit cards, and when we are subjected to security invasions, then where do you find confidence?

In being able to quickly repair computer systems and write daemons to copy all log entries to an inaccessible place, detect and prevent invasions. In being able to bring those who waste our time to justice. The costs in the Windows world of bugs in Windows are massive. The costs to me for having one Linux host invaded are about $60. So I put in tripwire to detect future invasions, and restored from backups. Oh so you can break tripwire? Why do people like you exist?

And as we fight this little war with the fiend attacking our server the other day, I say good luck. It is now waiting for you with a tripwire so at least I won't waste my time. Your breed are being bought for fabulous prices and if you send me your details, I will add my name to your CV. And I can install Linux again and again on my spare hard disk and be operational again the next day.

All this while moving two hosts to new faster homes. Phew. These are busy times!

I thank ZONEALARM for their excellent protection, without which I would not go near the internet with Windows. See the latest security update for IE6.0 from Microsoft? Sure you can find it on their huge huge site (it is the largest one in the world I heard - probably an urban myth).

FREE Upgrade to your keyboard

My keyboard dropped to the ground and the space bar fell off. I put it back upside down so it slants down towards me, and suddenly I have a truly more erogonomic keyboard.

Interesting Developments

The media seem to have redefined "middleware" to encompass those parts of Windows which are not strictly "OS" but additional value technology that allows us to run high speed video applications. Middleware is involved in running these applications, but it is not the application itself. DirectX is a collection of Middleware tools.

Microsoft's ploy is logical enough.
It is their middleware that is the value in Windows. They know that. Open Source software (Linux community) have produced a better "backware" than Windows, with no restrictive licencing, and now you can plug a Windows middleware layer into it, and run Windows apps.

is Big Brother peering in through an open window?

This is Microsoft's grand moment - what may seem like a manipulative legal solution to outsmart the courts is an insistence that competitors will charge a fee (as they are, cynically asking their users to finance compliance with an essentially punative measure) when they are competing with a free software culture that does not care if you are running XP or Linux. They know Other Middleware will be free and ultimately nastier in the Windows environment. Savy users won't be fooled, and are installing Linux, now.

WINE is good for you

Of course it will be a free to plug other middleware into Windows. I wonder if they will ever work very well or if WINE will make Microsoft and Windows as relevant to a developing internet culture as discount stores are to city development.

Install MS Office in Linux

I predict that it is not just Office that is a killer ap. It is DirectX that defines the Home market. It is the middleware that MS has spend so long trying to make work with the structuralist Windows API.

Its most successful competitor, Apache, at least admits that its patch city, but its latest versions do not suffer from the security nightmares young clever programmers can cause with the atomic briefcase of tools Windows seems to provide in its complex middleware layers.

You have to admit that Windows outperforms Linux in a more fundamental way. Has someone written a good True Type font driver for Enlightenment? Yes? Let me know.

Microsoft should never act in a monopolistic or dishonest manner towards its consumers. That's you and me.