Microsoft Windows 7: Still a broken OS.

I got a laptop for Christmas.

Since it has the notoriously insecure Windows 7 Operating system, I decided that I'd only use Ubuntu for connecting to the Internet.

(There are half a dozen zero day exploits, that will infect a system, during the six hours that are needed for Win7 security updates to fix those exploits. The mean time from going online, to having a nasty try to come through one's internet connection is under one minute.)

I installed Ubuntu on it, for a dual boot system.
Windows 7 trashed the hard drive, when I booted it up, to see if it worked.

I can repair the drive, but my question is whether or not it is worthwhile keeping Win7.

The security problems with Win7 are such, that the dice roll is very much in favour of banning all microsoft software, and programs that require microsoft software, from that laptop.

Get the facts

Microsoft: "There is no guarantee that when security vulnerabilities are discovered, an update will be created. Users are on their own."

Trouble is, current best practices for a business is to have a dedicated system for financial transactions. A system that has no hard drive, booting from a Live Disk whenever one wants/needs to do an online banking transaction, or other sensitivity transactions.

Microsoft: "There is no ability to set Parental Restrictions".

Trouble is, at least one Linux distro Ubuntu Christian Edition) includes "parental restrictions", as a matter of course. Well, technical, it restricts everybody, but since the main function is to restrict kids.....

DrDOS TimeLine

Dr-DOS was originally created by Intergalatic Digital Research, Inc, in Pacific Grove, California.

Digital Research, Inc, was the successor in interest to Intergalatic Digital Research, Inc.

Novell bought (1991) Digital Research, Inc. with the idea of shipping a SOHO OS that included networking, and an office suite.(WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Paradox, DrDos, Novell Lite, and a couple of other things.)

The SOHO OS didn't work out for Novell. NovellOffice was sold to in Corel (1996). (Corel Linux was sold to Xandros in 2001.)

Caldera started off as an internal group to develop a Linux distro for Novell. Caldera Systems was spun off by Novell, in 1996, taking most of the operating systems with it. Caldera Systems, in turn, spun off Caldera Thin Clients, which, in turn, (1998) became Lineo Solutions, INC. Dr-Dos was then opensourced. DrDos was then spun off into DeviceLogics, and became closed source. Metrowerks bought out DeviceLogics, who then spun it out (2002) as part of DrDOS, Inc. The other spinoff was Caldera Internatinal, which developed Caldera Linux. (Caldera Linux in 2001 used a Unix kernel, not a Linux kernel.)

Tarantella Enterprise was a product from Santa Cruz Operations that resulted from their purchase (1994),and integration of half a dozen minor companies.

Santa Cruz Operations sold their Unix business to Caldera Systems Inc, in 2001. Santa Cruz Operations then renamed themselves Tarantella, Inc. In 2005, Sun purchased Tarantella, Inc.

in 1995 Novell sold the right to distribute UnixWare to Santa Cruz Operations. Santa Cruz Operations, in turn, sold those rights to Caldera Systems, Inc, in 2001.

In 2002, Caldera Systems, Inc renamed itself SCOGroup.

To recap:

1987: Digital Research, Inc releases DrDOS 1.0;
1991: Novell purchases Digital Research, Inc. (DrDOS)
1996: DrDOS spunoff to Caldera Systems;(DrDOS)
1997: Caldera Systems spins off Caldera Thin Clients (DrDOS);
1998: Caldera Thin Clients renames itself Lineo Solutions, Inc (DrDOS);
1998: Unixware rights sold to Santa Cruz Operations, Inc by Novell; (UnixWare)
2002 (?): Lineo Solutions, Inc acquired by DeviceLogic, Inc; (DrDOS)
? DeviceLogic purchased by MetroWerks (DrDOS)
2000: Caldera Systems purchases Santa Cruz Operations Unix business. (UnixWare)
2002: MetroWerks sells DrDOS to DrDOS, Inc. (DrDOS)
2002:
2005: Tarantella, Inc purchased by Sun, INC. (ex unix player);

Hard Drive Woes

Back in June I installed a terrabyte hard drive in my computer.

In installing it, I made a couple of mistakes. The biggest one was to make it bootable.

It never played nicely with my original hard drive.

Last week, I started playing with live disks from various distros. After roughly ten minutes, if that TB drive is hooked up, my computer crashes. If it isn't hooked up, my computer runs fine.

Now I'm wondering what to do with a self-crashing hard drive, that won't self destruct.

Windows 7 RC

I have three programs written for Windows, to review.

Since Vista won't run on my hardware, I thought I'd give Win7 RC a test.
(My hardware is to new for Vista to support.)

First issue with getting a legit copy of Win 7 RC was signing up with hotmail.
That solved, I could go to the download page.

After clicking through six or so pages, I get the screen to download it.

Then I get an error message: "Your operating system is not supported".

Which means that I'll continue to use OpenSolaris, and Linux.

Unlocked GPS???

The update to my PDA included unlocking the GPS chip. :)

I tried it out with Google Maps.
Error message: Please log into something or other that Google offers, before configuring Google maps.

I log into that. Then try my hand at configuring Google Maps.
I'm outside --- not a cloud in the sky.

About twenty minutes later I get an error message. "Weak GPS Signal".
If it can't locate satellites outside, then what was unlocked???

I guess I should be glad that Verizon didn't charge me an early termination fee.

On installing a hard drive

I realize that brick and mortar retail stores make money from selling services, not products. Still, there is no reason why two different sales people --- different stores --- with the same retail chain, tried selling the wrong cable for my internal hard drive.

What I needed was a SATA cable. To make thing simple for dummies --- like the MCSEs techs used by that retail chain --- they are color coded. Specifically, red with black ends. They are not gray. They are not silver. They are not six feet long. The power cord is sold in a different package.

Next door to that "superior computer service" big box retailer, was a big box office retailer, whose customer service has typically been only slightly better than that provided by TicketMaster. Not only did Office Depot have the SATA cord, but two reps apologised for not having the power cord that is needed. (Management is stupid to think that somebody that needs a SATA device cable, doesn't also need the SATA power cord.)

I ended up buying the power cord from a place that repairs computers. Typically, it doesnt' sell parts. A US$10.00 sale is a ten dollar sale. Furthermore, their thinking is that when I need to take a computer to be fixed, they will be the ones who fix it.

With a motto of "If we can't fix your computer, we will buy it", that repair shop might be promising customers more than they can deliver. On second thoughts, most software issues can be fixed by migrating to Linux, and using the FLOSS equivalent.

Digital TV Transition

On 10 June my TV claimed I could receive 19 over the air analog channels, and 20 over the air digital channels.
At around 9.00 PM on 12 June, my TV claimed I could receive 8 over the air analog channels, and 9 over the air digital channels.

Of the analog channels, one was a notice from dish network advising me to get a new smartt card to continue watching the channel. A second analog channel was one explaining how to isntall, and configure convertor boxes, digital TV, and your VCR and analog TV to the convertor box. Angel Network, Univision, and the like comprised the rest of the analog channels. (All of them are either low power, or repeater stations.)

So what happened to the other eleven digital stations? What happened to the analog stations that were not digital on the tenth, and are neither low power, nor repeaters stations.

Turns out that with digital broadcasting, the transmitters are also broadcasting at a lower power. Furthermore, once propagation effects kick in, coverage is much smaller than with analog transmission.

I got rid of cable a couple of months ago. (More precisely, I requested cable TV service to be terminated. The cable company claims that they did so. My bill from them --- which is for Internet service --- appears to confirm that position. However, I can still pick up roughly 70 cable channels, if I connect the TV to the wall outlet. I discovered this trying to figure out why my talking VCR wasn't working properly. It was still connected to the cable wall outlet. I had never connected it to a cable box.)

Google and Microsoft

Microsoft and Google are equally maleficent

The difference is that Google admits that they are maleficent. That simply means that Google is more self-aware than Microsoft.

In an ideal world, both organisations would release source code for all software they develop, under the GNU Affero General Public License 3.0, for the simple reason that that is the most ethical software license that is in common use.

Password strength

I got a smartphone, so I could keep up with email, without being tied to my desk.

Lo and behold, it doesn't support Unicode.

Which means that options are either to not use the phone for checking email, IM,and the like, or changing my passwords to something that is pathetically weak.

Both customer service, and level 1 tech support, and level 2 tech support didn't even know what Unicode was, much less how to switch to it. Level 3 tech support said it isn't available. However, if I was a programmer, I might be able to write a program to work around that limitation,but I'd still would have to deal with Microsoft's design flaws.

So, my options are to not use the smartphone for email, IM, and texting, or to change my passwords from my usual A]PᚑᚒᚓσδϐᏬשب@15ᚔᚕ6, to the pathetically insecure US-ANSI character set.

If Samsung were a two bit mom and pop company, their monolingualism might be understandable. But since their website is in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, English, Persian, Russian, Turkish, amongst other languages, the lack of Unicode support in their phones is utterly inexcusable.

Microsoft has repeatedly proven itself to be linguistically challenged, barely capable of supporting US English, and is a bastion of illiteracy. (Literacy is defined as the ability to read, write, and speak fluently five different languages.)