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7701

General Software Discussion / WHS2011? Sorry - no evaluation copies. Try our nifty simulator instead!

« Last post by 40hz on May 10, 2011, 01:38 PM »

Well...it was bound to happen.

Most of us know that the only real way to get an idea of how well a piece of software will meet our requirements is to get an evaluation copy and put it through its paces. When it comes to certain categories of software (servers, professional graphics editors, etc.), having an "eval copy" isn't just nice to have - it's absolutely essential.

Microsoft has recently released Windows Home Server 2011. It's a very powerful package that makes sense for a lot of people and small offices. But if potential customers were expecting to download a 90-day evaluation copy like Microsoft made available for the previous version, they're going to be very disappointed.

Because there isn't going to be one.

According to Microsoft's blog (see below-emphasis added), licensing restrictions with some of the included codecs prevents them from providing evaluation software for WHS 2011.

Today I am pleased to say the online evaluation experience for WHS 2011 is now ready. This provides customers the ability to walk through both client and server interaction freely, or follow a suggested demonstration path with the evaluation manual which will also launch with the online experience. Available 24 hours per day, it provides a super simple way to experience WHS without the need for hardware,

Try it out for yourself on our temporary launching site at http://online.holsys...com/portals/sbs/whs/. Over the next few weeks we will be updating the WHS ms.com website in line with many of our partner GA’s activities and have a full introduction portal to the online experience.

Let me preempt one immediate question I am sure will be asked – When can I download an evaluation version so I can test at home on my own hardware? The answer to this is that we are not currently planning to release a downloadable evaluation version. Some of the embedded third-party codecs we use within WHS 2011 do not allow us to provide a trial version due to licensing agreements. As a result we can only offer an online experience. We are still working with many of our OEM’s on additional evaluation experiences and may have more information in the future on other ways to trial WHS 2011.

I think it's a little disingenuous on Microsoft's part to make it seem like they're being held hostage by this. Bill Gate's Monster has enough financial resources, technical clout, and market penetration, that I have trouble believing any software publisher would try to do anything to jeopardize their relationship with Microsoft. Especially if their codec or software was being embedded in a Microsoft product.

There's enough other companies that want "in" that Microsoft can pretty much dictate whatever terms it wants. Any holdouts run the risk of being replaced with another product - or even worse - motivating Microsoft to come up with something of it's own to replace it.

Even the mighty Adobe at the height of its power (when it owned the desktop publishing market) learned the hard way what can happen if you try to push Microsoft too hard on something as basic as font licenses. TrueType wasn't chosen because Microsoft wanted an alternate technology, or to do business with Apple. It was chosen because Microsoft couldn't get Adobe to agree on what it considered acceptable licensing terms for its Postscript technology..

So I'm fairly certain this codec licensing restriction is only a restriction because Microsoft chooses to let it remain one. Hardly a surprise coming from a publisher of closed-source proprietary software who has a vested interest in supporting restrictive licensing terms whenever possible.

Either way, if you want to evaluate WHS2011, and you aren't a partner (or don't have a MS software subscription), it looks like you're S.O.L. and stuck with an online simulator to play with. At least for the foreseeable future.

Be interesting to see if this practice catches on. With dynamic cloud getting cheaper and cheaper, this may be where it all ends up going - and hasta la bye-bye to evaluation software.


What do you think?  

Here's what I think.

7702

Living Room / Re: Can Download Sites Be Held Responsible for the Software They List?

« Last post by 40hz on May 09, 2011, 07:33 AM »

And the courts are busy enough that they tend not to suffer fools gladly.

-40hz (May 09, 2011, 07:07 AM)

Are these the same people involved in granting/enforcing patents?

-Renegade (May 09, 2011, 07:20 AM)

Nope. Not in the USA. Patents are issued by the Patent Office. Part of the executive branch. Enforcement of a patent is the responsibility of the patent holder. The owner of the patent has to monitor for violations and file a suit to obtain protection when one is found. You can't go to the police and complain somebody's illegally using your patent and expect them to take action. They don't have the authority to do that. YOU have to sue. All the court does is hear the case and issue a ruling. Once a ruling is issued, it's also your responsibilty to make sure you get your settlement - although the police and courts offer a little more help with that since not obeying a court order falls under the heading of 'contempt,' which is a criminal act.

7703

Living Room / Re: Can Download Sites Be Held Responsible for the Software They List?

« Last post by 40hz on May 09, 2011, 07:07 AM »

Not to fret. Getting sued is no big deal any more. This is more a publicity stunt than anything else. There's been enough legal precedent in court cases that the 'safe harbor' provisions protecting web hosts has been prerty well established by now. I doubt it will go to full trial. And if it does, it won't go anywhere. The real target is Limewire. All the other co-defendants are in there just for show, and maybe with the hopes they'll gang up on Limewire and try to cut some sort of deal with the plaintiff. Dint hold your breath for that one either.

In the United State, anybody can file a lawsuit at any time for any reason. As long as the necessary paperwork and filing fees are received, it will be placed on the docket. The court's clerks (by law) are not allowed to exercise any judicial review of a filing. That's for a judge to decide once it goes to an initial hearing in court.

Many stupid and frivolous cases are summarily dismissed without going to trial by the judge who gets the case. Occasionally one makes it through if the governing laws are vague, or if there are extraordinary factor in the case such that a judge feels it necessary for the court to weigh in on. And the courts are busy enough that they tend not to suffer fools gladly.

The real problem is the useless attorney who files because he's been asked to even though he's totally ignorant of the relevant law or the legal precedents for a suit he's filing. Even worse are the ones who knowingly bring a lawsuit they know has no legal merit. These are the parties most responsible for clogging up the court docket. And as long as 'frivolous' filing is dealt with so leniently, there's little downside to going in with a bogus lawsuit.

Either way, the attorney gets paid. And the press sends in some coverage.

And that's what it's really all about.

7704

General Software Discussion / Re: Software recommendations for writers

« Last post by 40hz on May 08, 2011, 08:07 AM »

+1w/Ath

Based on the way you work, I think WriteMonkey would be all you'd want or need.

I use it - and it's my app of choice for a first draft or just getting things down on 'paper.' When I need to write, I fetch The Monkey.

Compared to Q10, Darkroom, and the full screen editor in liquid Story Binder (also a favorite app which I use regularly), I think WM strikes the ideal balance between simplicity and features. The small number of built in extras were extemely well-chosen. They bring very useful additional capabilities to the mix without getting in the way of WM's core function as a blank screen editor. A pretty impressive feat. Especially when it works as well as it does in WM.  

I'd add a basic notetaking app to your toolkit for collecting text snippets such as CintaNotes (another favorite of mine) or one of those "tree" note/outliners and you'll be set to roll. I use Softvoile's Flashnote for that. Flashnote looks like similar apps, but it also has a user configurable hotkey pop-up feature which works well when used in conjunction with WriteMonkey.

Luck with your writing.  

7705

General Software Discussion / Re: Software recommendations for writers

« Last post by 40hz on May 07, 2011, 12:23 PM »

Yay! Another writer!

Regarding software suggestions:

There are tons of tools. Many specific to the type of writing you do and how you like to work.

So what kind of writing are you doing? Short or long form? Fiction, non-fiction, technical? Does it involve complex characters? Imaginary worlds or histories? Invented languages? Charts and tables? Illustrations? A lot of research and note taking?

Do you prefer to write in a fixed and private writing "space" or are you more a coffeshop scribbler?

Are you the organized type who outlines and prefers to works to a schedule or plan? Or are you the "stream of consciousness" writers who prefers to wing it and go where the writing takes you?

Give us some ideas of what you write, and how you like to work, and we can probably offer better suggestions.  
 

7706

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Docs Sync

« Last post by 40hz on May 06, 2011, 03:23 AM »

Are you composing documents in Google Docs or are you primarily using it to share documents you've created in something like MS Office?

7707

General Software Discussion / Re: Brilliantly Simple Programs, that's what I'm looking for

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 04:13 PM »

I am beginning to think CintaNotes falls into this category as well.

-Jibz (May 05, 2011, 01:24 AM)

+1! One of my absolute all time favorite apps. Evernote without the bells and whistles.  Does one thing. But does it very well. And it's portable too!

Anything that does all that is an automatic win in my book.  

7708

Living Room / Re: After PSN. Who's next?

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 10:35 AM »

Nobody dismisses '"brute force" cracking techniques as being impractical any more. Today's multicore CPUs make it an extremely workable crack for most passwords people are able to commit to memory.

-40hz (May 05, 2011, 09:55 AM)

Check this out concerning brute force cracking of passwords. Was posted just recently somewhere.

-phitsc (May 05, 2011, 10:12 AM)

Very cool article!

Interesting read, although some of it seems a bit optimistic, and doesn't quite match what I've seen in the field when it comes to cracking even supposedly random passwords. I'm also guessing the guy who recovered the passwords for my client used something a tad more sophisticated than a simple brute force crack tool when he did.

The security company I'm most familiar with has a 3-man team that can crack or penetrate almost anything they go up against in less than 24 hours. Admittedly, all three have hairy-scary 'spook' and 'black op' backgrounds. But this is exactly the type of team that would be sent to hit something like LastPass. These guys are white hats. But I'm sure there is comparable 'black hat' talent out there looking for work.

Definitely need to learn much more about this topic than I currently do.

7709

Living Room / Re: After PSN. Who's next?

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 09:55 AM »

I guess they should change their motto, huh?

"LastPass. The TWO last passwords you'll ever need"

-Lashiec (May 05, 2011, 09:20 AM)

As they will whoever finally succeeds in hacking LastPass.

Sad truth is, something like LastPass is such a visible and high value target for a team of criminal hackers that it's only a matter of time and resources.

Even encryption is becoming less and less effective as advances in hardware and clustering technologies are bringing capabilities that were once the domain of multi-million dollar supercomputers down to the desktop level. Most cryptography will eventually go the way of the dodo bird.

Nobody can even dismiss '"brute force" cracking techniques as being impractical any more. Today's multicore CPUs make it an extremely workable crack for most passwords people are able to commit to memory. One decent computer plus some free software (easily found and downloaded from the web) can get you past 99% of the passwords most people come up with. Even the so-called "strong" passwords. 10 or more characters? Piece of cake! Mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols? No problem - got it covered! No "dictionary" words? Don't make us laugh...

Dangerous world out there. Watch where you put your keys.

---

P.S. I had a client's employee lock him out of a set of company spreadsheets after the employee was informed he might get laid off. Must have thought doing that would get him some job security rather than realizing it's a felony in many places. This employee used a complex 16-character highly randomized password to lock those files.

It took an i3 laptop and some open source freeware less than ten minutes to crack it.

Hayduke Lives!  

7710

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 09:18 AM »

I was elated during the BBS days and thought my 1200 baud modem made me da man!

-zridling (May 05, 2011, 05:29 AM)

Then you also remember an early implementation of online graphics using something called the Remote Imaging Protocol Scripting Language or RIPscript.

Ah RIP! Those were truly god-awful graphics, most of them:



Fuchsia and cyan text on a royal blue background? Awesome! No wonder I'm half blind now that I'm older.

RIP might have gone somewhere if the developers (TeleGrafix) could have managed to get their act together and abandon some of their grandiose licensing schemes. (End-users could get software to display RIP graphics for free. BBS owners were expected to pay TeleGrafix a fairly hefty license fee for an editor to create these graphics.)

Since most BBS operations were true labors of love - and most sysops were already broke after paying Ma Bell for multiple analog phone lines to plug their 96oo baud modems into - Telegrafix didn't get too many takers.

But overall interest in displaying images online still remained high. So shortly afterwards, inexpensive shareware and crude freeware RIP editors began appearing.

If this happened today, as opposed to in 1994, Telegrafix would have likely owned a patent and taken everyone to court. But software wasn't generally considered to be patentable back then, so the IP litigation route wasn't a viable option for most companies.

And there was a huge amount of public resistance to the notion of licensing "formats" back in those pre-Internet days. Even the mighty CompuServe had to back down in the face of public outrage when they began hinting they were thinking about assessing license fees for the use of GIF format images. Their announcement enraged so many software developers that it led to very serious threats of their abandoning support for GIF completely. This fracas ultimately led to the development of the PNG image format before CompuServe finally realized the battle was lost and gave up.

Then along came Mosaic and Netscape in 1994 and it was "Game over, man!"

Article on RIP can be found here if anyone is interested in "yet another road not taken."
 

7711

Living Room / Re: After PSN. Who's next?

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 08:46 AM »

Happened to Ashampoo in April, although they took pains to let us know customer credit card information was supposedly not part of what got compromised.

Which data were stolen?

The stolen pieces of information are data of addresses such as name and e-mail address. Billing information (e.g. credit card information or banking information) is definitely not affected, because our shop service contractors are concerned with this data and it is not stored on our system.

This is the letter they sent out to their customers.

OK...who's next? 

7712

Developer's Corner / Re: Endless Projects - Dr. Dobbs article

« Last post by 40hz on May 05, 2011, 03:46 AM »

I've not bothered to learn Ruby, but I'd like to know if it really is all that great. I guess I should look at Iron Ruby sometime.

-Renegade (May 05, 2011, 03:15 AM)

@Ren - Might want to PM f0dder about that. He was working on a Ruby project not too long ago.

7713

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 03:41 PM »

I still thing the internet from today, especially social media, has a lot to learn of the ecosystem of these old days - especially usenet. Features we had in newsreaders to find, save, organise posts - filters, killfiles, saving, collate into collections - are sorely missing from . And some of the idioms of the days could do with a revival (standard format for collections, finger, plan files, geek codes) perhaps as microformats

We have more problems with noise, trolls, fame-seekers, topic hijacking, fakeries etc. now than we had then, and the way communities had evolved to handle it could be useful patterns even now

-iphigenie (May 04, 2011, 02:17 PM)

Oui, je suis d’accord.


I think you're spot on about the benefits to be gained if the internet users copied the best practices that came out of Usenet community development. Because that might provide the community that Usenet had - and most of the web lacks.

To some extent, most of our current community problems could be expected however. Because the web and Usenet came into existence in very different ways.

Usenet participants developed a sense of community because they were actively involved in bringing Usenet into existence. They were participants rather than simple users. But such large-scale community development doesn't seem to happen very often on the web. Most of today's internet is released as a fully developed experience which is then 'sold' to a target audience.

As a result, much of the web has devolved into a form of interactive entertainment, designed for an audience rather than as a vehicle to serve as a source of community. Some of the more successful ventures (Twitter, most MMORPGs, etc.) have succeeded in bringing about a faux community experience of sorts. But these "user experiences" have more in common with affinity groups or poker clubs than they do with the classic notion of an online community.

I guess you could say that that the reason a sense of community is so sorely lacking is because there's not a global community for the web like there was for Usenet.

And there's also a lot of truth to the adage: Nothing good ever survives being discovered.

The Native Americans probably felt much the same way when they realized the whole world would soon becoming to their shores.
 

7714

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 03:08 PM »

I was there, and I don't remember the graphics, just the text. But man did that suck!

-zridling (May 03, 2011, 05:09 AM)

I was there too. And I don't remember those graphics either. Although my memberships were with The WELL, Compuserve, and Delphi - so maybe I missed something (yeah right!) by not having a Prodigy account?

But I didn't think it sucked at all. I liked the pure text environment.

When AOL first came out, I (along with most of my recycled BBS cohorts) was skeptical and scornful of all the graphical 'junk' being displayed. 'Real' online users were hard core text and keyboard command aficionados. To paraphrase Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring: Our online service has no graphics. Our online service needs no graphics!

And we all called AOL, along with it's pretty client software, a passing fad suited only for small children and those that were unable to read.

In the immortal words of Rod Stewart: "Look how wrong you can be."

7715

General Software Discussion / Re: Brilliantly Simple Programs, that's what I'm looking for

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 11:58 AM »

One of my favorites is the Yadabyte Dictionary.

http://www.yadabyte....dabyte_Portables.php

-mrainey (May 04, 2011, 10:06 AM)

 Yes indeed ... +1 w/mrainey. Great app! As are all of Yadabyte's other apps come to think of it.

7716

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 07:07 AM »

Actually, my original question (your degree is in .... ?) is just an expression that I've heard off and on throughout my adult life.  It was intended as a gentle "how do you know that?" sort of question.  Should have used a smiley.

-mrainey (May 03, 2011, 09:27 PM)

My apologies for being such a prickly New Englander.  Up in my neck of the woods, that phrase is most often used to suggest a person is clueless about the subject they're holding forth on. It's also occasionally used as a substitute for "stfu."

Different places, different meanings I suppose.

Put a hundred economists in a room, get a hundred different opinions, many of them motivated more by politics than by reason.

-mrainey (May 03, 2011, 09:27 PM)

It is interesting that they call it a science. All the trappings are there: the weighty tomes, the research, the vocabulary, the mathmatical models and formulas, the institutes, the conferences, the professorships and endowed university chairs...in short, everything any other science has except accurate predictions and repeatable outcomes.

If you're a professional economist I'd suspect it's starting to get a bit embarrassing...

 

7717

General Software Discussion / Re: Brilliantly Simple Programs, that's what I'm looking for

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 06:44 AM »

I'd also toss in WriteMonkey  , or other (i.e. DarkRoom, Q10, etc.) "blank screen" text editors.

Just you, your text, and a blinking cursor. So pristine it almost conjures up images of what the universe may have looked like a half picosecond after the singularity event.



When you need to concentrate on nothing but what you're writing, and don't want the distractions of a regular text editor, let alone a full wordprocessor, a blank screen writing environment can't be beat.

7718

Living Room / Re: Techno Life Skills -- anything you buy, you must maintain

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 06:20 AM »

Good article. Brings back memories of the essays you used to see in the Whole Earth family of catalogs and publications. Much of that 'can do' mindset has a lot in common with WE's notion of "digital homesteading."

One thing that gives me high hope is the recent resurgence of interest in DIY that Make magazine and Instructables report on.

Anybody else who grew up reading Tom Swift adventures, and spent hours poring over every issue of Popular Electronics. Popular Mechanics, and Radio Electronics - along with the The Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American - will understand why I feel the way I do about this.

7719

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 05:46 AM »

I personally find this "limited time" thing offensive - instead of making me want to buy it before the time runs out it makes me want to move to another file manager.

-tomos (May 01, 2011, 12:18 PM)

Ever been to a supermarket? Or do your servants do that for you?

It may well be that owners of older versions will continue to get some lesser discount.

The choice is yours.

The real tragedy is that Australia was not in thrall to bankers, and has an economy that did not implode because Americans took out loans to buy houses that they could never afford to repay. So the Australia exhange rate is in the stratosphere, an Upus costs us foreigners more.

Then again, the rest of the planet has had to put up with rapacious American software houses that charge everyone else much more for software than they ask of locals. Nice to see this biting back the other way for a change. Pity the extra money doesn't reach GP Software.

-michaelkenward (May 03, 2011, 04:31 PM)

@michaelkenward - Charming!  

Welcome to DonationCoder. Out of curiosity, are you the same Michael Kenward as the Michael Kenward OBE found here and here?

7720

General Software Discussion / Re: Brilliantly Simple Programs, that's what I'm looking for

« Last post by 40hz on May 04, 2011, 05:26 AM »

Three of the best IMO:

Steve Miller's PureText

Have you ever copied some text from a web page or a document and then wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple by adding a new Windows hot-key (default is WINDOWS+V) that allows you to paste text to any application without formatting.

After running PureText.exe, you will see a "PT" tray icon appear near the clock on your task bar.  You can click on this icon to remove formatting from the text that is currently on the clipboard. 

    PureText only removes rich formatting from text.  This includes the font face, font style (bold, italics, etc.), font color, paragraph styles (left/right/center aligned), margins, character spacing, bullets, subscript, superscript, tables, charts, pictures, embedded objects, etc.  However, it does not modify the actual text.  It will not remove or fix new-lines, carriage returns, tabs, or other white-space.  It will not fix word-wrap or clean up your paragraphs.  If you copy the source code of a web page to the clipboard, it is not going to remove all the HTML tags.  If you copy text from an actual web page (not the source of the page), it will remove the formatting.

    PureText is basically equivalent to opening Notepad, doing a PASTE, followed by a SELECT-ALL, and then a COPY.  The benefit of PureText is performing all these actions with a single Hot-Key and having the result pasted into the current window automatically.

Karen's Directory Printer

No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's size, date and time of last modification, and attributes (Read-Only, Hidden, System and Archive)! And now, the list of files can be sorted by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access.

And last, but not least: fSekrit by fellow DC member f0dder.

fSekrit is a small application for keeping securely encrypted notes. These notes are truly stand-alone; the editor program and your note are merged together into a tiny self-contained program file, bypassing the need to install a special application to view your data. This makes fSekrit ideal for keeping encrypted notes on, for example, USB flash drives.

 

7721

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 03, 2011, 07:48 PM »

I don't understand your point.  Do you really want to know my degree (engineering) or are you trying to say I'm not qualified to say such things?

I'm asking what qualifies you to say such things with any credibility.

-mrainey (May 03, 2011, 06:41 PM)

Anyone with enough education to understand and interpret numbers, examine evidence, observe trends - and think - is eminently qualified to speak with credibility on economics. In many respects, that set of skills (not exactly uncommon in the general population) goes far beyond the education and qualifications of many of the elected representatives who make decisions and pass legislation on such economic issues.

@mrainy - is there any particular reason for the confrontational tone of your comment?  

7722

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 03, 2011, 02:53 PM »

if the gazooba-net isn't being piped directly into my brain in 20 years from now i'll be very disappointed.

-nudone (May 03, 2011, 12:42 PM)

And I'll be...relieved.

7723

Living Room / Re: Apple Patent Reveals Extensive Stalking Plans

« Last post by 40hz on May 03, 2011, 02:04 PM »

Too funny! The above gawker link locked up my iPhone twice when I tried to read it! My client just tried it on her's. Same result.

Coincidence?

You be the judge.  

(I'm joking here. Although it did lock up Safari on both our iPhones. What is Gawker doing these days with its websites?)

7724

General Software Discussion / Re: Nemo - it's like Outlook Calendar for files

« Last post by 40hz on May 03, 2011, 12:48 PM »

I can see where this would be very valuable for someone who was trying to stay on top of a distributed collaborative project. If each part of the project had it's own file (like articles for a website, code sections, or chapters in a book) it would be easy for whoever was responsible for seeing deadlines met to get a quick oversight of what was being worked on and when.

Don't know how widespread a need there is using it as a dashboard like this. But I could see several viable uses for it in a publishing or writing project where a traditional version control system would be overkill.
 

7725

Living Room / Re: The internet in 1990 -- holy smokes!

« Last post by 40hz on May 03, 2011, 12:35 PM »

Some of that stuff seemed pretty neat at the time.   Wonder where we'll be twenty years from now.  

-mrainey (May 03, 2011, 10:20 AM)

Most likely in a tightly regulated, moderately taxed, and heavily monitored info-place largely dominated by commercial interests, government-sponsored propaganda, religious ranting, and political agendas.

Oh yeah... and with better and faster graphics and media.

Does anyone really expect it to be any different?  I mean honestly now.