Microsoft: The New Mafia

I wonder just how much Microsoft likes coming off as the new mafia. The coverage of the games their playing to get OOXML approved as a standard comes off perfectly as a mafia operation. Or maybe as a straight up corporate buy of a vote.

Maybe FASA wasn't far wrong with their concept for Shadowrun. Microsoft is certainly starting to look like an almighty corporation trying to run the world.

Social Skills of a Themonuclear Device?

While reading today's posts to the The Old New Thing, I followed his links for his tag "Social Skills of a Nuclear Device", and had a good laugh. I've been accused of this (in different terms) for a very long time. I am of two minds on this. Personally, I don't like being feared, but on the other hand, I don't want to deal with every single bullshit issue because I'm easy to deal with. We've already got a programmer who holds the "nice person" title, and she's buried every single day in calls she shouldn't have to handle. No thanks -- I get more programming done being a bomb :-)

Is Microsoft Copying Linux?

I've been sitting here today working away on my new Vista desktop at work. While plodding through the new Windows Explorer, I noticed something: is Microsoft copying their visual look from XWindows/Linux?

I say this because from my (admittedly small) time with graphical Linux desktops, the icons are much more colorful, the windows have larger margins for stretching, etc etc.

With all the changes in the interface, I think the next M$ press release on cost of switching to Linux because of retraining and interface differences should be printed on steel plates and shoved right up the PR flacks hind end.

Switching to Vista

We've started the process of rolling out Windows Vista at work. The IT department is getting the first machines, so we can figure out what's going to work or not work when we deploy new computers to the rest of the company.

While I have enjoyed the visual appearance of Vista, there's some things that truly suck:

• Line in is crippled on the SoundMax audio card. Not sure why, but everyone seems to think it's supposed to be broken. Yeah, sure. Then why did you waste a buck putting it on the damn card? I really miss being able to listen to my iPod through the line in while I work. What sucks is I'm going to need to find a HARDWARE solution for this. What BS.
• Software compatibility is going to suck. I've got one app (Alertbear) that is written in .NET, and IT'S BROKEN under Vista. WTF?!? Most of our other apps work, but installing them can be an entertaining experience.
• Navigating folders and doing file copies is outrageously slow. This is due to the indexing utility being a total hog. At day three things are finally starting to get better. At least exploder doesn't lock up every time you change folders now.
• Vista is SLOW. This new PC should be at least 3 times faster than my old one running XP. It isn't. I wonder why.
• The new Office is weird. I like it, but it's so completely different from what came before that it's a fairly high learning curve. Microsoft should shut up about learning curves on Linux if this is the kind of crap they're going to do with their Office applications. They lost their rights to that line of argument.

Back to the migration. THUD! THUD! THUD!

Michael Griffin

Just finished watching today's NASA post-launch management meeting Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, just tore into a reporter over the recent reports on drunkeness and complaints of professional opinions being ignored. If I get a link, I'll add it.

I hope Michael Griffin has a long tenure as NASA Admin. It's nice to watch a man who knows what NASA was meant to do try to get it done.