April 26th

Longhorn So Crash-Prone, It Needs a 'Black Box'

Bill Gates is so sure that your new version of Longhorn will crash so often, that it will need a 'black box' to record all the details of each disaster. While privacy advocates rail against Microsoft for intruding ever further into the ongoings on each person's computer, others such as myself marvel at how Bill Gates can turn a liability into an asset. A stable OS platform would not need a black box, whereas a crash-prone heap of unnecessary code probably needs a black-box, along with disaster-recovery tools, and a restore disk. But we won't get a restore disk or disaster-recovery tools in Longhorn, just the black box. So while Bill goes over in excruciating detail what you were doing when his OS bellied up, your stuck reinstalling Windows and your applications for the third time.

                                        Dr. John

April 19th

Microsoft's 5 Reasons to Upgrade to XP Pro x64

Microsoft is getting very near to ready to release Windows XP Professional x64, their 64-bit version of the operating system.  They provide 5 reasons to upgrade on their web site, including faster execution per clock cycle, much larger memory handling capacity (128GB of RAM!), and backward compatibility with 32-bit applications and games.

The rumors still abound that registered owners of XP Pro will be able to upgrade for free, but how that will work is still unclear. My best guess is that you will have to mail your XP Pro CD to Microsoft, and they will send you an OEM version of Windows XP Pro x64 for the cost of shipping.

We should know for sure before the end of this month.

                                        Dr. John

April 15th

Microsoft's Idea of Innovation: "Steal It"

Longhorn and Windows Server 2003 are on hold as a court injunction works it way through the labyrinthine legal system. A small company called Alacritech created a TCP speed-up scheme that takes the workload off the CPU, and puts it onto hardware on the network card. As is their usual practice, Microsoft became Alacritech's biggest buddy just long enough to steal the technology, and install it in upcoming Windows products. Alacritech found out, and got the courts to put an injunction on Longhorn and the next update to Windows Server. Let's hope that Alacritech wins, and Microsoft is forced to remove the technology, or pay for it like honest companies would have to do.

                                         Dr. John

April 13th

More Microsoft Patching

A number of new Windows patches were issued yesterday, just as security firm Secunia announced that there were several critical flaws found in Microsoft Access and Office. Patch a few holes here, and the dang thing springs a leak over there!

How many fingers do you have to plug the dike Bill?

                                          Dr. John

April 7th

The SLI Wars Heat Up

NVidia, the folks who bought 3dfx when it went belly up, has had two-video-card SLI up and running for some time now, and the motherboards and video cards are actually becoming readily available at stores. ATI is playing catch-up to NVidia, but the question is, is this SLI war for profit, or for prestige? Very few people so far are optiing for SLI setups, but with the advent of 128MB PCI-express NVidia video cards in the $250 range, and with dual-PCI-e motherboards in the $200 range, folks can get the guts of a new SLI system for around $700. That puts this type of high-end upgrade easily in the hands of do-it-yourselfers.

I expect to see many more people opting for dual video card systems over the next few months, and I expect NVidia will actually profit from the upgrades, rather than just getting kudos from the gaming public. This puts ATI in the hot seat to come up with their own solution, which may even include them having to put out a new motherboard chipset to get everything working at top speed. Should be interesting to see how the SLI wars turn out over the Summer.

                                           Dr. John

April 1st

Congress Intervenes to Have Bill Gates Feeding Tube Reinserted

A story that has not gotten the same level of attention as the case of Terri Schiavo is that of Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, who is now in his third week of a hunger strike. Mr. Gates announced in early March that he would no longer voluntarily take food until the majority of Windows users upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2. Mr. Gates implored the public: "God sent us computer viruses to show the American People what computer security is all about, and now we are in a fight for our lives to do whatever is necessary to get everyone to install SP2." With that, Mr. Gates stopped intake of all food, even ice cream, according to family members.

As Mr. Gates became weakened over last weekend, his family had a feeding tube inserted to keep the Microsoft founder alive. However, the tube was removed by Mr. Gates himself who muttered at the time "Give me SP2, or give me death." Congressional Republicans met in a hurriedly arranged special session, which Democrats were excluded from, and passed secret legislation that would force doctors to reinsert Mr. Gate's tube, and lash his arms to the bed to prevent him from removing it again.

Journalists who have been to Mr. Gate's bedside since the legislated tube reinsertion report that he was quoted as saying "Mmmm, ughhhh, mmmmm", over and over again.

As this life and death drama plays out in a Redmond hospital, the world watches, and waits... and eats.

                                            Dr. John