Philoking.comfrom Jason Burns’ perspective…

In yet another session of having a friend moan about Vista at me because I work for Microsoft, I thought I would do the entire world a favor and post this nice, tiny little tutorial. So you hate User Access Control (UAC) I get it, many do. But seriously folks, it takes 2 seconds to disable it, don’t let it ruin your Vista experience!

I still think it’s awesome for people who should use a computer sitting on their hands because they can’t help but click everything they see….. but you don’t want it, okie dokie, let’s get rid of it.

Click the fancy Windows key on your keyboard, you know, the one you never use. When the menu comes up, in the “Start Search” box, type in “msconfig” and it will show up under “Programs” in the menu, click it and it will launch an app that looks like this (after you tell it you are sure.. I know, I know):

Select the “Tools” tab and then find “Disable UAC” in the list and choose “Launch”

Let it run it’s command prompt reg hack goodness, and you might have to restart, but when you are back, BANG, no more UAC. For one addition tip, go into the “Windows Security Center” in the Control Panel, select “Change the way Security Center Alerts me”

When you select, a dialog pops up and you can choose the way in which Vista will or will not warn you that you have disabled user access control, firewall or antivirus messages.

Enjoy!

I would have to say that Microsoft SharePoint could be considered the foundation of the product I work on at Microsoft, PerformancePoint Server 2007.

That being the case, I try to keep myself very aware of what’s going on in that space. Last night I got an email from Google advertising a new service that was available to me as a Google Apps customer. The Announcement read…

Greetings admins!

Today, we’re excited to announce the introduction of Google Sites as part of Google Apps.

Google Sites makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets — and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, your entire organization, or the world.
As of today, Google Sites is enabled for philoking.com, which means your users can get started immediately. To help you announce this new offering to your users, we’ve included a template message below that you’re welcome to use.

It didn’t take long to realize that sounded a whole lot like SharePoint. Now Google has already been trying to take on Microsoft Office with cloud services like Google Docs, and to be honest it’s a pretty impressive product given the complexity of having an entirely web based spreadsheet solution.

So what does this new service offer exactly? Well I took some time to play with it and some of the highlights are as follows…

Google has 5 page types for your sites:

• Web Page allows you to create basic static content, you can format it with the basic Bold, Italic, Underline, Font Color options, define tables, insert links, images, Google Docs, Picasa slideshows, Gadgets, video and more.
• Dashboard allows you to create something similar to iGoogle on a page within the site, useful for a landing page, news, etc.
• Announcements duplicates the formatting function of Web Page, but adds in the ability to date thread them so you can use it like a calendar of sorts. Oddly enough I see no integration with Google Calendar which seems like a common sense fusion.
• File Cabinet is a file repository complete with subscription capability and commenting. I looked through the help and could find no documentation on file size limitations, for uploading or total storage.
• List is very much like SharePoint. You have 3 standard templates for Action Items, Issues and Unit Status, as well as attachments and comments, and a free form “Create Your Own” list feature which allows you to create a totally custom layout. Missing from this seems to be any raw url to access the list or any API to expose it as a data source of any kind.

The site itself is quite customizable, and in cases of cross geo teams who need to collaborate, even with actual Office documents, I can see it as a real competitor. The place it falls short, which is the majority of SharePoint installs in my opinion, is extensability.

There appears to be no actual API, no way to access web services to extend it with additional functionality and most importantly no way to use it as a data source for any other tools or products. I am sure that this is clearly on the Radar as this is only a beta and will probably continue to grow.

I did see a few performance issues and when testing it with Google Docs integration I saw some problems with formatting spreadsheets, especially with charts into your pages.

The bottom line is that this is one impressive piece of web coding. Cross browser it’s beautiful, the feature set is incredibly rich for a free product. The question I ask is:

How many are going to trust Google and “the cloud” with their data 100%. If you place your life in a site and it dies, the service is discontinued or whatever disaster you can dream up, having no access to the data and no traditional way to back it up or export it to another tool, that’s a pretty scary proposition.

If you would like to view my test site, you can access it here http://sites.google.com/a/philoking.com/testsite/lkists

If you would like to play with it, send me your Google ID and I will set you up access to modify it.

My co-worker found a scary little footnote:

Content you create with Google Sites may, if you choose, be read, copied, used and redistributed by people you know or, again if you choose, by people you do not know. Use care when including sensitive personal information in content you share, such as social security numbers, financial account information, home addresses or phone numbers.

Yea yea, I work for Microsoft and I have been writing a lot about Vista lately. That also means I have been using Vista a lot lately. I have been using it on two work machines (32-bit Enterprise on desktop and 32-bit Enterprise on Tablet Laptop) and two home machines (32-bit Business on home server and 64-bit Ultimate on my new home desktop.)

That is a whole lot of Vista going on. So in that I have had my fair share of Vista issues for sure. Pretty much the only machine that hasn’t had some specific problem is the Business machine, a Dell Optiplex that loaded all drivers the first time with no issues and has ran perfect since the install.

My other three machines have suffered from:

• Misidentified or inability to locate drivers (especially 64-bit)
• Aero taking a hike and not coming back
• Software that wouldn’t install

Beyond that, Vista itself has stumped me with things like:

• Control panel navigation is changed so much it’s difficult to find things
• Incredibly long shut down times
• UAC, what can I say.

That being said…. Windows Vista has been a freaking DREAM compared to Linux in my experience. First, let’s take a second to outline what that experience is.

I have been toying with Linux since probably 1998. I have been playing with it since they began selling it in stores, back when you could get Corel, Mandrake, SuSe or any of another half dozen variants on a CD or two that was nearly impossible to install.

For someone who is tech savvy, the frustration with Linux was the exact opposite of the regular Vista complaints, in Vista they say no old hardware works, in Linux ONLY older hardware works unless you have some technical know-how.

Sure, within a few weeks/months the packages are caught up and some usually not so stable drivers are available for you to use.

I guess I am one of those on the tech-edge kind of people who usually have really current hardware, so I don’t spend my days and nights whining that I can’t get my Circa 1999 Logitech Hand Scanner working in Windows Vista 64-bit edition (mostly cause it doesn’t even HAVE a serial port, but I digress)

I guess I always go back to my old standby question:

If you aren’t running a really current computer, why are you trying to run Windows Vista anyway? Shouldn’t you keep something that is more in line with your computer’s capability?

Technology progresses folks. When DVD finally gives up the ghost, you aren’t going to complain that your DVD player won’t play Blu-Ray are you? It’s really the same thing, if your computer is 5 years old, why do you expect it to not only run Windows Vista, but run it well? Ironically, my 6 year old Pentium 4 with 2 GB of ram will run Windows Vista Basic quite well. But that’s a topic for another day.

So the root of this blog is from an article I found on Digg that got over 1000 diggs about a Linux user who has switched to Vista for un-stated reasons.

Ryan goes into depth with Windows Vista’s weaknesses and preaches how Linux is so much better.

So I would like to hit up his points real quick, and just shed my opinion…

1. The UI is hard to customize: Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? In the case of Windows it’s made to support a very broad user base. The goal was for Aero to be the nice GUI and not for power users to be able to tweak the UI so it looks like something off of a Hollywood hacker movie. I can see the point on some key commands, but those are pretty nit picky things, resizing and moving windows is a very easy task, I would sincerely hope that’s not hindering productivity
2. Drivers in Windows Vista are too difficult: I kind of have to refer to my previous semi-rant, what are you putting this on? We all know the woes with Vista-Capable, but if your hardware is relatively current, a quick install of the chipset and video card should leapfrog the rest of the hardware being identified correctly. Of course if you have some really unusual advanced audio devices or capture cards, etc, this could be a bear, but the basic services of video, network and sound should be pretty easy to solve. If you can’t find the drivers, your hardware is most likely a bit too old.
3. Backwards Compatibility: Read previous and apply the same to software. Sometimes you just have to let things go, technology marches on and eventually things are deprecated, when you don’t you end up with a mess like Linux. I totally dig that you can have an awesome Linux setup that is gorgeous and easy to use, but a novice user can bring a Linux box down to a retarded blinking cursor just by trying to install a video driver, I have seen it happen. In that case, how do you tell a novice to go into vi, edit the xorg.conf file and pray it works.
4. Absolutely no package management: I am sure Microsoft would love to have solid package management. It’s a pretty difficult task when you have a million applications being written for it. It’s about scale, and when you get as large as Windows, it’s just not practical.  On that note, when you aren’t using no name Taiwanese hardware, it actually does a pretty good job of keeping most drivers up to date.
5. Personal User Experience: Lack of good command line tools and a good SSH client? I would call this just being lazy, download PowerShell and Putty and move on. I know they aren’t included, but dang, 99% of users don’t need them and they are really easy to get your hands on. Ryan may not be able to get by on Putty, but MANY do, and do well.

So Ryan ends telling us how he is leaving Vista, how he is home sick for KDE. I can’t say I am surprised by this, I would expect with the attitude going in and throughout that he wasn’t really willing to understand that a different operating system is just that, different. That’s why there are Windows Users, Mac Users and Linux Users. Each one has different needs and preferences and will always lean in a particular direction. I would expect a Linux user would be more likely to turn to OS X given the Unix roots of the operating system. I can’t imagine for the life of me why anyone would be married to a window manager like KDE or Gnome, sure they are sufficient and flexible but they are hardly polished or stable when you really tweak them.

My experience in Vista has been fantastic and my hiccups expected and easily dealt with. I don’t consider myself a novice user by any stretch, but I have no concern with my parents or non tech-savvy friends picking up and using Vista with great regularity. It’s a solid OS on current hardware and software, something that I just don’t think is an unfair requirement for a next-Gen operating system.

Everyone that knows me well, knows that my machines are in a constant state of flux. I love to play, I am a true geek and I test and test till I can’t take it anymore, then I test a little more.

My most recent testing scenario has been living with Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition on my new personal desktop computer. The computer in question is a 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of Ram, 400 GB Hard Disk, DVD +/- RW, nVidia GeForce 8800 GT, etc, etc, etc.

Besides a little trouble finding some drivers, setting it up was pretty painless. Also with only a few minor exceptions that were also rectified, installing software is pretty painless.

After having my own positive experience, I did a little more research to see what doesn’t work and I was a little unnerved to see that many 3rd party devices that I do own, like iPods, won’t work with this machine.

Currently they are not being connected to it, but who knows what will happen in the future?

So the burning question is do I leave x64 and continue in ignorant bliss until I buy some gadget and have to stick it on an old machine or do I flatten this box, put 32-bit ultimate on it, and be part of the masses? It’s a tough call, and I am not quite prepared to make it, but it’s definitely food for thought.