Lots of great stuff coming out of microsoft this past week..
- Several seriously critical extremely major Internet Explorer security exploits were uncovered. Once again, these same bugs impact not only Internet Explorer 6 but the up and coming Internet Explorer 7. Hahah.. So much for an “extreme focus on security” that Microsoft has been touting for the upcoming IE7 and Vista (yes, IE7 comes with Vista).
- Talking about Vista.. it has been delayed… again. Microsoft was touting a 2nd half 2006 release for Vista, but now they will not meet the holiday season and it is now scheduled for release in Jaunary 2007 (though I wouldn’t bet on that..). For an OS that was suppose to be out early 2004 and has since been cut down singificantly from the original design specs, it simply amazes me. The fact that exploits to Windows XP and Internet Explorer are impacting Vista and Internet Explorer 7 puts a smile on my face.
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Talking about security…. Did you know that Microsoft highly touted .NET platform (the platform that allows for the “ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions”) is virtually non-existant for the tools and applications that SHIP with Vista? The claim is .NET is not designed for operating system programming — however, I don’t think I really expect Microsoft Paint, Calculator, etc “Operating system” level components. Don’t you think Microsoft would elect to reprogram most of these non-os level aspects to minimize security issues?
- In anycase, Microsoft appears to believe they are the expert on security never-the-less.. The Microsoft security team felt compelled to school Apple on security. I’m taking a wild guess that the security team at Microsoft got fed up with MS not paying attention so they felt their services might be recieved better by the competition? hah..
- Going back to Internet Explorer, apparently Bill Gates decided that it didn’t need to be “tied to the OS” and Internet Explorer would be released on a more frequent basis (atleast once per year). Honestly, can’t we pull up some the EU and DOJ trial records that stated Windows and IE cannot be unbundled and get some justice? I am glad to see Firefox is making a difference, but this “now its bundled, now its not” crap is insane.
- Ahh.. so if that wasn’t fun enough, Microsoft’s Licensing is a joke as well. According to Microsoft in 2001, 80% of volume licensees would have the same price or reduction in price by moving to a new “Software Assurance” licensing scheme. In 2004, only 40% agreed.. while it rose in 2005 to 62%, it was neverless an indication that the new licensing played in favor to Microsoft. In addition, with the massive product delays from Microsoft, much of the promised software upgrades promised under the agreements will go unfullfilled. The entire licensing issue has gotten way out of hand. I agree. Ever check out the licensing pages on the Microsoft site? Its uhh.. fun.
- My prediction. According to Microsoft, Vista will fix the spyware issue that plagued Windows XP (and later XP2 which apparently was designed to fix the problem, but didn’t..). The parasite companies that sell all the software for cleaning XP are upset that they will run out of business (yes, without a host, the parasite dies) — however, I’ll shed some light for those parasites — Vista won’t be the dead-blow to spyware. The parasites will survive and Vista will continue to be infested. How do I know? History.
The LinuxQuestions.org website posted the results of their annual User Choice awards and its great to see more and more KDE solutions ranking high on the list. The following KDE-based tools ranked first or second in their respective categories:
- KDE for desktop environment
- amaroK for audio multimedia player
- Knoppix for Live CD (based on KDE)
- Konqueror for file manager
- Konqueror for web browser (2nd place)
- Quanta for web development tool
- KOffice for Office Suite (2nd place)
- Kate for text editor (2nd place)
- Kopete for Instant Messaging Client (2nd place)
- KDevelop for programming environment (2nd place .. almost tied for 1st)
- KMail for mail client (2nd place)
Whats particularly interesting is the fact that the apps that ranked 2nd place lost to apps that are cross platform (windows, mac, linux, bsd and *nix) such as OpenOffice.org, GAIM and vim. As a result, it might be a simple case of larger potential user base versus quality of the software. Needless to say, congrats to the KDE developers for creating not only a great desktop environment but also some great tools and applications to run on it.
I am still working through my vim book. Given the 30 year history of vi(m) development, I am not too surprised to see the wealth of commands and options available.. It is pretty cool, I can define a huge array of shortcuts and tie-ins that aid in text editing tasks. This includes the ability to tie into man pages (unix help files) right from vim to reference when editing configuration files. It also can tie into my scripting language tools (such as php) to check a script for errors, run the script, etc without the need to leave the editor. In addition, I can have it auto complete common, lengthy syntax. For example, I was working on a php script which required the common use of a if/else condition:
if ($something == $something) {
} else {
}
With vim, while editing, I could simply type =if and it would display the condition formatting and place my cursor in the position in needed to be (the first if conditional statement).
While not necessarily impressive in and of itself, giving the strict syntax of configuration files and programming, the ability to shorten these types of syntax from typing 15+ characters to only 3 characters ultimately saves time and reduces error.
Ultimatley, as I get more use to working in vim, I am appreciating the ability to access all the rich functionaility right from the keyboard. Not only this, but most of the commands are single character commands and the use of multi-key commands (such as ctrl-alt-b or even ctrl-V) are rare. The developers even migrated away from the arrow keys to use the letters h, j, k, and l (if desired) so my hands do not have to move away from the home row. By reducing the amount of physical movement (either around the keyboard or between the keyboard and mouse like most apps), as I get more use to the vim commands, in *theory* the more I can focus on the task at hand instead of hunting for keys (moving my hands from home row) or going between the keyboard and mouse.
Needless to say, I was curious as to the ability to impliment something similar in my other apps such as OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org makes extensive use of styles — let it be page styles, paragraph styles, or character styles. As a result, similar to cascading style sheets in web development lingo or styles in desktop publishing apps, I can focus on content and leave the layout to the style definitions. However, unlike web development, the styles are not inline — that is, I cannot type for example, <h1> to create a header 1 element in OpenOffice. By default, I would need to move from the keyboard to the mouse, click on the Stylist floating window and select “Header 1″. Not necessarily bad but it takes focus away from creating the document.
So I searched for either doing it inline or having the ability to assign it to a shortcut. Unfortunately, when editing a style, there was no assigned shortcut to be found. After some digging, I found a hidden menu for customizing keyboard shortcuts!
To accomplish this, in OpenOffice.org Writer, I went into Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard. In the top window, I scrolled down and noticed CTRL-0 through CTRL-9 started with heading 1 through 3. Excellent — they already pre-defined some of the styles! So I was able to select the other keyboard shortcuts, scroll to the bottom of the Category window to select Styles and set the styles I most commonly used to shortcut keys.
Excellent! Now when creating a document in OpenOffice.org, I have the power of the styles without the need to leave the keyboard. Adios Stylist floating menu!