Microsoft has QA?

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

matt,

yes, they do. the problem is the customers.

for example, some of you may have heard on the news about the SQL.Slammer work that's circulating the the 'net since last firday. It searches for 'vulnerable' MS SQL Server installations to take over and use to spread itself. I've been quite this past weekend because I've spent the past 72+ hours making sur emy company's computers are not susceptable to this. Luckily our network folks kept this worm from getting into our network. As for our database boxes, I've been responsible for roughly 100 SQL Servers for the past several years ... they were 100% protected against this. However, this situation has finally gotten me the assistance I needed to scan all of our complete networks and I now know that we have around 560+ boxes.

ugh. life sucks. MS released a fix for this hole last summer. I had it on all my boxes. the remaining 460+ ... let's just say that I'm very, very tired right now and do *not* like many customers.

However, thanks to our network folks and the DBAs who've worked with me, we've not had a single occurance of this damnable worm in-house. {sigh}

pat----

One often neglected factor is simply that software development is hard to scale. What works for a small company or project starts to fall apart rapidly as the company or project grows. When this is extrapolated to something the size of Microsoft it's a small wonder anything works. In reality they do an admirable job considering the scale they work at.

As a previous post pointed out, a lot of the problem is that they are the biggest target, not really that they're that bad. Almost all software has flaws.

SLL...SH is write again. wish i'd gone mac. the g-4 is so coool. also, it's probably to late for this, but just in case. if when you were opening explorer or whatever..did the thing automatically go to that site? you can click on 'tools' (explorer) and go to internet options..click that and you can set whatever site you want the thing to go to first. i will soon be having your problems when i retire next week. gotta give up me toshiba...and then they take me off the turner site. it's run by an ex-cia guy who really knows his stuff...the firewalls are so massive that i can't do a lotta things i want to...but we are virus protected pretty well...occasionally one gets thru...usually someone who downloaded something at home and brings it to work and goes on line thru the turner system. i gotta find a new computer and a new provider next week. several told me 'juno' is good...it's small right now and really cheap..was gonna use earthlink like me daughters but i like the 9.95 price of juno. i just need a way to get into the pipe,anyway...how's the old man?

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t higg

I swapped to Mandrake Linux and what a nice OS...much better than Windows

Finally found where it was embedded, and what set it off to load every so often. It was hiding under "search" right next to 'favorties' on the explorer tool bar.

If you let the mouse get loose on a quick click and brushed the search tab while clicking in a hurry, - it activated it to load. Not sure how I did but I cleaned it out of that area. FINALLY No reload since. YEA~

I'd have to second the linux approach. I've run linux/unix for years now with 0 compromises. My web server has stood faithfully thru the countless number of viruses that ms servers have fallen to. I also REALLY like the price of linux. I just laugh when I see ms users paying to get infected.
One caveat, I do run a firewall as the first line of defense. BUT, I don't worry about opening a mail message or having my web server go zany because of weird http requests. Linux mail readers just don't fall prey to the freshman virus attack and well, what more can I say but Apache!

One thing I have noticed with Linux is, surfing the web is alot faster, web pages download faster, its like being on a high speed T1 line...and for people still wanting to run MS Office on Linux there is this:

http://www.codeweavers.com/about/press_releases/?id=20030422

[This message has been edited by HI-FI (edited April 29, 2003).]

Linux is great - one my best friends has patches in the next release - but if you're going to do business right now there is still no substitute for Windows, at least in software development for profit.

Linux may eventually be a contender on the desktop - it certainly is already on the server, but someone like IBM needs to put Apple out of their misery and port the Aqua GUI and shell to Linux. Once Linux has as good or better (and standardized) shell it will have a chance on the desktop.

It shouldn't be tough, the Mac already gave up on having it's own kernel and is running on *nix.

If your OS is limiting your web surfing speed you're either on something a lot faster than T1 (which isn't very fast BTW) or you're running a 60Mhz Pentium. Typical LAN connections (about 60x faster than T1) can't even saturate a reasonable CPU anymore. I like Linux, but lets' be real here.....