Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Believe it or not, recently I’ve seen several Microsoft products-Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V virtualization-that I think are winners. But then, just when I think Microsoft might finally be getting its technology act together, it comes up with a complete disaster: Windows Home Server. I never liked Home Server because I couldn’t see a point […]

I have a confession to make. I love my iPod Touch. It’s simply the best way to listen to music on the go or to watch a film when I’m stuck on a long flight. What it hasn’t been, though, is a useful work tool. That was then. This is now. First, on Jan. 15, […]

Microsoft admitted on a technical blog on March 10 that Windows Home Server can corrupt data when used with a wide variety of common applications. According to the blog posting, Microsoft has been aware of the “data corruption issue” since “late December 2007.” Specifically, Microsoft states in its KnowledgeBase listing that on servers with more […]

The Software Freedom Law Center and High-Gain Antennas jointly announced March 6 that High-Gain will conform to the General Public License and that as a result the SFLC will dismiss its GPL lawsuit. The suit began when the developers of BusyBox, a set of embedded Unix utilities licensed under the GPLv2, asked High-Gain to provide […]

It’s time for another SJVN quiz. How many major companies are making a profit with direct sales of dedicated disk compression programs? How about dedicated Web servers? OK, what about Web browsers? The answers? Zero, zero, and one. Opera is hanging on with all its might. What do these examples have to do with VMware, […]

Anyone who has ever used an Apple iPhone loves it. Besides just being cooler than an iceberg, it’s actually a great smart phone. So, from the very beginning, iPhone users wanted, oh how they wanted, to be able to use their iPhones in the enterprise. I mean, a BlackBerry Pearl is pretty neat, but come […]

I’ve never been a friend to Vista. I’ve found it flawed, a resource hog, and, when you got right down to it, a step backward from Windows XP, not to mention Mac OS X and the various Linux desktops. It turns out though that as harsh as I’ve been on Vista, it’s nothing compared to […]

It’s been an open secret that controversial SCO CEO Darl McBride was being forced out. Now, in an interview with the Salt Lake City Tribune, McBride admits that his days at SCO are numbered. In the interview, McBride said, “Clearly when we draw up a battle plan for what we’ve been working for the last […]

I had really thought that Vista SP1 would be an improvement. I didn’t think it would be a big improvement, but still that it would be more competitive with Windows XP and the modern Linux desktop. I was wrong.I’ve now been working with Vista SP1, the so-called RTM (release to manufacturing) version, for about two […]

You’ve got to give Microsoft credit for gall. They take a crunching defeat at the hands of the European Union court system for trying to conceal information and now that the court has forced them to reveal that same information, Microsoft is all about increasing “the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity […]

Microsoft has pinned its hopes for getting businesses to buy into Vista on the release of Vista Service Pack 1. So the company pushed SP1 out the door before it was ready, and now early adopters are discovering that Vista, with or without SP1, still isn’t business-ready. This comes as no surprise to me. I […]

Microsoft announced on Feb. 21 in a press release that it was launching “broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.” Specifically, Microsoft promises to “enhance connections with third-party products,” by publishing documentation for all […]