Todd's Tech Blog : Longhorn Server

todd — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 02:04:00 GMT

There is no virus for Windows Vista!!!!! This is one piece of news that really got me riled up. What happened is someone determined some commands in Monad (Microsoft's Unix-like command line console - although calling it Unix-like doesn't really give it enough credit) could create havoc and published a report about them on the web. Somehow this translated to there being a virus affecting Windows Vista beta 1 running crazy on the internet. Just to make this clear, WINDOWS VISTA WILL NOT INCLUDE MONAD. Also, Microsoft didn't pull Monad from Windows Vista because of this. Monad will be in development for quite a bit longer than Windows Vista. It may show up in Windows Longhorn R2 release scheduled for a 2009 release but it may not even be done then. So anyway, enough of my rant...:)

Sorry for my absence!

todd — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 03:41:00 GMT

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. But in any case I'm back. One of the big reasons for my absence was because I've been focusing very hard on getting ActiveWin.com's Longhorn section finished. A number of us have put a ton of work into it, knowing that all this info will be out of date in 6 months. But oh well. Look for frequent updates... we're already planning a "refresh" to be released around beta 2... or so... :-). So without further ado, check out ActiveWin.com's very newly released Longhorn section! Also, I promise more frequent updates over here... didn't mean to neglect you guys.

Microsoft's RSS Announcement

todd — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:26:00 GMT

I'm sure most of you have heard about how Microsoft is integrating RSS into IE 7 and Longhorn. They're also adding an extention to RSS - the ability to create lists. I really like RSS (and ATOM, for that matter). I think it's just one of those simple ideas that makes so much sense (it's usually the simple ones that do). And I'm excited about Microsoft embracing it and piping it into Windows. At the same time, should we be a bit apprehensive? Is Microsoft doing to RSS what it did with HTML? Well, Microsoft is pegging a lot on RSS. Looking forward, they believe, there will be browsing, search, and subscriptions when it comes to the internet. Microsoft has invested a lot fighting Google over search, so it's no surprise that they're trying to get an early (well, earlier) start on subscriptions.

This is where I'm torn. I'm just not sure how I feel about Microsoft tinkering with RSS. They may add a bunch of proprietary options to tie the RSS technology (and, as the conspiracy goes, all subscriptions... which will be a huge thing in the coming years) to Windows. At the same time, is that necessarily a bad thing? If they embrace it and extend it in ways that the community can't, are we worse off? I think it could be a great thing for the technology, especially if they keep the underpinnings open. What do you guys think?