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Stories by Oliver Rist

  • The road to Longhorn: A Hobbit's tale

    It must be a little like trudging your furry feet all the way from the Shire to Mordor, only to see that big damn gate manned by a thousand orcs who look like Paul Venezia after a hard night drinking. You're filled with despair, like that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach after writing about little else besides Vista this and Vista that for the last six months, only to realize that I'm sitting down in my well-worn lab chair, about to install Beta 3 of Longhorn.

  • Hosted services trump in-house deployments

    It's 8 a.m. last Friday. Yours geekily is tilting forward to pluck the milk from the fridge, the better to coat my breakfast withal, and TING! My lower back pops a spring, my mouth leaks a whimper, and I wind up lying flat, staring at my bedroom ceiling with the cloying scent of Bengay wafting through the room. This is how I spent the entirety of what U.S. folks tell me was the first beautiful weekend of spring in this otherwise aesthetically challenged state we call New Jersey. And, yeah, I wasn't just grumpy; I was also unpleasantly surprised. Undoubtedly a similar reaction to what BlackBerry users suffered earlier last week when their service went the way of my lumbar elasticity.

  • No warm fuzzies for iSCSI?

    Lately, it seems like it's all about disk space. They're no longer file servers but document repositories with multiple versions of single documents saved ad infinitum -- just in case of a finger-pointing fest. Not so much the trouble with Word files, but your average PowerPoint file is now over 20MB, easy. Five or six versions of each of those multiplied by dozens of sales people and hundreds of target customers, and suddenly, you're talking real space. To say nothing of photo albums, corporate podcast libraries, online training videos, and gigabytes and gigabytes of e-mail. Hell, my home-movie collection just topped 150GB.

  • Microsoft VOIP app confuses

    Impenetrable questions I've been pondering: The difference between acute dyslexia and the way Linux programmers name their software. How Apple Store sales personnel differ from those at the Clearasil human testing lab. Whether the proliferation of Law & Order: X and Ebola virus outbreaks are somehow connected. The difference between Office Communications Server and Microsoft Response Point.

  • A bullish outlook for Longhorn security

    Vista's security advances may be ambitious, but they could seem ho-hum in comparison to those of Longhorn when the server OS stampedes onto the scene later this year. The last time we saw Longhorn it was still prebeta 3, but its security promise remains bright.

  • Unraveling the Communications Server mystery

    Certain things exist without explanation: Ben Affleck's career; the micro PC; Tofurky. For many, LCS (Live Communications Server) 2005 fell into this category. Is it IM? Is it voice over the network? Does it use Messenger or something else? Redmond has recognized the Great Mystery of LCS and is looking to make things easier to understand with the platform's upcoming release, now to be called OCS (Office Communications Server) 2007.

  • Upgrading to Vista? Proceed with caution

    Certainly no coincidence, Microsoft has decked out its much-anticipated OS upgrade with beautiful landscape wallpapers -- vistas, to be exact. But, as calming as these background images may be for end-users getting acquainted with Vista, for IT directors, the landscape approaching an enterprise rollout of any new Windows operating system has always been rocky. Convincing management with compelling ROI, quelling grumpy user rebellions, and making sure the whole thing doesn't blow up in your face are by now well-known impediments along any Windows migration path. It's enough to make IT departments considering the journey downright cautious.

  • Vista launch starts upgrade clock ticking

    Moses crossing the desert. The Red Sox breaking the curse of the Bambino. Microsoft getting shrink-wrap around a Vista box. All involved more than their share of blood, sweat, toil, and tears. But for the folks out in Redmond, Washington, the day has finally arrived: Vista is shipping to consumers Jan. 30.

  • My Say: Microsoft's delays cause more than just frowns

    As soon as Tobey Maguire gets bit by that radioactive spider and starts swinging around on gross-looking web thingies, his uncle has that quote that defines his future: "With great power comes great responsibility." The big M needs to adopt that philosophy, too.

  • Longhorn: Serving up more than hype

    Microsoft has been managing our expectations of Longhorn like a barker for Barnum & Bailey. What it has lacked in loud music and snarling 500-pound felines, it has made up for with lavish trade events, platform unveilings and the occasional banana-snarfing, 800-pound-gorilla technology.

  • Virtual Server could challenge VMware

    Virtual PC was nice for Windows power users. But for developers and systems adminstrators testing against specific OS images and doing similar business-oriented tasks, Virtual Server 2005 is the only thing out of Redmond that might make us stray from VMware. Fortunately, after slipping a couple of ship dates, Microsoft released Virtual Server late last year to semi-enthusiastic hand clapping from its customers.

  • Prepare for MS' next circle of doom, salvation

    The circle opens as I'm helping a client sort through computers and books he intends to donate to an international charity. We get to talking about Microsoft's new Client Protection suite, an amalgam of Windows Live Safety Center and Windows Live OneCare. The suite's available from the Windows Live Market-Share Retainer -- I mean, the Windows Live Ideas Web site. "So pretty soon, I won't have to pay extra for security software?" That's his actual question. And it's this question that begins the cycle of doom and salvation.

  • MY SAY: Another view of Vista

    Redmond really did announce an amazing amount of stuff in the past three weeks, and it all ties together in an only slightly twisted Microsoft way.

  • Cisco rolls out datacenter architecture

    Cisco Systems on Wednesday released a new computer networking and virtualization architecture it calls VFrame. The architecture combines a set of InfiniBand-based SFSs (server fabric switches) with the VFrame virtualization software suite. Much of this is based on Cisco's acquisition of TopSpin, though the company has gone to significant lengths to rebrand and extend the technology in time for this announcement.