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The Computerworld TechCast is a bimonthly podcast for IT professionals that introduces key enterprise technologies and management processes.

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This podcast explores developments in the fast-changing storage market, ranging from portable storage devices to enterprise management technologies.

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This NPR-style program about information technology was discontinued in early 2007, but archived programs are still available.

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There was a time when Microsoft was an honorable company. It's getting more and more difficult to resolve any such notion with the 2006 version of the software giant.

In its latest bad decision, detailed in the Computerworld story, Vista and Longhorn to get new antipiracy measures, reported by Eric Lai, Microsoft has decided to place a price tag on security.

If validation code, written by Microsoft, decides that your installation of Windows Vista has been pirated, it turns off the Aero interface and a minor performance technology called ReadyBoost. I'm okay with that. But I am absolutely not okay with the third punitive measure: The disabling of Windows Defender, Microsoft's new onboard anti-spyware utility. Other punitive measures according to published reports include the disabling of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player. After 30 days, unvalidated copies of Vista will move into "reduced functionality mode," which has been likened by insiders to be something like Safe Mode.

Most people using "pirated" software have absolutely no idea that's the case. Opening up their PCs to Trojans, spyware, and identify theft scams in the name of getting them to pay up on their copy of Windows Vista is not only a very bad business decision, it's an appalling example of just how far Microsoft is willing to go to stuff its corporate coffers.

The true irony is that earlier this decade, Bill Gates promised to make Microsoft software, and Windows in particular, much more secure. And now that Microsoft may have achieved that (and the jury is still out on that), the company is already looking to turn a buck on it?

There's something wrong with a company that totes up the worst-ever software security record, then decides to make security a top priority, and then decides to withhold that security from any user that it deems hasn't properly paid -- even when the lack of validation is most often caused by the sellers users bought their computers from or the repair shops they brought their PCs to. Even when Microsoft's validation process is correct, which it probably is most of the time, it's my assessment that the vast majority of the Windows Vista users were victimized by others. And now Microsoft will be making them pay, first by reducing their security, then by reducing the functionality of Vista.

Hello! Is anyone in Redmond actually paying attention to what it's doing? Do they have any self awareness at all? Because I'm beginning to think that a lot of people are going to take a pass on Vista.

Microsoft is drunk on its own Kool-Aid. It has become this era's Gi-normous ACME Corporation, like Standard Oil and AT&T before it. It has completely lost touch with its beginnings. Because there was a time that Microsoft was David to IBM's Goliath. And Microsoft has more than once gulled the giant. But in its giant suit, Microsoft looks pathetic. Other than attempting month in, month out to deliver profits for its Wall Street masters, Microsoft lacks mission, has gotten far away from its roots and lacks any sense of innovation.

If ever Microsoft needed a course correction -- make that a total change of scenery -- it's now.

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Pilot fish is cruising his site, looking for anything IT-related that doesn't look quite right, when he spots a label printer in the receiving department with yellow tape all over it. ...

read more | Sharky's blog

This pilot fish has been working under contract for a school, trying to keep things limping along until some major improvements can be made. And finally, after several years, it looks like that's going to happen.

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This team supports the company's project portfolio management application, and they're suddenly called into a meeting, reports a pilot fish on the team.

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Accounting department reports that the backup tape for a server won't stay in. Pilot fish tries, and runs a backup without a problem -- but the next day the complaint is back. "We asked them to show us the problem, but they were too busy to stop and work with us," fish says. "This went on for weeks until accounting submitted a purchase order to hire a consultant. He came out and watched as our accountant inserted a cleaning tape into the drive -- and a few seconds later it popped out. Consultant made a big label that said CLEANING TAPE, explained to the accountant that she needs to back up her data on one of the tapes that does not say CLEANING TAPE on it, and billed us $150."

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Pilot fish takes this Friday off for a backpacking trip with a friend in Texas hill country. At least he's supposed to have the day off.

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Power hit destroys a hard disk on a file server that this pilot fish is responsible for, and he cleans up the mess as best he can.

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IT manager pilot fish gets tapped to conduct a major hardware rollout and migration at the big aerospace company where he works.

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It's the aftermath of a hurricane, and this pilot fish is helping to support the team evaluating damage at a group of chemical plants in the hurricane's path.

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User walks into pilot fish's office and announces that one of the office copiers is smarter than the user is. "Being the positive, upbeat person that I am, I replied that can't be," says fish. "He told me he knew he must open something to put the paper in but wasn't sure what. That's when I had to inform him that the copier was in another office. He was looking at our network printer. I guess he was right after all."

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IT pilot fish gets tapped for the job of setting up equipment for a brand-new retail store. It should be pretty straightforward, because all the equipment is new: new PCs, printers, servers, switches and bar code scanners.

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Database consultant pilot fish gets a panicked call from a colleague. "He had just replaced me at a client site," says fish, "and a user had come to him with a problem.

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The company where this pilot fish works is going through a major change in how IT is done. "A new organizational map will be put in place," reports fish. "Work will be outsourced. Service levels for the rest of the company will be more carefully documented.

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