Michael Wheeler

In no particular order, I give you my Windows and Microsoft annoyances. Trying not to favour another OS, and yes, I still use Windows.

File/Folder layout

Yup, this is a killer. Windows over the time has been built up of hack ontop of hack, and it’s file structure has changed several times, but with every change the older folders have been left for legacy applications. In OS X, GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems file locations are some what sensible. /etc for config files, /lib for libraries, /home for homes, /bin for binaries. It’s all placed in logical places.

Application Support files / Install

Windows has no single way to install and setup applications. Installers are not standardised and usually make a mess of the system. There is no one location for start up applications and every time you want to install or remove an application you must use a software vendors application, trusting them to clean up their mess.

Support files for applications are scattered throughout the system and it makes backing up a programs setting is fairly hard. It is slowly improving with Local Settings and Application Data, but still fair from perfect.

Standards

Microsoft can’t even follow their own standards, so how are developers meant to. Microsoft event’s a new standard for each problem they run into, and don’t even bother to look at existing standards to improve on.

EEE

Which brings me to my next point. The good old EEE – Embrace extend and extinguish. The wiki page explains it quite well, and even provides examples :>

DIrectX
Well fuck you DirectX.

Shell / Command Line

Oh dear god. The current standard shell is absolutely use, and has barely improved since DOS 6. Oh well, at least we have tab completion now. YAY! The good news is PowerShell is looking pretty cool. Shame PowerShell isn’t supported on Windows 2000.

Dodgy Virus Protection

Windows has protected once again. To slow down virus they have limited our connections and removed our telnet. It hasn’t stopped viruses, although it has annoyed the hell out of us.

Requirement to have a virii scanner

An operating system that suggests you run a virus scanner is flawed. All that should be required is security updates every several days, not a whole new product by a third party.

5000 versions of the same product (ultimate ect…)

Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Business Premium, Ultimate. This makes maintaing computers an absolute bitch, and just silly. Provide one operating system for all computers. Eg OS X :P.

NTFS not being an open standard

This really isn’t a Windows annoyance, but an announce if you aren’t using Windows. NTFS standard needs to be open so other operating systems can read it.

Updates

Windows is excellent at updating every 3 hours, not to mention updating even when automatic updates has been turned off. This is quite annoying for me, and people that just want to turn off their computers. Instead they have to wait an hour just install a simple update.

Warning Messages

If you ever download an application on Windows Vista or 7, you’ll have just under 8 warning messages to click allow to, and due to this, all users become quite jaded towards the messages, and completely ignore them.

Unrelated Note

On an unrelated note, I would like to see Windows have a unified way to saving application data, and sandbox each applications. When applications want to use other applications data files the OS throws up a warning message asking if the program can have control over those files.

Other than the fact that everyone hates recruitment agencies when applying for jobs, I have some fairly solid arguments on why I won’t provide a Microsoft Word file for my Resume and cover letter. If you won’t accept my resume in PDF format, I will ask if I can print it and mail it to you.

First and foremost, PDF allows me to know that any operating system and PDF viewer can read my resume and still present it the same way. With the Microsoft Word format, I have no way of knowing if my resume is being viewed the same. Different software and even different versions of Microsoft Word renders documents differently and formatting completely changes if a different printer is used with a weird paper size or origination.

The second reason is because recruitment agencies tend to like to change your resume to their formatting and modify what is written on your resume, before they pass it on to the employer. Although PDF documents doesn’t stop them from copy the text into their own formatted template, it sure does slow them down. I’d much rather that my resume stays in the same condition all the way through to the employer.

The final reason is because my resume is created and rendered in LaTeX, so producing a Microsoft Word document at the same time as my current resume is relatively time consuming and hard. I shouldn’t be forced to use Microsoft Word to apply for jobs.

That said, company HR teams should get less lazy and actually do some work. You don’t need recruitment agencies these days with the internet, and even if the company does use a recruitment agency at least post the company name and location (not just Queensland) on the ad. I don’t want to waste my time applying for .net startup companies or jobs in locations I can’t commute to or live at.

Poweredge 2650 – Stephen Hill Photography

Well there you go, one of my life goal complete, clustering. I got a hold of two Dell 2650 and wanted to build a nice little cluster for dynamips so I can start testing / practising for my CCNP. I decided to go with OpenSSI, and Debian, because that’s all people have been talking about. Took me awhile to find the correct documentation for Debian Lenny, but once I did it was smooth sailing. The doco’s can be found here .

Once it’s installed it works pretty nicely, you set processes load balance using the cryptic command “loadlevel”, when processors start to use more CPU that get moved to CPU’s.

OpenSSI is very smooth to use with automatic setup of PXE booting and etherboot. Installed GNS3 and processes started to move over to the second server. I did have to set the max memory setting in GNS3 to the size of one IOS RAM requirements so it would spawn multiple dynamips hypervisors.