Category Archives: Computer and Internet

Stop SOPA and PIPA

Posted on November 27, 2011 by halberenson

One of the biggest threats to the Internet is censorship legislation currently in the U.S. Congress known as SOPA in the House and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”) in the Senate. SOPA was dealt a huge blow a couple of weeks … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet | Tagged Internet Censorship, PIPA, Protect IP Act, SOPA | 2 Comments

Can Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 ship in June 2012

Posted on November 17, 2011 by halberenson

While most observers expect to see Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 no earlier than next fall, there have been various indicators that we could see one or both much earlier. Indeed, there is increasing evidence that we might see … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Windows, Windows Phone | Tagged Windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8 | 10 Comments

“For all of us who have lives, there’s Windows” – David Gewirtz

Posted on October 21, 2011 by halberenson

I couldn’t resist pointing out this article about dropping Linux in favor of Windows. In the mid-2000s I made a concerted effort to learn and use Linux. I even went as far as running it on my laptop, and taking that laptop … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Linux and Android, Windows | Tagged Linux, Linux Server, Microsoft Windows | 5 Comments

What the heck is “Program Management”?

Posted on October 14, 2011 by halberenson

When I first joined Microsoft back in 1994 I, like many other outsiders, was shocked by its split of Software Engineering into three (rather than two) disciplines. Splitting Development from Test was pretty common in the industry. But subdividing Development … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet | Tagged Program Management, Program Manager, SDE, Software Design, Software Design Engineer | 3 Comments

OLE DB and SQL Server: History, End-Game, and some Microsoft “dirt”

Posted on September 25, 2011 by halberenson

Last month the Microsoft SQL Server team effectively sounded the death knell for Microsoft’s OLE DB. I say “effectively” because while SQL Server isn’t the only implementor of OLE DB, it is (or rather was) Microsoft’s flagship for this data … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Database, Microsoft, SQL Server | Tagged Microsoft SQL Server, OLE DB, SQL Server, SQL Server OLE DB | 4 Comments

Good summary of Windows 8 security

Posted on September 23, 2011 by halberenson

Jason Garms, the Group Program Manager at Microsoft responsible for Windows 8’s security features, has written an overview of Windows 8’s added malware protection. If you are on the techie-side then it’s a great read, but otherwise your eyes will probably … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Security, Windows | Tagged Anti-Malware, Malware Protection, Windows 8, Windows 8 malware, Windows 8 Security | Comments Off

Thinking about User Interface paradigms and an eventual “Humanoid UI”

Posted on September 20, 2011 by halberenson

(Let me apologize before you start for the length of this blog entry. If it were a magazine article I’d spend hours more trying to edit it to perhaps half its current length. But this is a blog, and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet | Tagged GUI, Humanoid UI, Kinect, Speech Recognition, Touch and Gesture, User Interface, WIMP | 2 Comments

Think of Computers as Biological Systems

Posted on September 17, 2011 by halberenson

One of the things we all struggle with is why do computers have bugs? Why do they run perfectly well for months and then slow down? Worse, why are they slow one day and fast another? Or why does something … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet | Tagged Bugs, Computer Reliability, Computer Systems Design, Software Bugs, Software Reliability | Comments Off

Windows 8 Defender

Posted on September 14, 2011 by halberenson

One of the end-user oriented features revealed in yesterday’s BUILD keynote that I’m particularly excited about is the expansion of Windows Defender capabilities. Microsoft has had the limited Defender anti-malware capability built-in to Windows since Vista. Defender, although it uses the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Security, Windows | Tagged Anti-Malware, Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows 8, Windows Defender | Comments Off

What does Windows 8 have to do to succeed?

Posted on September 10, 2011 by halberenson

Following up from my previous post on why Windows 8 is so important I wanted to speculate on what we’ll see next week, or rather what we have to see in order to believe that Microsoft can succeed. First we’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft, Windows | Tagged Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows 8, Windows 8 | 13 Comments