Bigger is not always better, especially when running a notebook | Bangkok Post: tech

COMPUTER Currents

Is bigger really better in the computing world? As an example, I've chosen the latest iteration of Visual Studio, VS 2010. There has been a trend over successive versions of many software developers to add in everything they can think of in a new release.

I've used VS 2005, VS 2008 and of course the earlier iterations of the Microsoft integrated development environment (IDE). In a time that I'm thinking about getting a Netbook, along comes the latest and biggest iteration of the MS development suite.

There is a new editor and shell with version 4.0 of the .Net Framework. There is a new Visual Studio for better lifecycle management and another try at a visual modelling tool. The application is only in Release Candidate stage but the RC is a lot faster than the earlier betas. Theres incremental search and a better trace facility. This release also has better support for things like Ajax but not up to Silverlight 4.0 so far.

Integrated debugging from server to client is nice and there is, of course, Windows Azure support complete with debugging there. Team Foundation Server comes will all editions but you only get UML diagramming with the Ultimate edition. There are all sorts of new libraries to please C++ developers and even a new language, F#, which is more for maths and parallel coding and is aimed at library-building rather than full application development. The new help system is very average with no keyword indexing so far. Missing is IronPython and IronRuby support and no Mobile development for Windows 7. In other words it is big, has some nice features and is missing some others.

So, no surprises, but for a product that I might be able to use on my Netbook, not very likely. The problem is a lack of modularity and this is missing from many products today. As people start spreading out over the computer power spectrum, it would be nice to have a small VS core to which could be added libraries and functionality that could conceivable run on a Netbook.

Linux is an example of this approach, a main core that is controlled by a small groups and a plethora of bits and pieces that can be added on as desired. Since the core is small, it can run anywhere. With products like our example VS, you will need a fairly powerful minimum spec to run it properly and this is typically about double what MS puts done as their minimum requirements especially in the memory areas.

Now, to be fair, not many people would seriously consider running a development environment like Visual Studio on a Netbook and it is the concept of a core design with user-selected add-ons that is the main concern here. I just picked on VS 2010 because it will be big and coming out this year.

Industry news

Microsoft continues to actively tackle malware. In their latest victory they have won a take-down order for a series of domains that control a spam-generating botnet known as Waledac. This network has infected an estimated hundreds of thousands of computers all around the world and could send an estimated 1.5 billion spam messages per day.

Thanks to Microsoft's efforts, 277 Internet domains are being cut off. The domains are the command and control nodes for the compromised machines. The domains are all registered in China and the takedown will stop one of the top 10 botnets on the planet. The network promotes the selling of unlicensed pharmacy products and other bits and pieces. Also named in the action are 27 individuals who will be charged with cybercrime offences associated with the botnet. Thumbs up to Microsoft for continuing this fight, one that many countries still do not support.

It seems that every tragedy in the real world creates an opportunity for malware in the virtual world. Malware needs some kind of hook to trap the unwary surfer or email reader. Their aim is to have you execute something. One of the latest hooks is the apparent footage of the fatal Sea World attack in Florida. When you click on the link, you are taken to what we call a scareware site. In this case the site promoters planted redirections in Google search terms. If you followed a link, after not checking the target address, its the old "your computer may be infected" scam where they try to get you to try and buy fake anti-virus products. A similar incident also occurred on the Twitter network recently. As usual, check any site's address before you go there and don't download or run anything that you are not completely sure is above-board.

Nokia lost its number one spot to Apple last year with sales of the iPhone outpacing any other model. That was one prediction I got wrong. Of course the Nokia N27 didn't help the Nokia cause as it was full of bugs and had some serious memory and usability issues. This helped Nokia slip even further down from their top perch. Hope now rests on the smaller and hopefully better N97 mini.

Australia is turning Chinese. Let's say you are planning to censor free speech on the Internet as the Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is planning to do. If you go to the ministerial website and try to do a search on, say, "ISP filtering", it will return no hits.

At first glance, this may seem strange that the website is quite modern in that it supports search clouds or a listing of the more common searches done on the website ordered by size and weight. ISP filtering has been an issue in Australia over the past couple of years. If you dig behind the code on the Minister's website you will find the search cloud algorithm. You will also find that the search string mention above is explicitly bypassed by this process. This is not an oversight or poor programming but a deliberate piece of coding.

Good news for Linux aficionados - SUSE Linux is now a breakeven product for Novell. This is being hailed as a significant milestone by the Novell CFO.

Oracle, according to Microsoft at least, is making a return to 1960s computing. Microsoft is saying that it is against industry trends and supporting an old architecture. Sun is saying that they want to go back to when things worked.

The plan is Sparc hardware with Solaris and Oracle as the software backbone. This will give industry-leading performance in the online cloud world.

That translates as a vertically integrated set of proprietary products that removes a high degree of choice from the customer. As far as current trends go, there is a general shift away from Unix. At the same time there are also a lot of legacy systems that Microsoft would like to see move to the x86 platform, and into the range of their product set.

Of course Microsoft is also building its own cloud architecture, Azure. It also admits that the cloud architecture is not yet mature and it will take another two or three years before it sorts itself out. That gives Oracle plenty of time to see if their plan works or not. I am not a big fan of being locked into a proprietary environment from a single supplier, particularly in the current world environment. Time will tell of Oracle made the right bet.