Posts by Trevor_Pott

Re: Cloud still at the "we only want experts like us playing with them" stage.

Hi NeoC, funny you should bring that up. I actually recently reviewed a Microsoft Virtual Academy track that is probably exactly what you are looking for: Introduction to virtualisation. I have no idea when the review will actually be posted; it's been handed in, and everything from there on is a black box to me. Worth your time if you're looking for the bare basics of virtualisation with a brief intro into "why the cloud?"

If you want a more hands on, here's a review I wrote about a different MVA track. And here is a review I wrote about yet another MVA track that is "OMFGWTF System Center 2012." Combined you will probably learn all you ever wanted to learn (and way more) about cloudy whatever.

I know that sounds like a marketing blurb...but I had to go to all the trouble of watching the smeggling things and then writing reviews; I'd rather just post links to those (and from there you could view the MVA tracks themselves) rather than try to explain clouds, and the why.

As for "Clouds 101"...I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on the previous article in this series (right here) in that regard. I've been told it's not bad for exactly that role.

Hopefully that fulfills at least some of your research needs.

Re: Exchange issue

Inbuilt mail app seems to work fine if back-end server is 2010 and you have autodiscovery set up with a proper third-party cert.

Damned if I can get the thing to connect to 2007 or 2003.

Haven't had AD connectivity issues though. Will be attempting replication of issues in lab...

@thomaskwscott

If and when someone asks me to write about a particular topic at El Reg, it is vague and open ended. Content, direction, tone...they are up to me. If you feel this article is a little lovey dovey regarding Microsoft's cloudy offerings...that might stem from the fact that after lab testing what's on the table, I legitimately believe they have the best offering.

And no, VMWare's storage capabilities aren't as good. MS have stolen a march here. For now; they are out in front; future articles in the set will explain that in detail.

In the meantime, maybe you should download Server 2012 and SCVMM 2012 and see for yourself. MS have blown me away here; second-rate also-ran to "well they just might be the best for this round of virtualisation offerings" in just a few years.

Boggles the mind.

Re: Storage Migration and Expensive SAN's

I go more in depth into local storage in upcoming articles.

As to exploring other alternatives; I can't afford VMWare. I can only afford to review MS because of technet. Open source virtualiation options will be reviewed...but I lost two servers and my SAN towards the end of the Microsoft review. I have to buy expensive replacement equipment to properly do those reviews...something I have to put off until after my wedding in July.

My VMWare testing tends to occur when I can borrow a buddy's lab who has licences. (I got time on the lab for the duration of the MS cloud eval.) Thay lets me see what VMWare can do...not how easy it is to set up.

The one thing I can tell you about MS is this; "zero to hyper-v private cloud in a few clicks" is not exactly exaggeration. I can build a fully SaaS ready MS-based private cloud in about 1/2 hour, if I have good gear.

Based on my useage of production envrionments, my "state of virtualisation" impression is this: MS were playing catch-up last round. This round, I think they might just be a few steps ahead. (They certainly are in storage!) Openstack and KVM are decent IaaS offerings, but have quite a bit of catch up to do to reach MS or VMWare anywhere else.

Re: Sorry what?

You are correct; Metro is active on only one screen at a time...but it can be any screen. What's more, if your Metro app was open on screen 1, it will be available to you on screen 2 when you open metro there, etc.

So it is not "true multimon support" in the way that the desktop can present windows in a multimonitor environment. But it is still way – way – better than being restricted to “Metro on the primary monitor only” as it was easier in this game.

Re: Total Crap

Also: Launchpad in Lion isn't the equivalent to Metro. Launchpad doesn't promise a future of fullscreen-only or 33/66-only applications. Apple has made very strong commitments to preserving the ability to window all applications on the platform and pursue a multi-view-based-multitasking environment for the foreseeable future. What's more, they've made these commitments in a way that I can believe them.

Re: Total Crap

I never said that Metro was useless. In fact, as I have stated elsewhere in this thread I think certain elements of Metro are absolutely brilliant, and I would pay cash money to be able to use them in a different manner. (That's another article for next week, I think.)

To further elucidate that point: Metro is fantastic for tablets, and it is potentially usable, with some tweaks on an ultrabook. I do not believe that the current incarnation has any place on a real notebook or a desktop at all. For all the reasons I have stated in this article and in this thread.

It is never black-and-white. And Metro contains some truly revolutionary (in the old, non-Apple-mangled sense of the world) technologies.

But the implementation (on any productivity-based device) sucks. The lack of customisability sucks. And it gets in the way of doing real work…especially once the things becomes mandatory for various critical day-to-day apps. Spectacular consumption interface though.

Re: Not necessarily about multi-tasking

I was not belittling Luke! Far from it! I honestly find his take refreshing, and I legitimately am interested in hearing his thoughts as to how applications could take on the responsibilities for multitasking.

And should they? Why? Why not? This is legitimately a whole new take on the argument and I think it needs to be explored!

Outlook (and Trillian) were the applications I had in made while making that comment. I use these applications specifically so that I don't have to punch my credentials into a bunch of different applications.

Trillian is my IM client (covering all IM platforms,) my IRC client and my Twitter client of choice. Outlook is currently managing gods only know how many e-mail accounts now, and runs my calendar and contacts. (I have never – ever – found a use for the journal.) I tried using the “task list” but found “unread emails” a better way of marking that. (Make email unread if it can’t be dealt with right away.)

Either way…no, I don’t view these apps as dealing with “multiple tasks within a single application.” Or, more accurately, I consider them to be so good at doing this that they collapse an entire category of tasks into “a single metatask.”

Trillian has ceased to be something I think of as “doing more than one thing” in my mind. That occurred about 10 seconds after I finished configuring it. It may connect to multiple different services, but in my mind it is quite simple “real time communications application.” All the things, in all the real times, they go in there.

Outlook is “buffered communications application.” Communications, tasks, calendar items, etc that are stored in Outlook do not have to be addressed on an interrupt priority. (That could be a function of usage; I tend to set reminders for my calendar items fairly far in advance of the actual event.) Things that hit outlook are things that I can queue up in my mind as “deal with this after the current task is completed,” and Outlook is simply the place where all of that lives for me.

So, do I believe these applications shouldn’t exist? Not at all. I adore them. I require them to function. I would be lost, adrift, cast upon a sea of madness without them.

My point was more “does the functionality of these things needs to be integrated in to my browser/image editor/POS application/etc” in order for me to be able to do multi-view-based multitasking in a Metro world? Will Adobe CS Metro have to replicate the functionality of Outlook/Trillian and/or Firefox for me to be able to have my imaging, comns and browser running at the same time?

Do we start integrating comns into the browser? A browser into the comns app? Where does it end?

To me, the idea of attempting to use multi-purpose applications as the solution to multitasking woes in Metro sounds like a terrible band-aid. It sounds like a step backwards.

I am not against a great multi-purpose app. I endorse and embrace them with open arms. What I am against is the idea of using multi-purpose apps to restore functionality to Metro that should damned well have been available in the first place.

But I don’t know what Luke said, or implied. It got my brain running, but I really do want him to respond with more information, and preferably for the thousands of highly intelligent commenters here on The Register to join in the debate and present their ideas and opinions.

We could, after all, be discussing the necessary future of Windows on the desktop!

Re: Total Crap

Thank you for your comments. You'll notice that the article talked about Metro, and not Windows 8's desktop at all.

Your attempt to defend Metro by claiming that you can still use the desktop is quaint, but irrelevant. Your argument does not address the topic at hand and is nothing more than a sad attempt to justify a UI change that has seen a significant negative response. Furthermore, you leave out issues like "Metro screen splitting only goes 33/66," something that seriously impinges upon the ability to use large productivity apps at the same time as the desktop.

Additionally, it is not my job to publicise your concerns about Windows 8. Write your own damned articles, if you have your own beefs with the product. But don't you dare denigrate the concerns of others simply because you don't feel they apply to you.

I talked about the issues I, personally have with Metro. I talked about the issues my clients and users have with Metro. I talk about Metro, specifically because it is the future of Microsoft’s design, and Microsoft has very much so made it the favoured child.

So you can take your “the desktop is still there” and your “if you don’t like it, just stick with Windows 7” arguments and shove them. I've been over that territory many times times in this thread.

Your solution to what I call multitasking is to rely on the traditional desktop. It is a solution that isn't available in all versions of Windows 8. It is a solution that isn't relevant if the application you are trying to use is a large Metro app that requires more than 33% of your screen. And most damning of all, it is a solution that has every possibility of simply not being available forever.

So I’ll be very blunt with you here: if you believe any of the following:

1) Microsoft is a company that you can bet your business on for client OS continuity

2) The legacy desktop in “pinned” mode is the solution to my multitasking woes

Then just don’t bother reading any article by me regarding Windows 8. The man you want to be reading is Peter Bright at Ars Technica. Those are the beliefs he espouses with fervor. You will find my analysis far more cynical, and significantly less attached to the idea of blind faith.

If you want to convert me, derision and ad homs aren't going to do it. You need to prove to me that Microsoft have earned my trust. You are going to have to show not only that what is on the table now will do everything I need it to do, but that there is a firm commitment to preserving that capability for 5, 10, 15 and 20 year timeframes.

You need to show me that continuing to invest in the Microsoft ecosystem, developing applications for Windows and supporting developers who choose this proprietary route is a sound investment.

Because as it stands, right now, Metro does not allow me to do mutltiasking as I have described it in my article. The legacy desktop does, (though even that has been nerfed somewhat,) but having Metro apps and desktop apps coexist and and participate in a multi-viewable environment is broken to the point of “completely fucking useless.”

Worse, “the legacy desktop” can absolutely no longer be counted upon to exist past the (Hopefully brief) shelf life of Windows 8. We’re back to “trust” here. You obviously have it. I don’t.

No, I’ve heard the argument from the fanboys at this point: “why worry about something that hasn’t been announced? Microsoft haven’t said they are getting rid of the desktop, so that’s not a valid concern.” Bullshit. I still have systems running NT4 built into machines that are the size of a bus, cost over $1M and have been running for 15 years. I have similar machines with Windows 2000 and Windows 7.

I have a massive XP embedded estate that probably won’t be replaced until 2018. We have point of sales apps that are based on code that largely hasn’t changed in 20 years. There is industry specific software from companies that have gone out of business, or who maintain some 10 year old Frankenapp with 3 devs and have zero competition, thus zero reason to improve upon things.

Eventually, all of this will be replaced. With what? How long will whatever I replace it will be supported? If I invest in some application today that has a Windows desktop client software bit, will users 5, 10, 15 years form now be able to use that software and use it in a remotely reasonably and efficient fashion?

How well will it work in a world where an unknown number of other applications are Metro only? What will context switching be like? Multitasking? How does it all fit?

No, I will not wait for the final product. No, I will not wait for Microsoft to slowly reveal to me the roadmap for Windows 9 and 10 one goddmaned morsel at a time over the course of the next decade.

Microsoft have just engaged in a massive paradigm shift in how computers are used. On the one hand they are periodically trying to ease concerns about the future role of the desktop, and then in the very next sentence talk about how Metro – and very clearly only Metro – is the future.

You trust them if you want. You bet your business on them. You invest thousands of your personal dollars into their new OS, and apps to go on it.

I’m done. Metro doesn’t do what I need it to do. Metro/Desktop interaction is pants. Worst of all, Microsoft have basically told everyone who raises concerns about this to go to hell.

So, Metro is okay? Dragging the desktop around on life support is the solution? Microsoft can be trusted with my future?

Convince me, sir.

Re: Multi-tasking includes proof-reading?

Far more interested in why we seem to produce them with full conscious attention on the task at hand. Not to mention why our brains purposefully skim over the errors, reporting to the conscious mind "everything is a-okay" when it is in fact not.

It is an interesting and difficult concept for most people to grasp: what we perceive with our conscious mind is not in fact reality. Just because you see something does not mean it is there. Just because you don’t see something does not mean it isn’t there.

Our minds are heuristic processors that perform all sorts of different layers of filtration on raw input before presenting it to our conscious minds for consideration. Out vision alone is a great example: there are dozens of different layers of filtration required to provide us with what we perceive to be a single, homogenous, three dimension view of the world around us.

In reality, each eye is seeing a curved single-dimensional image with differing levels of resolution at the center to the edges, in addition to things like our blind spot. Many of us (myself included) actually see colour differently out of each eye. Furthermore, we don’t actually “see” (as in have enough photons from a given object strike our eye) everything that we “see.” A lot of what we “see” is in fact provided us by our memories of what an object “should” be.

Add to this that movement changes things. When something moves, some of these filters are actually bypassed to allow quicker access to the raw data by both our conscious minds and our brain stem. (So the endocrine system can make fight-or-flight decisions asynchronously to our relatively slow conscious decision making process.)

Our conscious minds are a high-level application running on top of a rather buggy kernel. Worse: the kernel is in love with Bayesian analysis, and the hardware sensors kind of suck. 10Mbit/sec for our shitty vision? And it requires ~2lbs of our brain dedicated to post-processing before it is even provided to applications for analysis?

Pffft. Back to the drawing board, random processes of evolution that resulted in the complex chemical interactions that allow me to bitch about things on the internets. Back to the drawing board!

Re: @Obviously!

"Just stick with Windows 7" you say. I ask you: why?

Re: Sorry what?

Metro supports multiple monitors. The consumer preview does not do multimon correctly. However Microsoft have made some huge strides in multimonitor support in Windows 8. Both in Metro mode and the legacy desktop.

There are many valid complaints to level against Windows 8, but please read the provided link...Multimonitor support is no longer one of them.

[$application] is a Metro app.

For now. But for how long? Microsoft are pushing WinRT hard. Your argument presupposes trust and a continuation of "the way things are today." I don't think that's a good plan anymore. Microsoft have made it very clear through their actions that "the way things are today" is not remotely how they envision it being tomorrow.

Re: You're making too much of this

Cinnamon. It's tasty.

Re: Has anyone actually emailed Ballmer...

Windows 8 isn't Ballmer's baby. Windows 8 belongs to Sinofsky.

Re: Background services are multitasking, now?

[Author deleted] at [publication deleted] is ardently convinced they are, yes. His argument during out latest back and forth on Twitter was that "if you are compiling your code in the background, and doing something else in the foreground, you are multitasking." Followed by telling me to grow up when I made the argument that - no - that is the computer multitasking. You are still doing one thing at a time.

Apparently this is a touchy subject.

You're holding it wrong.

Just buy a bigger house. Simple.

Sent from my Winphone

--Steve

Re: Much as I really hate to defend Metro.......

Actually, I think live tiles are bloody brilliant. Believe it or not, I like a great many things about Metro, especially the early-phase design concept of "information at a glance."

The issue is simple: We need to be able to "pop out" Metro apps into Windows. And I would pay cash money to be able to make Metro Start my desktop background, or "Pin" it to a second monitor.

Microsoft has a great many truly unbelievable ideas attached to Metro. Honestly revolutionary stuff that I believe would make computing more productive and enjoyable. Their execution however is [expletive deleted] pants. It is really poorly thought through, poorly assembled into a working interface, and the result is something that is functionally unusable.

Worse to my mind is their attitude about the whole thing. Metro is bad, but how they are responding to valid criticisms about it is essentially the last straw for me.

It wouldn’t take much effort to take the excellent ideas and code they have in place right now and make something truly worthy of a flagship operating system. Instead, we get Windows 8. How unfortunate.

Couldn't agree more.

So much of a regular person's day job however...simply doesn't require 100% of their ability.

…or are you saying you need 100% of your ability to focus on that progress bar as a VM is moved from one server to another? Do you need to watch as your file manager reads and caches thumbnails for every single file in that folder of 80,000 JPEGs? Do you feel the burning requirement to devote 100% of your attention to reading an e-mail about a project three departments down that has only a 2% chance of ever affecting you in any way?

Perhaps you do. The question to me would be…why?

Cinnamon

Me gusta.

Um...is there a browser cache issue on my end? the last three paragraphs read as follows to me:

As you can tell, we left Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) behind a long time ago. This is major infrastructure: in many cases more than all of an SME's currently deployed server estate.

A practicable alternative exists. The Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant (MOS SIA) was made to help bridge the gap. While each of your users will have two sets of credentials (local corporate and cloud-based), with the MOS SIA, you only have to sign in once.

While not SSO, MOS SIA is a freely downloadable tool that is "close enough" in practice. While useful and convenient, Office 365 SSO in its current form just doesn't make sense for SMEs. ®

As to "articles on the Reg being aimed at enterprises," that actually hurts my feelings. I'm an SME admin myself. I spend roughly half my day screaming at large corporations all across the globe to keep SMEs in mind. I try very hard to write my articles with SMEs in mind...even when describing a technology that by and large targets enterprises exclusively.

Sorry it didn’t work out this time. :(

Re: Eh?

Large organisations can have dozens of Exchange servers. Branch office mail stores, edge servers, etc. Heck, a "proper" exchange deployment even with only one mail store has three servers in Exchange 2010! That's before you get into the UC stuff to tie in Lync, federation, etc...