Radius of Rainbow

I'm a new soul I can do this strange world hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take

But since I came here felt the joy and the fear finding myself making every possible mistake :)

Joel's blog is one of the best resources on the net for software development. I find myself agreeing with him most of the times but his latest post on Live Mesh didn't come out to be as insightful as some of his others.

If you take out his histrionics, Joel’s premise is that MS is wasting too many resources in solving the problem of synchronization which doesn’t even exist to begin with. His logic is that synchronization must not be an issue as you don't see people flooding numerous other services that provide similar functionality.

So what's Microsoft doing different with Mesh?

One thing I love about Microsoft is that it never stops at writing an app. It always tries to make a platform out of it. Microsoft's past successes have come from generating a critical mass of ISVs around its technologies to create a whole ecosystem of software and solutions. And that's what I see is being done differently in case of Mesh. Sure there are a zillion other applications out there that sync your files across but none of them was written with a vision to make every desktop and device out there a first class citizen of the Net.

Our desktops and other devices (e.g. phone) are like big silos of applications, data and information. They exist as isolated entities that connect to the net primarily through browser. That's the reason we see a crop of these web based applications (even a so called OS) that hardly integrate closely with the rest of my desktop. I think Mesh is trying to break that model and open up those silos so that all my devices and their content is always accessible to me wherever I am.

Sure there are issue like security and access control that would be paramount in such scenarios and I'm sure folks over in Mesh team are thinking hard about it. Frankly, I haven't yet wrapped my head around all the concepts of Mesh but from whatever I have seen it looks a bit too sophisticated to be dismissed as just a file sync app.

Hey you, yes, I am talking to you. I know you use that non-evil search engine. Yes the one with multicolor logo. You think that's the best search engine out there don't you? You are so addicted to it, you even made it your your homepage. Like a lost wanderer, every time you have to find directions to any place on the www, you go to that omniscient oracle of yours and blindly follow wherever it takes you assuming that the best the world has to offer.

Now listen. I've got a news for you. Your search engine is lame! Sorry to bring this disappointing news to you but my search engine is better than your's. 3 times better! Now c'mon don't feel bad. You too can use it if you like.

Here's what you do if you are using IE7/IE8

1. Browse to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx
2. In the "Create your own" box on the right side, enter http://mysearchoff.com/?q=TEST
3. Name it something cool.
4. Click on install. Make sure that "Make this my default search provider" check box is clicked. That's it.

Suddenly you'll feel enlightened. At least three times smarter than what you felt with your lame old search engine. And if you love typing and prefer browsing to the search engine every time you want to look up something, you can use its address http://mysearchoff.com. While you are there, don't forget to check which of the three search engines is leading in search satisfaction. Tell me if you were surprised. I wasn't :)

I admire Guy Kawasaki and love The art of start. I'd recommend his book to anybody who has ever dreamt of starting anything. So when he announced his latest venture today, I was all ears. It's called alltop. A concept so simple that it'd make you think how come nobody thought of this before... well some people sure did. Ever heard of live.com, my yahoo, igoogle or....? Well there are hundreds of them out there.

Though not original, I would certainly not undermine the idea of an rss aggregator with links culled for the mass market. I am one of those people who use Live.com as their default homepage and rss reader and since switching to live.com I have hardly ever spent time looking for interesting stuff to read in my spare time. Having all your favorite sites at your fingertips the moment you open your browser can be very addictive. I spent a few weeks gathering the feeds that I liked and Alltop saves you the effort by gathering most interesting sites for you. The disappointing part is that I did not see any smart algorithm or customization around the blog selection.

Though it looks quite obvious and simple, I'm sure Guy has plans for the site but in the mean time if you want to beat him to a startup, head to live.com and start customizing your home page. In terms of look and feel, live.com home page is at least as good as alltop, if not better. Here's a comparative screen capture of live (on left) and alltop (on right).

 

The much blogged about WorldWideTelescope was talked about at TED. Here's a quick glimpse of it. I can't wait to see it live at the TechFest in a few days. Folks at MS research do a lot of cool things that only we had a privilege to look at. I am glad that WWT is getting its fair share of public limelight.

PS: If the video below doesn't load, here's a direct link for you: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/224

For last couple of years my reading reading appetite has been sated by the junk news served by digg and reddit. I read it not because it was sensational but just because it was so easily accessible from my live.com page. Thanks to DailyLit, I won't be able to use that excuse anymore.

I came across this really simple concept just yesterday and got hooked to it immediately. They send you books via email or RSS feed. The selection is limited to about 500 public domain books but I'm sure by the time I finish my first book, I'd have many more to choose from.

This reminds me of those good ol' days when we used to browse the internet by our emails using Agora servers. Now here I am on a lavishly fast link and still using a service quite similar to the one in the infacy of the WWW. Anyways gotta go I have my first installment of Lessig's Free Culture to finish.

It's a general perception that windbg and cdb are tools for a power debugger. Quite true! With the extensions and powerful commands, they provide the toolset you need to literally rip apart any process. Looks like VS debugger is getting there too.

Just last week I realized that Visual Studio 2005 has something called pseudovariables. These curiously named variables can yield you some power that you are so used to in the windbg land. In fact MSDN has documented these for long time.

Managed code can only use the $user and $exception variable of these. Try it out. Particularly $user. It gives a lot of helpful information on process and thread tokens. Pretty helpful if you are debugging impersonation problems in the managed world. Just type it in the watch window and debug away!!!

The "live" wave has brought some pretty cool products to the web. I was more intrigued by Office live. I thought it was going to be a web based version of Office products but they came out with something totally different. Free domain sounded too good to be true and I jumped for it when I got an invitation to take it on a beta test drive.

Since Office live basics is something that will continue to be free, (and hence likely to be more popular) I decided to try it out. I dawned hat of a small charity NGO which sells handmade greeting cards and donates its proceeds for a social cause. Check it out at AnandwanGreetings.com

Initial setup was surprisingly quick and so was designing the web site. I got it all done in just a couple of hours. The page designer lacks some flexibility but I think the goal was to make it simple enough for a non-techie. My only major gripe was the choice of designs. Simple doesn't have to be unattractive. Hope they get some cool design templates up there before RTM. I'm looking forward to it. In the mean time check out my greetings site.

It might not be as glorious as the "root" but Administrators command similar rights and privileges. But not every locale uses that string to identify the all powerful group of users. That might introduce interesting bugs. Even in some microsoft tools.

 

Use of well known SID is how these sort of bugs can be avoided. .Net has WellKnownSidType enumeration that makes it quite easy but in the unmanaged world, it’s a 2 step process. You have to create the SID yourself. The constants are defined in sddl.h to get admin SID you can do something like this:

 

PSID GetAdminSID()

{

SID_IDENTIFIER_AUTHORITY SIDAuth = SECURITY_NT_AUTHORITY;

PSID pSID = NULL;

 

if(! AllocateAndInitializeSid( &SIDAuth, 2,

SECURITY_BUILTIN_DOMAIN_RID,

DOMAIN_ALIAS_RID_ADMINS,

0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,

&pSID) )

{

ThrowExceptionUsingHr(HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(GetLastError()));

}

 

return pSID;

}

 

Make sure that you free the SID created above using FreeSid()

 

Edit: Michael Kaplan has more details about the bug in Microsoft tools that I was referring to above.

Eye have a grate come pewter,
the lay test gnu pea sea;
it will a cyst me two low Kate
Miss steaks eye can knot sea.

This peace eye rote is rite, eye no;
my trustee check err tolled me sew!

Author: Lenny Pitt (?)
http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/directory/directory.php?name=pitt

There's unrest in the music industry since last couple of years. Napster and its cousins have created agitation in their camp. The industry has fought back with measures ranging from suing creators and users of p2p services to educating users about the misuse and swamping these networks with fake copies of media. Artists like Metallica and Madonna have personally picked up the gauntlet and reached out to the users asking them to stop sharing files online.

But sometimes I wonder is the hubbub they are making really worth it? Do the Goliaths of the music industry really need to lose their sleep over these p2p Davids? Isn't there a better way of dealing with this?

Size of the music industry worldwide is estimated to be about 40 billion USD and its loss due to piracy overall is 4.5 billion. Though the exact amount of losses due to p2p file sharing are difficult to calculate, I'd think that its still less than the 2% of the total sales at about a 800 million.

Consider on the other hand the internet porn industry, one of the largest businesses online. Estimated at the size of about 3 billion, this industry, though small as compared to the music industry, is loosing a big chunk of its revenue due to these p2p networks. It's a fact that most of the files traded over p2p network are porn. But then why aren't they making any noise? Shouldn't they be blocking porn downloads or flooding the networks with bogus files? Is it because they are too small? Is it because they are into this "unethical" business and hence can't come out in public and denounce this? No. It's because they have an alternate way of doing business.

Internet porn is one of the few profitable businesses online. This industry supposedly has given rise to many internet advertising and user profiling techniques including pop-ups, site referrals, user tracking etc. And they are handling this issue in a different way - Porn Strategy: Share and Snare

Rather than preventing users from accessing porn through p2p networks, they are looking at it as a way to reach targeted audience. A potential buyer looking for a specific thing is a dream of any salesman and that�s what Kazaa and Gnutella are bringing to the doorsteps of these guys.

It beats me why the music industry can't think of the p2p users this way. Recently Apple was forced to remove p2p capabilities from iTunes because it did not please the big music labels. I feel rather than spending money in suing their own customers, the music industry should rethink its view point and spend that money in developing technology which will help users to preview, buy download and share music online. It will not only help boost sagging music sales but will also go long way in making online music experience enjoyable.

Microsoft has always been blamed for being a monopoly. But Dan Geer went further ahead to term it the cause of a monoculture. Here's the famous paper where he comapred the Internet to Microsoft Monoculture! According to him the network could be sharing a single flaw and can be brought down by a virus exploiting that flaw! Pretty interesting concept... though a bit far fetched I'd say.

Most of the latest viruses have spread more due to gullible users and poorly maintained systems. The OS is just a part of the whole ecosystem that could turn into a monoculture. A careless system administrator who poorly manages his network or a naive user who believes that its perfectly fine to open attachments from unknown people make the network more vulnerable than just the machines.

Thinking about viruses and patches, I wonder why doesn't Microsoft or any other software vendor deploy a viruslike patch management system. I system which tries to find vulnerable computers by attacking and just patches whenever it comes across one. This would be so easy to manage and deploy for an organization. Particularly where not all of the machines are connected to the internet and hence cannot benefit from the automatic patches provided by Microsoft.