Wired News conducts a clinic in bad journalism

Wired News published a horrible story this morning. In Hide Your IPod, Here Comes Bill, author Leander Kahney writes:

To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft’s management, Apple Computer’s iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft’s workers.

Now read the story. Read it carefully. (I’ll wait.) Note that the entire thing is based on an interview with one “high-level [Microsoft] manager who asked to remain anonymous.” From this one source, we are able to calculate with confidence that 16,000 employees at Microsoft’s Redmond campus own iPods and that management is ready to send teams of security guards out to locate anyone wearing white earbuds and send them to a re-education camp.

Well, having spent a fair amount of time around Microsoft’s campus, I can tell you that this story is mostly … what’s the word I’m looking for here? Ah yes, bullshit. I have no doubt that lots of Microsoft employees own iPods. But taking an offhand remark from an unknown source (who may or may not have a hidden agenda and who may or may not know what he’s talking about) and extrapolating it to the entire campus is just silly.

I’m fairly certain that senior management at Microsoft would rather that all Microsoft employees used something other than an iPod, which is why the Windows Media team is working so hard to come up with devices that could compete with the iPod and be called something like, I don’t know, “insanely great.”

One thing they teach you in Journalism 101 is that when you have a single anonymous source, you don’t have a story. That’s still true. When you’re covering a subject outside your normal beat (which appears to be Cupertino for this reporter), you can’t just talk to one person. And if you’re going to quote a post from Scoble’s blog, why not actually, you know, talk to Scoble, who actually publishes his cell phone number right there on his highly trafficked site?

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Update: Paul Thurrott read the Wired News story and had the same reaction I did: “Hide The Truth, Here Comes Leander Kahney.” Meanwhile, Scoble says he declined Leander Kahney’s request for an interview. And a pseudonymous Slashdotter takes note of my remarks about not publishing a story based on a single anonymous source and comments, “Well, you’ll never get a job at CBS with THAT attitude, young man!” Heh.

Update 2: The Seattle P-I Microsoft Blog has a nice round-up of commentary on this story.

Update 3: Don’t miss Leander Kahney’s comments. He thinks Mac fans are “paranoid” and “defensive.” Imagine that…

I want a Windows Home Server!

Rick Hallihan has a vision of how a new Windows Server, Home Edition would look:

This would be a scaled back and customized version of Windows Small Business Server, running on specialized hardware, and it would simplify home networking to the point where everyone could enjoy the benefits of modern network management.

In Rick’s vision, this small device would handle e-mail for the home, provide simple centralized management of security functions (including a proxy server to help parents control Internet access for kids), do simple backups, offer remote backups as a premium option, store digital media, provide access to awesome games, and be a hub for home automation tasks. It would also update itself and all your software effortlessly. Oh, and it needs to look like a consumer electronics device and cost less than $500.

The only serious omission on the list, in my opinion is the hook to my telephone system. I’d want this device to do IP-based long distance, provide caller ID, and store voice mail for me.

I’d buy one!

(Via Scoble.)

How often do you need to scan for spyware?

Last week, in “Ten things you need to know about spyware,” I got some vigorous disagreement with two items on my list. It was good feedback, so I wanted to revisit both issues. In item #4, I wrote: “If you have to scan your system for spyware every week, you’re doing something wrong. … Running a weekly scan is probably not a bad idea, from a belt-and-suspenders point of view. But it shouldn’t be necessary…”

Suzi at Spyware Warrior took issue with that statement:

Well, perhaps for knowledgable users who understand how to protect their computers, that might be true. Truth be told, I don’t scan my computer very often, but that’s because I know exactly what’s going into and and leaving it all the time. How many users can say that? A very small percentage of current internet users, I’d say. Pehaps Ed’s blog is targeted to savvy users, I don’t know. For the average user, I’d certainly recommend scanning at least few days, maybe every day for frequent web flyers. An exception would be for users surfing with an alternative browser such as Firefox or Opera.

I think we’re closer to agreeing on this issue than it might sound at first. Suzi doesn’t need to scan her computer regularly, because she knows exactly what’s going into and leaving her computer at any time. So do I. So does my co-author Carl. So do friends and clients of mine who have asked for my help in keeping their systems free of spyware and viruses. And so can anyone who is willing to learn about the problem of spyware. If you incorporate some basic technological solutions and modify your behavior using common-sense guidelines, you can keep your PC spyware-free. (See “Six steps you can take to block unwanted software” for more details.)

But simply installing an anti-spyware program (or two or three) on an average user’s computer and telling them to scan daily or weekly isn’t enough unless you also train them in effective techniques for keeping crapware at bay. If you do that job right, the clean spyware scan becomes the weekly report card that proves they learned the lesson.

I have Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta 1 installed here and I allow it to do its nightly scan. It’s unobtrusive and the only real side effect is a dialog box that I need to dismiss each morning. It never finds anything. Over the past few months, during the course of researching the upcoming Windows Networking and Security Inside Out, I’ve experimented with just about every available anti-spyware program. They never find anything except cookies (which are not spyware and can easily be managed) and false positives.

Look, I have antivirus software on my computer. It’s constantly intercepting and quarantining infected attachments that arrive via e-mail. Every week, the antivirus program scans my system to verify that I am not infected with any viruses. It never finds anything. If it does, I know I have a serious problem and that I need to figure out how the unwanted software slipped past my defenses. The same is true with spyware. If your weekly scan reveals that you’ve picked up an unwanted and potentially hostile program, you need to remove it. And then you need to figure out how it got there and fix your defenses so it doesn’t happen again.

So, based on Suzi’s feedback, I’m changing item #4 to read: “If you have to scan your system for spyware and remove unwanted programs every week, you’re doing something wrong.”

In a follow-up post, I’ll address the controversy over how many spyware scanners you should use. One, two, as many as it takes?

RSS feeds! Get your RSS feeds!

As alert readers will probably notice, I’ve been tinkering with the RSS feeds on this site lately. The biggest change is that I’m now hosting the feed at Feedburner. I’ve been testing this service for more than six months and I continue to be impressed. It gives me good stats about readership and allows me to create a single feed that can be used by (just about) any aggregator. If you’re using Thunderbird to view this site, you may need to resubscribe using the new feed. Most people shouldn’t notice a change, however, because I’ve redirected the old feed to the new one.

If you’re the compulsive type, you can skip the redirect and manually point your feed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/EdBott-WindowsandOfficeExpertise. In fact, if you click on that link you’ll see a browser-friendly version of the feed that makes it easy to add this site to common Web-based aggregators like My Yahoo, Bloglines, NewsGator, and My MSN. You’ll also find buttons in the sidebar on this site that let you add the feed to any of those locations.

I’ve also adjusted the feed template to include a link to comments. More than 90% of you who read this site regularly (and thank you very much, by the way), do so exclusively in your RSS reader. By adding a comments link, I hope I can encourage you to post a comment when you want to tell me how stupid I am or how I simply don’t understand the Zen-like clarity of Mac OS X or how I’m an evil tool of either Bill Gates or Satan. That sort of thing. The link is content-neutral, so you can also tell me how much you like my last post, but I expect the other sort of comments to predominate, at least for now.

I’ve also added what I sincerely hope are unobtrusive Amazon ads in every third post. Ignore them if you don’t like them. If you really don’t like them, click the Comments link and tell me how stupid I am and that Steve Jobs would never do this. Or something.

(Thanks to Neil Turner for the improved RSS template.)

Six steps you can take to block unwanted software

Last week, I published “Ten things you need to know about spyware” and got some great feedback. Today, I’m following up with some advice on how you can prevent unwanted software from ending up on your PC in the first place. This piece, like the last one, is an extremely condensed (and preliminary) version of content that will appear in an updated version of Windows Security Inside Out, which is due to be published this spring.

As I noted last week, trying to remove spyware/adware/viruses is a difficult proposition. You’re much better off if you can prevent an unwanted program from being installed in the first place. This is the advice I give to clients in my consulting practice, and it’s been successful. If you follow this advice, your likelihood of being attacked should drop to nearly zero.

If you have comments or questions, add them in the comments or create an entry on your own site and give me a trackback link. The list appears in the full version of this post. (If you’re reading this in Bloglines or another reader that doesn’t properly handle extended posts, click here to continue.)

Continue reading “Six steps you can take to block unwanted software” →

How big is Microsoft?

Big. Really big. Really, really big. As this AP story makes clear:

Personal income, boosted by a large dividend payment from computer software giant Microsoft Corp., shot up by a record 3.7 percent in December. That helped to boost consumer spending during the all-important holiday season by 0.8 percent.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that the income gain would have been a smaller 0.6 percent in December without the one-time $3 per share dividend payment Microsoft made on Dec. 2. Even that reduced figure would have been an improvement over the 0.4 percent rise in personal incomes in November.

While it is highly unusual for a dividend payment from a single company to have such a major impact on incomes, Microsoft is one of the most widely held stocks in America. The size of the payment — $32 billion — rivaled the $38 billion the government paid out in federal income tax rebates in the summer of 2001.

Yow.

(Thanks to Jesse at Pandagon for pointing out this story.)

The impact of antitrust on Microsoft

An interesting tidbit in this eWeek story about Microsoft’s decision not to bundle desktop search with Windows:

Speaking on a panel on search technology at the Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium, Mark Kroese, general manager of information services and merchant platform product marketing for MSN, said the federal antitrust battle Microsoft waged with the government has made the company think twice about what technologies it can add to the operating system.

“Working at Microsoft today vs. five years ago is different,” Kroese said. “If anyone thinks the antitrust case hasn’t slowed us down, you’re wrong. If I want to meet with a products manager for Windows there needs to be three lawyers in the room. We have to be so careful, we err on the side of caution. We are on such a fine line of conduct.”

Is that a good thing? You tell me…

Bold proposal, bad idea

Jake Wilcox has posted what he calls A Bold Proposal: Microsoft should release Windows 98 as freeware. He’s getting lots of publicity after asking Robert Scoble to jump on the bandwagon.

My opinion? This is a terrible, terrible idea. Windows 98 was a worthwhile operating system in its day, but encouraging people to use it today is just wrong. It’s built on an unreliable kernel (remember system resources, anyone?). It is woefully lacking in modern security features. It is incompatible with a large number of new applications.

Windows XP was a watershed. It represented a break with the old 9X code base and a move to the reliable NT kernel. As Service Pack 2 has proved, you can make this operating system extremely secure (and yes, there’s still plenty more work to do). I understand why people continue to use Windows 98, but why should anyone encourage more people to use an obsolete, insecure operating system that falls short of modern standards of reliability and security even after being extensively customized?

Jake, if you want to make a bold proposal, how about encouraging Microsoft to lower the cost of upgrading those old computers to Windows XP? What if the upgrade cost $49 instead of $99 for Windows XP Home Edition? What if Microsoft took the “lite” Windows XP Starter Edition it now sells in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia and released a $29 version for domestic consumption? Even on a seven-year-old computer, I could probably make XP work. It might need a little extra memory and some judicious tweaking, but it would work. And it would be safer and more reliable than an old, unpatched copy of Windows 98.

Is that Internet Explorer add-on safe?

Internet Explorer supports all sorts of add-ons and extensions. The most popular are Browser Helper Objects (BHOs), browser extensions, and toolbars. If you run Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can view a list of all installed add-ons by choosing Tools, Manage Add-ons. From this dialog box you can enable, disable, or update anything on the list.

So how do you tell which add-ons are good and which ones are evil? Start at the CastleCops Master BHO and Toolbar List. The list is currently at 1609 entries and does an excellent job of sorting the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Help me clean up sleazy ads (again)

In the comments to another post, a new visitor named Spider writes:

While here reading you good information about spyware, protection, and the need for running several products, I was not sure if I should be amused or upset that your google ad’s linked me to five sites that wanted to sell me spyware removal software that are all contained on [the Rogue Anti-Spyware list] at Spyware Warrior’s site. Ironically it was Spyware Warriors blog that led me to this page.

I wrote about this last September, shortly after I added Google ads to this site, in a post entitled Help me clean up sleazy ads. Since that time, I have blocked 42 URLs from the list of sites that I will allow to advertise here. Unfortunately, it’s a never-ending battle, because these people continually register new domains and change the names of their products to work around filters.

Most of the ads that appear here are legitimate and useful. Unfortunately, a handful of keywords have been taken over by companies that are less than honest. That’s a big problem when I write about the MP3 format as well, with ads suddenly appearing that offer unlimited downloads of music and movies but are actually links to suspect software and untrustworthy file-sharing networks.

The problem is not unique to this site. In fact, anyone who searches for anti-spyware software or MP3s or song lyrics is almost certain to run into this problem head-on. I’m considering adding a disclaimer above the ad strip with advice on how to avoid being scammed by these sleaze artists. If anyone has any additional suggestions, please leave them in the comments section here.

Update: Eric L. Howes has an excellent, concise description of the Google problem here. He also links to an ad-filter list at the Short-Media Forums. I’ve incorporated that filter list into this site.