Last year, I wrote a long post about using Windows on ARM with Apple silicon Macs, the licensing and support problems with it, and why I felt like it was a bad thing for Microsoft to come out and fully endorse it. If you haven’t read it, it’s here. There are a few relevant points still, but there’s a lot that’s changed as well. In particular since I wrote that, Windows 11 has shipped, as has x64 emulation for Windows…
Microsoft has never sustained Windows on any platform besides x86. What would make Windows on ARM succeed where others have failed? I first wrote those words almost 11 years ago in Jan. 2011, and restated them then in May of 2012, before Windows RT (Oct. 2012-Jan. 2016) had even shipped. The program to make Windows run on ARM (code-named “LongARM”) began in the Windows Core OS team… it must be nearing 20 years ago, when Longhorn was an overweight, out…
Earlier today, I saw this tweet go by, and it resonated loudly: I replied with the following: Throughout the day, it’s gnawed at me a little bit, pondering if there is a law that would encompass this. Everything from Fitt’s Law to Hick’s Law, and then my mind wandered to Felten and Schneier’s quotes about the dancing pigs. I circled back to my earlier tweet, where I noted that this phenomenon perfectly reflects a desire path, applied to computer security….
It has long been said that from 1973 to 1983, the American automotive industry was stuck in a rut that is now referred to as the Malaise Era. This period of time, marked by some of the most underwhelming, gutless, depressing cars ever to come out of the United States, was bookended on the frontside by the energy crisis and the need for manufacturers who had focused purely on displacement and horsepower to shift their thinking to focus instead on…
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — Dr. Seuss, The Lorax. Next month marks 12 long years since I joined Twitter. I distinctly recall an early conversation while walking to lunch with the dev team I was managing then, joking about how Twitter was used primarily to let people know you were on your way to the bathroom, or you were back from the bathroom. It all seems so simple and…
Whether we’re talking Office or Windows, I’ve often encountered situations where open source advocates will stand, pitchfork in hand, and denounce the evil and cost of Microsoft software, and the ill intent of Microsoft. Sure, The Firm does everything they can to keep customers on the proprietary rails of Office and Windows. But there’s more to it than that. Organizations spend a lot on Office. That’s painfully clear to me, due to our work educating businesses on Microsoft enterprise licensing….
During the past 12+ years I’ve used a Mac, I’ve had dozens of little utilities that I swore by for a time, many of which came and went. Some were binkies of a sort, easing the discomfort of using a Mac for a long-time Windows user. Some were power toys – often to find things, run things, or sort things in ways that a Mac’s operating system couldn’t at a certain moment in time. Over the years, what would eventually…
Until 8 months ago, I don’t think I’d ever heard the term “bot” or “bots” used in any context other than search engine crawlers or FrontPage technology <shudder/>. But beginning three boot camps ago, someone asked me, “how do we license bots?” – and I’ve been asked this question at both boot camps since, and 3 more times in addition during that timeframe. Outside of licensing Office for use in a server application (step 1: don’t do that!), this is…
I’ve worked around Microsoft licensing for almost 7 years at my current employer, but even when I was doing Web development back in the 1990’s, Microsoft’s licensing —particularly for SQL Server—was infamous for its complexity, or at least for how hard it was for someone new to the realm to wrap their head around. The more things change, the more they stay the same; Microsoft is still (in)famous for the complexity of their enterprise software licensing rules. I compiled a…
A little over a week ago, I purchased a Nintendo Switch. We can perhaps call this impulse closure, but not an impulse buy. I can’t count how many times I walked by the device at stores, seriously contemplated it, and walked on, having walked totally through a logic tree that had it sitting on my shelf, unplayed after some initial joy. Perhaps we’ll get to that point, and perhaps it will arrive sooner than I’d like. But for now, I’m…