I find it highly unlikely that anyone has noticed (or, if they have, they haven’t bothered to say anything) that the software on my projects page hasn’t been touched in at least a year, in some cases quite a bit longer than that.

Considering my interests as a computer scientist, I guess I find it kind of funny that I could let such a thing happen.  I must admit that I myself am using some of the current “active” projects less and less.  Since I started using the Windows 7 beta (and now the release candidate), I have little use for SkipTo as I can simply press the Windows key, type a few characters, and away I go with the same application I would have launched with my own tool.  (Admittedly, I could have done this in Vista, too, but I won’t bother beating a dead horse, especially one I refuse to ride.)

Alright, maybe I caused this particular bug. I guarantee that you don't know what the solution was, though.

At heart, my best guess is that this is something of a motivation issue.  After hammering away at code for hours on end at my summer job, and after all of the work I’ve put in over the previous school year, it’s been a little hard as of late for me to come home, sit down, and find the desire to stare at monospaced fonts and locate misplaced semicolons for a few hours in hopes of doing anything productive.

I’ve also noticed that whatever efforts I’ve put into any form of development (outside of work) as of late have been for personal use with no intent of making them public, or helping other people with their own unique problems.  I’ve hacked together a tool to help me rename and reorganize my MP3 library, butchered the Last.fm plugin I use for WordPress into something that displays my application-usage statistics from Wakoopa, and made minor tweaks to various tools to enhance my own productivity.  I’ve modified WordPress themes, helped design a new one from scratch, and experimented lightly with Blogger (for 20SB, of course, as I have no intention of leaving WordPress anytime soon).  This lack of sharing and public utility isn’t something I’m completely proud of, and I hope to rectify it at some point, but (as any regular well knows) I have an odd habit of promising things here and then not delivering, so a promise this is not.

The best way I see to motivate myself at this point is to scrap the “crap” I’ve got sitting in my projects page (honestly, Visual Basic 6 is dying, anyway), and start working on a few fresh projects.  What I need, however, are the ideas for the replacement projects, things people like you might actually have a use for or that might be useful as a proof-of-concept.  I’ve picked up a few decent suggestions over the past few days from a handful of people, but I’d be more interested in working on things that more than one or two people would ever find useful.

If you have a suggestion, leave a comment.  In the meantime, I’ll be staring at that blinking line trying to decide what I’ll be making it run away from.

The release candidate for the next version of the must-have-if-you-work-in-an-office-setting operating system has been put out and the critiques are already coming in.  (In short, they can be summed up as saying that Windows 7 is the better-looking younger brother to Windows Vista, though they’re both of about equal intelligence, but that’s beside the point.)

The group of people I’ve been most concerned with hearing from regarding the operating system upgrade is security researchers.  Given that this is a field I take  a reasonable amount of interest in, I’m actually rather alarmed that the only topic I seem to be watching pop up is the same “issue” that’s plagued Windows for over a decade.  And yes, those quotation marks are intentional and completely reasonable.

Once upon a time, there was DOS and Windows 3.1.  You were limited to 11-character filenames in the “8-dot-3″ format, where the first 8 characters were a user-specified name for the file and the last three were an extension denoting the type of file it was.  Then came Windows 95, and lo and behold the world was amazed that you could have these amazing 255-character filenames (which were really just an overlay to the old 8-dot-3 system) and give your files reasonably descriptive names!  And you could use punctuation (granted that the punctuation you wanted wasn’t a question mark, backslash, forward slash, pipe, or any of another two or three characters) too, which made things even better!  Sure, the file extensions were still there (and are to this day, as is the legacy 8-dot-3 filename), but nobody complained for they could name their files “My Letter To My Boss About Me Quitting Next Week.doc” and all was right with the world.

Of course, nobody complained until this file extension voodoo was abused.  You see, Windows defaults to a setting where you don’t have to see those ugly file extensions because they take up screen space and confuse newbies.  And, in my book, it’s a reasonable expectation that most people don’t want to see them.  (For the record, I turn this functionality off, but that’s a whole different topic.)

With the advent of the Internet, people (even the newbies) have been blindly trained to start recognizing certain file extensions for what they are anyway, even if they aren’t technically inclined to do so.  For example, even if you aren’t a geek, I’m sure you know what a .jpg, .gif, .doc, or .zip at the end of a filename denotes.  It’s useful knowledge, even for someone who prefers things that Just Work™.

Expanding this same notion to the contents of a user’s local files, that user is just as unafraid and accepting of seeing .jpg as they are online to the point where they don’t even think twice.  After all, what’s the worst thing that could come out of an image?  Porn?  An old photograph of Aunt Millie?

If you answered in the affirmative to either of those two suggestions, most people would urge you to jump off of the nearest highway overpass, though I’ll accept either of those as correct answers.  This giant group of security researchers, some of whom work for the same companies that ultimately provide the software your favorite pimply-faced Geek Squad employee will be installing on your next PC, have nothing better to do with their time than to complain about a well-intentioned feature.

I cannot count (on one hand, at least) the number of articles I have seen recently (like this one) that cry “Wolf!” over a trivial morsel like hiding file extensions only to have a piece of malware call itself “AuntMillie.jpg.exe.”  And here’s where my post title comes into play.  Is it Microsoft’s fault for adding what amounts to a (in my opinion) useful feature?  Is it the Symantec and McAfee developers (to name the recognizable duo, though just about any security suite provider should be included here) who kindly will alert you that you installed Cain (and then promptly remove it) but refuse to sound an alarm or do anything about legitimate malware (I’ve had this issue)?  Is it the end user for not disabling the feature and being vigilant and knowing what they’re doing?

I suppose we’ve become too dependent on file extensions for me to suggest that Microsoft ditch the idea, join the Unix crowd, and start using the contents of the file to figure out what it is rather than its name.  For example, web servers will use the file extension to determine what type of file you’re requesting and whether anything needs to be done (like executing it) before it gets passed along to the end user.  Granted, file extension hackery can be fun (who knew), but it would be a small price to pay (and the files would still be accessible by other applications, so it really doesn’t even ruin the fun).

However, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to demand why these same security gurus are not busy including a feature of their own to warn of questionably-named files.  I can think of few legitimate reasons for someone to have two or more extensions appended to their filename, so warning of files that end in “.txt.exe” on creation or execution probably isn’t a bad idea.

And to think that I've done more work in thirty seconds with the Visual Studio form designer than the security gurus have in over a decade. (For the technical: Yes, I realize that user conventions would switch the position of these buttons. However, you don't want anyone going to the "Yes" button out of habit, do you?)

If I wasn’t starting my final exams tomorrow, I’d probably write a proof-of-concept that accomplished this simply because I don’t know of anything similar that already exists.  (On the other hand, it is something for me to work on rather than study… )

For a group of security-focused people, their intentions are in approximately the right place.  However, they seem to be forgetting that there’s more to computing (and life) than three or four extra characters on a screen and the bright intentions of a few developers in Redmond.

(Cripes, and to think I would be writing over one thousand words in defense of Microsoft…  I really must be off my rocker.)

Alright, so this should at least partially explain my late posting last night.  Yes, I concede defeat, but it only means you’re getting two posts today.  And perhaps a slice of cake.  I hear people like cake.

It’s a funny thing.  Last night, I found myself up until all hours of the night, alternating between working on (an admittedly lame) project for one of my computer science classes (a simple shell, in case you were wondering) and helping a few of my friends set up everything they needed for a conference they were having over this weekend.  An iPhone software developer’s conference, to be exact, complete with introductory labs and plenty of student-provided help on hand.

And now, day one into the conference, and I’ve already found myself walking around wearing an Apple beanie and a lime green shirt with a huge silhouette of an iPhone screen-printed across the front (a shirt reserved for conference staff).  It’s the opposite of what one would expect given my previous rant about iPhones back when they were first announced.

Yes, the same person who was elected chair of the local student Linux Users Group is now running around answering random questions of MacBook-toting attendees.  While carrying around a Treo Pro (which runs Windows Mobile – is that double blasphemy?).  And a Dell laptop.  (If that’s not a sign of me at least being aware of and open to what’s around, I don’t know what is.)  At least most of the people I came in contact with didn’t notice (or at least, they didn’t show any signs of it).

Admittedly, the questions I’ve been answering aren’t so much related to Objective-C and a device with more influence on culture than as they are locating the bathroom or finding out what time a talk starts and ends, and there’s been plenty of me sitting and babysitting overflow rooms full of people (due to the unexpectedly high demand for attendance in combination with being assigned smaller rooms for presentation), interspersed with babysitting a lobby full of hungry people and carrying the remains of the feeding hour for those hungry people out to a dumpster.  I’ve been taking any spare time between (or even during) these events writing posts and working on my shell more.

What I’ve caught of the talks has been fairly informative, though useless to me as someone not all that interested (at the moment, at least) in the iPhone platform, and it isn’t quite enough to make me “eat more fruit.”  That isn’t to say they weren’t well-presented; it seems as though the guy who’s been doing most of the talking has seen this YouTube video about proper PowerPoint etiquette.  (And before you ask…yes, he was using Keynote, so it might not be all him.)

Oh, and while bugs in software are fun, bugs that laugh at you are even more fun.  (Yes, that’s a bug in my code.)

And yes, the cake is a lie.  Or maybe not…

1. It’s more secure than Windows XP.

Excuse me a moment while I laugh, then point out that Windows XP has more security bulletins (at least, as far as I’m aware) than any other platform, be it OS X, Linux, Solaris, or anything else.  Then let me point out that XP also has the largest market share.  Make sense yet?  Notice the correlation?  I thought so.

I’ll give Gizmodo credit for actually acknowledging that little tidbit in their article, but there’s no reasonable way to compare the security across all of these platforms.  So what if there are fewer bulletins?  For example, if I code a CMS for a site, and that site is the only one with that CMS, is it necessarily any more secure than a common platform like Drupal or Joomla?  It could have all the holes in the world, intentional holes even…but the fact that it’s one site in the shadows means that there’s probably only a handful of people in all the world who would even attempt such a pointless endeavor.  Those holes would remain, my CMS would have no security reports – so by all means, I’m coding the most secure platform, right?

There are some things that can be compared…but the “amount of security” is not one of them.

2. It’s the best-looking Windows yet.

This is a matter of opinion.  While I’m not a fan of the Fisher-Price stock blue Windows XP theme, I’m not a fan of Aero either.  The transparency is a little much for my taste, and I prefer a full Start button to something that makes me feel like I’m trying to predict the future with it.  And most of the other stuff, like the 3D task switching, is just overkill.

Instead, I prefer Windows XP (*cough*) with this theme (though I use the alternate version with the actual start button instead).  It’s a lot cleaner looking, and it looks professional and sleek enough to me to at least not look like I’m messing with some virtual preschool toy.

3. Games work just about as well as under XP.

This one’s a tough one, because it really depends on the game and the system configuration.  Some games experience drags on one or the other, others need to be hacked to work on one or the other platform; all in all, it’s a real mess.  But in my case, I’m fine with Hover! and a 486.  (Nobody ever said “gaming rig” meant top-of-the-line specs.  And if they did…well, they should be forced to play Hover! for a while.)

4. Vista Media Center is a fantastic DVR.

Not everybody’s even hopped on the DVR bandwagon yet.  First, you need to teach people how to make their clocks quit blinking 12:00am.  Then, you need to explain to these same people why using their computer over a subscription box or the cable converter gives them an advantage.  Good luck with that.

My dismay with the lack of intelligence among people today aside, there’s also the issue of lock-in here.  There are plenty of great and reliable alternatives that AREN’T Media Center, and have a lot more expandability (namely MythTV for the experienced, and MediaPortal for the faint-of-heart).  One also has the benefit of working under…Vista.

If I had to recommend a DVR, I’d actually probably end up recommending a Tivo over a PC solution for the people who can’t read manuals.  I did just suggest MediaPortal, but Tivo at least has the benefit of being dumbed down and friendly enough that anyone with a moderate English vocabulary or the ability to recognize a thumbs-up or -down could pick up the remote and start using it.  And people can understand and recognize a Tivo box much faster than they will a PC sitting in the entertainment center.

5. The sleep mode works.

Funny…I’ve only ever had one problem with a computer sleeping while using Windows XP.  And you know what the funny part is?  It’s a hardware problem, an issue on my motherboard designer’s part that causes the Ethernet jack to disable itself (and an issue easily circumvented with a separate LAN card, I just haven’t bothered to put one in).  My laptop’s actually sitting here, also in a state of slumber, awaiting me getting back to updates.

If you need further proof still, I’ve been kicking the power button to my Gateway Mini-PC for the past hour now.  And I can still see it lighting up in my management console.

6. Built-in search is better and more useful.

Perhaps if Microsoft had thought to default indexing to ‘on’ in XP, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.  Not that it matters; a properly-organized work environment means you’ll still be able to find things faster than that search box.

7. User Account Control is useful for some people.

Wait…what did they say?  Let’s look again:

7. User Account Control is useful for some people.

That’s what I thought.  And the problem is that they’ve just shoved their foot in their mouth.  Yes, UAC may be useful to some people…but most often people get too annoyed.

Microsoft tarnished their “plug-and-chug” image as far as usability was concerned when they implemented UAC.  What I mean is that rather than people have their all-authoritative power that they’re used to, with nobody and nothing asking them what to do, suddenly the computer is the boss.  “Are you sure you want to do this?”  “Are you sure you want to delete that?”  “This wallpaper looks nice, so you’ll need administrative privledges to change it to something else.”

Understandably, there’s going to be the phase where everyone hates it, then slowly warms up to it and the idea that it “helps”.  Right now, this is the hate phase, and everyone’s turning it off.  OS X does something similar, requiring the user to enter their password as additional confirmation…but the users are over it because there’s no setting to turn it off.  (If there is, please correct me.  But my voyages through the cat-flavored fruit haven’t turned up any.)  Microsoft, perhaps the checkbox should have waited?  Or been included only for enterprises?)

If you want all that in a nutshell, I’m actually commending Microsoft for this move.  But the implementation…it’s missing something.

8. Drivers support isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be.

Wow.  Finally an argument I don’t have enough experience with to debate completely over.  Why couldn’t Gizmodo have brought this up sooner?

I actually think the driver support is backwards at this point.  I’ve purchased “Vista-only” devices before, and had to hack them into submission for use with XP (namely, a Pinnacle remote control).  I understand that Vista’s the newer, shinier consumer sibling in the Windows family, but too many people are complaining and stalling their move to Vista to warrant products with no compatibility on older platforms.

9. It’s not any buggier than XP.

Once again, this is a matter of opinion in relation to the level of mishap you’re willing to accept before something becomes buggy and unusable.  And it’s already known that the biggest issues come from driver bugs - the more people using those “bugs” the merrier.

10. Vista is not slow if you have enough RAM.

Alright, complaining about this one is probably a little overkill, especially given that Microsoft has finally realized that free RAM is wasted RAM, and decided to stuff it with the morsels you might need to use the most.  Some of the slowness can be alleviated by turning off things like Aero…wait, did I just suggest turning off bloat?  Alright, that’s it.  Vista needs to get on the StairMaster now and lose some weight.

I tend to agree more with the complaints they brought up, including the painfully slow file transfers from h*** and the requirement to categorize every wireless network you see as something like “Home” or “Work”, .  But those are common and heard just about everywhere anyway, so it really wouldn’t be missed if Gizmodo hadn’t bothered at all.

For a computer science major, software developer, and someone who generally is known to stick with everything needed to get stuff done…it’s nearly 1.5 years since Vista was released, and I’m still running on the previous generation.  And for once, I would rather wallow in the history than leap into the future.