The Internet of late has been very chatty about how Microsoft screwed up and released a Windows version that no one really wanted. Not since WindowsME, has Microsoft had such an unimportant Windows release as Windows Vista. Faithful and ever persistent Apple followers have chimed in with the prophecy that Apple will once again reign supreme and take over the world with Mac OS X. As a Mac user myself, yeah I too can dream of the coming of OS X to all things, but that simply is not going to happen. The Operating System is irrelevant at this point. Yes, I said it. As much as I love Apple for their cool gradients and perfectionist design, the truth is that the operating system war no longer matters. It is the network that matters now. People don’t care what operating system they run as much as, what they want to access, works. Today for technical people like myself, this means Firefox on Windows XP, Safari on Mac OS X and my iPhone, and whatever browser works on anything else. If it is IE, so be it!

In reality there are two markets out there. The consumer market which Apple has already won and which Linux is close to figuring out and the business market where Microsoft rules with iron fists. Apple’s OS X strategy on the consumer side has worked great. Today I can message, play, and communicate on my iPhone better than I ever could on my old Windows98 machine. Most people do not even know what the operating system is on the iPhone, they just know it works. In this respect, OS X has become a consumer operating system. Consumers like choices too, and so today you can buy an Apple widget that works and live with it or you can go with Windows, Linux, and dozens of other operating systems that are out there. Apple’s consumer price is a tad higher, but as the iPod and iPhone have shown, people don’t care as long as it works. As long as Apple keeps OS X running smoothly on all these $300 devices, OS X will be successful, so successful that no one will know that is what they are actually using. The irony is that Microsoft wanted this for Windows and it never really happened. Why? Because Microsoft is obsessed with recognition that they have never figured out that you do not have to blast everything you make with “Microsoft” and version names that make no sense to consumers. What exactly does IE Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_qfe.080814-1242 mean? I am sure someone could tell you, but to the consumer it does not matter at all. Apple’s marketing is simple, one logo and one name.

Microsoft is a company that is going in multiple directions, and it is causing them to remain stagnant and sink in quicksand. The relevancy of Vista has been a wake up call, that perhaps Office and Windows no longer matter outside of the business markets that they control. Do not get me wrong, Microsoft makes very impressive products for business. Windows Server 2008 being more impressive than Windows Server 2003 which is my personal favorite version of Windows, but outside of business Microsoft has many ideas, many strategies, but one senses the ambition is gone. Google is the super power of the Internet and it is pushing hard into remaking the world in its image. Google has made products that actually matter to you and me. Google Earth, Maps, Reader, and so on have made an impact on how we live and use this thing called the Internet. Google’s strategy is to make the network work for everyone and it is succeeding in building toolsets that are cutting into Microsoft’s expensive products. This is why the operating system war no longer matters. It is the network that Google is building that is changing the world. The business market is watching this revolution and they are very interested, as they should be. The future will definitely have business going less Microsoft, just how much business abandons Redmond, depends on just how relevant Microsoft products are. Right now, Microsoft still has the podium on which to speak volumes on where they want to take us, but for how much longer can they keep control may be out of their hands entirely. Vista is boring compared to Ubuntu, OS X, RedHat, and others.

On the consumer side, Microsoft has pushed hard with little success to show for it. The XBox 360 remains uninspiring and in third place behind Nintendo Wii and the PS3. Windows Live Search is not even a real contender in search. And Microsoft wonders why Vista (an operating system that can cost upwards of $400 on cheap $300 hardware) is not enticing to consumers? The rise of the netbook laptop, something which neither Intel nor Microsoft saw coming, is now the driving force in the consumer market. Microsoft had to hack Windows XP to run on these $300 laptops, this alone speaks volumes of how stagnant Microsoft has been. If shareholders have not thought of this, they definitely should consider what would happen if business customers start buying netbooks instead of more expensive hardware and switch to Google Apps for their software needs! Microsoft’s Cloud idea has to materialize sooner than later. In essence Windows is doomed, or at least what we think of Windows is. Microsoft has to build the network in ways that matter to everyone. They do not have to follow the same path as Google, but they definitely need to change the way we live. Microsoft’s best strategy is to kill Windows before its competitors make it irrelevant. The clock is ticking away.

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One project that I recently completed was the relaunching of MovieComment. This is a website that I started in 2006 and which I let languish for over a year. The original intent was for me to provide the space for friends to write movie reviews, but for some reason, I could never persuade anyone to write anything down. Eventually I started to neglect the site as WebKeyDesign took most of my time and I also have a regular job that keeps me quite busy these days. Over the last couple of weeks, I took some time out and retrofitted the site with a new WordPress theme, added some content, made some minor improvements, and did a security audit to make sure the site was secure.

For the theme, I went with a theme called dsantuary. The theme had a nice layout and built-in advertisement placement, but I did not like the navigation bar at all. I ended up changing the navigation bar to something I came up myself. Other than this there were a few theme changes, here and there to make the site work. For example the graphic for the sidebar was not tall enough to accommodate a long enough sidebar. I had to create a new graphic for the sidebar. Once I got rid the navigation bar, I had to find a place for the Search form, since the original had it built into the navigation bar. Search was moved into the sidebar.

Plugins

While I will not list all the plugins that are setup on the site, the following plugins were added and configured for specific reasons and are worthy of consideration for most WordPress sites:

Since MovieComment was being relaunched, I needed to make sure that the content was going to be indexed properly and that it will show up correct on search engine sites. To start with good content needs meta tags. WordPress on its own does not really do a good job of providing this. For this you can try a plugin like All in One SEO Pack that tries to setup meta tags correctly for each page of your site. Once your content is meta tagged properly you will need to let search engines know your content is out there. The best way to do this is via a sitemap. The Google XML Sitemaps plugin does a good job of creating a sitemap automatically for you. Once you have Google XML Sitemaps setup go to Google Webmaster Tools to verify that Google has no problems reading your sitemap.

Security is important and I too have made the mistake of letting things slide and have paid the price for not keeping focused on security. Luckily now there are some good plugins to help with this. By installing Login LockDown and, WP Security Scan your WordPress site will be a little bit more secure and being more secure always helps webmasters sleep better.

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It is pretty much agreed upon that in the Windows world of computing running a computer without anti-virus software is like jumping onto a busy highway and expecting to not get hit. No other platform has as many viruses and now spam infections as Windows. Given that, most Windows users will need to setup some sort of anti-virus application. In this review I will cover why ESET NOD32 should be considered one of your top choices as well as why buying anti-virus software in general can be difficult.

NOD32 Options

All software makers pretty much distinguish between two classes of software these days. You either buy personal software for home use or you spend more and purchase business (sometimes referred to as enterprise) software. It use to be that ESET offered one solution that you could install on Windows2000, WindowsXP workstations and Windows Servers, but they recently changed their software pricing model to make a clear distinction between personal home software and what they call the business edition. It is now no longer possible to buy just 1 license of NOD32 Business Edition so that you can run it on your server. You must instead purchase 5 business licenses and then you will be able to download the Business Edition. The Home Edition no longer installs on any type of Windows Server, it will only install on Windows Workstations! My biggest problem with this is that I run a home server and so I can no longer buy cheap anti-virus software. Almost every vendor now requires a 5 business license limit, so even if I just wanted one or two licenses, I no longer have that privilege.

However if you are not like me, and just have Windows XP or Vista workstations, then you can buy ESET NOD32 Home Edition pretty cheaply. The cheapest way to buy the Home Edition is to just purchase an OEM version. You should be able to find OEM versions for sale on Newegg.com and save yourself a few dollars in the process.

Other than the Home versus Business editions, you can purchase ESET Smart Security which is both an anti-virus and anti-spyware utility. The Smart Security suite is more expensive than NOD32 alone, but it will save you the expense of buying a separate commercial spyware utility.

NOD32 Interface

The software takes a few minutes to install and by all accounts is a relatively easy install. The installer will require the usual Windows restart. From this point on, any time you start Windows, you will get a NOD32 splash screen once Windows gets to the desktop, letting you know NOD32 loaded. The green logo will then appear in your systray and you can click on it to bring up NOD32. Version 3 of the software differs from version 2.7, in that version 3 gives you a nicer looking interface and hides the old style 2.7 setup screens. You can even configure NOD32 to show a simple interface if you think the Advanced Interface is still too cluttered.

NOD32 Protection

NOD32 offers real-time file system protection, email protection, and web access protection. You can turn off email and web access protection if you find those features too intrusive. The web access protection works quite well, it alerted me when I visited a site that had been compromised by a cross-domain JavaScript call. Overall I have been using NOD32 for over a year and in that time it has caught multiple virus problems and best of all, has not slowed my system down in the process.

Other than NOD32, I have tried Computer Associates Anti-Virus products which are very inexpensive compared to other vendors. However it is my opinion that NOD32 is the top anti-virus product in quality for Windows at this time. Business users though might want to look at Sophos who offers enterprise class anti-virus and spam solutions with a good reputation for quality. For home user though, NOD32 is still my best recommendation.

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If you installed Firefox 3 and are using Windows, you might run into a problem where Firefox does not allow you to download exe files from the Internet due to a Windows setting. You will get the message: This download has been blocked by your Security Zone Policy and your download file will never download. To fix this problem you must modify Internet Explorer settings!

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Choose Tools menu – Internet Options.
3. Click the Security tab and click on the Internet icon.
4. Click the Default Level button if it is clickable
5. Then click Custom Level… and navigate to Miscellaneous.
6. Under this section find the option: Launching applications and unsafe files.
7. Change it from Disable to Prompt (Recommended).
8. Click OK, Apply, then OK.
9. Startup Firefox again and test it to see if it works now.

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Something which I rarely see being mentioned in the mainstream media is company ethics and consumers. The Internet news sites do cover some of the borderline unethical behaviors of major companies like Apple and Dell, but in reality these stories are aimed more at tarnishing the image of corporations, than really covering the actual situation and shady policies of the workplace. As a consumer of products and services, this bothers me somewhat because I try to only deal with ethical companies. After all would you really buy something from someone you personally knew was a thief? When it comes to corporations, we really should hold them to the same standards as our personal relationships. Although holding corporations accountable seems almost impossible nowadays, there are some things to look for.

Public traded companies do publish their financial records and occasionally their dirty laundry does come to light. Most of the time the bad news is published in obscure trade publications and so it is sometimes hard to find. Eventually if the dirty laundry is serious, it will eventually lead to an investigation or multiple lawsuits. At this point you can pretty much tell that the company acted contrary to ethical standards. Note that this is not something that you find with top corporations only, but with all companies in general. Just because Global Widgets did some illegal stock manipulation, does not mean that their competitor Small Scale Widgets is any less reputable. Sometimes an entire industry is guilty, like when all the memory makers made a group effort to artificially keep memory prices higher.

Perhaps the most direct way of finding out how ethical a company is to talk to them. When you walk into their store, call their customer service line, or email them, what type of response you get can reveal a lot about the type of training that the company gives their employees. Although this probably cannot tell you everything about a company, it does reveal enough to let you know if the company is worthy of your business. Talking may be a lost art, although we communicate every day, we do not do it effectively, and so remember the following points when you engage a company.

• Always ask for what you want directly, do not try to hide your intentions. If you want a cheaper price or think that the service or product is not up to your expectations, ask for an explanation.
• In turn, you should always be fair yourself: do not waste a company rep’s time if you truly are not interested in their services or products.
• Since companies can have multiple businesses, you cannot always hold accountable the bad ethical practices of one of their divisions to all of their other businesses.
• Lastly if you are treated rudely without justification, make the company aware of this, and if the response is lacking, never do business with them again.

In general, companies care about their shareholders more than their customers, it is this mentality that has led many companies to lie, steal, and cheat to make their profits ever larger, only to find out much like Starbucks, that you cannot make money without customers, even if you have thousands of locations.

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