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Vista: Should I upgrade

Back to the Future

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Vista : Should I Wait to Upgrade?

By George Bardissi, President Bardissi Enterprises

I’m sure by now many of you have seen the numerous advertisements and commercials for Microsoft’s new Windows operating system called Vista. Every time Microsoft releases a new OS people always talk about “the bugs” and waiting until they are worked out. I wanted to go a little more in depth as to what “bugs” actually means.  I had a woman call me the other week asking me about my opinion in terms of purchasing a new computer with Windows Vista for her home. She commented that she was uneasy about upgrading to Vista because of all of the things she has heard about “incompatibility” in terms of situations such as camera devices and Ipods and so on.  After a very long phone conversation with her I pointed out the following things:

First, why are things not compatible with Vista? A lot of people seem to think that it’s Microsoft’s fault that things are not compatible and that may be partly true and here is why… and why not. When Microsoft was in the process of building Vista, they almost completely started from scratch in terms of coding their software.  At a recent Microsoft Vista launch event a Microsoft spokesperson pointed out that in the past Microsoft coded their software and it may have been a little messy. Well, when the other 3^rd party companies that bring you anti-virus software, desktop publishing software, and so on go to code their software they have to code it in such a way that it works with Windows, which is also messy. When Microsoft coded Vista they “cleaned up” their act when it came to writing the code and raised the bar in terms of the structure in which they built their Vista operating system as well as all the new versions of Microsoft Office and all of their other Microsoft software. By doing this, the other companies, out there, have to take the time to then “clean up” their code and software packages accordingly.

What amazes me and I’m sure a lot of other people, is that Vista was available for quite some time before it was released to the general public on January 31^st. This was done with the express purpose of giving companies the time to make sure their software did work with Vista. In that time period, which spanned several months, why didn’t the other software manufacturers start and complete the task of getting their software packages ready for Vista? Well for one reason or another, companies have their own time table in which they do things and therefore you hear that certain software packages and devices are not compatible with Vista until they finish doing the work of creating compatibility with the new operating system. So getting back to my conversation with this woman, HOME USERS who use mostly OFF THE SHELF software packages are ready to move to Vista as long as they are upgrading their other 3^rd party drivers software accordingly.

However, when it comes to Business and Vista, that’s another issue. Businesses are in a different arena when it comes to software.  The problem that most businesses experience, that home users do not,  is that the software they use is very unique.  What do I mean by that?  Well every business does not use the same accounting software, inventory software, payroll software, and so on.  A very “scary” thing for some companies is that all editions of Windows Vista DO NOT support DOS based or legacy 16-bit software. That means any software that still uses a text based software, running in MS-Dos, which unfortunately many of the larger companies do run, will not properly interface with Vista. Also, many accounting software packages are not ready for Vista. However, off the shelve software such as QuickBooks, or Peachtree are already Vista compatible.

So many would then ask, why do we even have to move to Vista? My answer for those people would be you can hold off on moving to Vista but not forever. Microsoft runs on what I call the “rule of 2.” What’s that? Every time Microsoft releases a new version of the Windows OS for desktops or servers, they only support security and patch updates for the current version and the one previous to that version. So for example, now that Windows Vista is out Microsoft will only support Windows Updates for Vista, and Windows XP. Support for Windows 2000 is nearly expired and will shortly no longer be supported. Also, that means if you are running Windows 95, 98, 98 Second Edition, NT, or Millennium Edition you are already out of luck because support on those versions has been discontinued.

So what’s the big deal if software is discontinued, I am still using my system? Well sure, just because support has expired or been discontinued doesn’t mean your computer just stops working. It does mean that you are no longer protected against any vulnerabilities that hackers or viruses may take advantage of by gaining access to your computer, your data and with all of the new viruses, worms and  trojan horses, that come out daily, it is only a matter of time before your system is compromised.

Well doesn’t my anti-virus software protect me form that stuff? Sure it protects you from a majority of it but it does not stop everything! The older the software you are using the easier it is to access it illegally or for your system to be “compromised” due to the fact that there are holes in the software that have not been patched since the software support has been discontinued.

When it comes to businesses, my recommendation, regarding this topic, is to have your network and computers surveyed or audited by your IT department or an IT professional to see what is necessary in order to move to the next series of software. In most cases it will not be an automatic thing where you can just upgrade right away without making some changes to your system. Please, for your own sanity, do not wait until the last minute or until it is too late and your back is against the wall. I would seriously encourage all business owners, small and large, to start investigating now and making sure that when your business is ready to move to the next version of Windows for workstations and servers, you have a plan set in place and you know what has to be done organizationally and financially to avoid rushing to resolve problems, which will cause mistakes and a lot of unnecessary spending.

Back to the Future

By Mike Bianchini, Network Technician Bardissi Enterprises

Technology has changed so much from just five years ago, but how about twenty years ago? Do you remember how much a computer cost and what you could get for your money? Here is a look at a system and what it costs in 1987.

Commodore Amiga 2000

Ship Date:

1987

Price:

US $1,500

CPU:

Motorola 68000 @ 7.14 MHz

RAM:

512K stock, 8Meg max

Display:

16 colors at 640 X 400

4096 colors at 320 X 200.

Ports:

parallel, serial, floppy

RGB video, stereo audio

Storage:

Internal 880K 3.5-inch floppy

optional hard drive

OS:

AmigaDOS

"Workbench" GUI

The first of the big-box Amigas, the Amiga 2000 is the successor to original Amiga 1000. They are nearly identical in operation, with the 2000 having much more expansion capability.

While the 1000 has only one internal 3.5-inch floppy drive, the 2000 has room for two, with an additional expansion bay for a larger 5.25-inch drive, CD-ROM, tape backup, etc.

Internally, the 2000 has a video slot, a processor slot, as well as five Amiga expansion slots and four IBM-style expansions slots, but two of these are either-or. The IBM-style slots are for power only, as the Amiga does not have the circuitry built-in to communicate with PC cards. What good is this? Some PC cards such as TBCs (Time Base Corrector) manipulate external video signals and don't necessarily need to communicate with the host computer. Also, with a "Bridgeboard" or similar emulator card installed, the Amiga can run MS-DOS and utilize PC cards.

The Amiga slots are "autoconfig", or what Microsoft now calls "plug-n-play". There are no jumpers or switches, you just plug the cards in and the system recognizes and configures them automatically - remember that this was in 1987.

Hundreds if not thousands of expansion cards are available for the Amiga, ranging from the ordinary to the amazing-

Web Hot list - Websites to check out

By Mike Bianchini - Network Technician Bardissi Enterprises

This month we are going to look at a few cool websites you might have never heard of.

giveawayoftheday.com - It's Christmas everyday at giveawayoftheday.com where everyday they give you software for free. The software is only available that day and must be activated that day you download it or you will not be able to use it. They often have software that would cost $50 or more for FREE! Give it a try.

dafont.com - Looking for some new fonts to spice up that document? Head over to dafont.com they offer thousands of FREE fonts to download. They have everything from fancy to crazy fonts all with previews.

priceprotectr.com - Ever buy stuff from stores that offer a price protection guarantee? If they lower their price within a certain amount of time from when you purchased it, they'll refund you the difference. Sounds great... except how often do you remember to check the price again? With priceprotectr.com they will do it for you automatically and email you when the price has changed.