Why I F#cking Hate Windows

Yes, you read it correctly. I f#cking hate windows. Why? Well, let me explain;

Microsoft has this nice feature called Automatic Updates. Basically nothing wrong with that. It makes sure that you have the latest patches and updates without having to think too much about it.

Every now and then you get a mildly annoying question if you want to reboot (no, off course not... I'm working at this moment), but you can postpone those during the day. So when you shutdown the laptop/PC at the end of the day, the changes are taken into effect, and you can be (pretty) sure that your system is up-to-date the next time you boot it up.
So far nothing wrong.......

Somehow there are certain updates which enforces a reboot of itself (see the screenshot below). This is a reboot from hell, because no matter what documents you have open, no matter how many things you need to save before restarting. This bug-from-hell (I have no other words for it), will close everything by force and reboots your system. And with force I really do mean force.

Automatic Update RebootNormally, when you close a program, you get a question if you would like to save the document if it has changed. Even when you shutdown the PC the official way, the shutdown process stops (actually, it hangs, because stuff stops responding) at those dialogs. Waiting for your input. But this enforced reboot ignores this all together.

After the first message appears on your screen you've got exactly 5 minutes to change its mind. So if you're at lunch, or on the toilet, you might be in deep sh#t. Because when you come back, the OS has rebooted. Every open document (saved or NOT) is closed, and you can start over again.

The worst part is that a unwanted shutdown can (and will at some point) corrupt data. Something you don't want, but just happened to me....

Damages:

• Corrupt Outlook PST file
  which was an archived mail file, which can be recovered from an earlier backup.
• Corrupt MS-Word document
  thankfully the auto-save function was enabled and recovery seemed to work. No idea what content is missing yet.
• Lost several notepad files which were open with several to-do things, and pieces of code I was working on.

And that's why I love Apple OSX, and f#cking hate Windows.

B.t.w. I already blogged about this feature a while back, but I hadn't lost any data that time. This time it's personal.

Oh, and spare me the advise on reconfiguring Automatic Updates, because this feature should not even exist.

Apple Releases Safari 4.....

and breaks the functionality @ Dutch Rabobank Internet Banking.

I got the Safari 4 update this morning, and with most Apple updates I just install them. After the update I launched it and was (at first) surprised at the Interface. It opened with 'Top Sites'. An overview of Websites along with thumnails... Nice.

Since I had a web browser open, I launched the Rabobank Internet bankieren website. Since Apple boasts with the fact that Safari 4 passes like a gazillion Acid tests (and Microsoft like only 1)

Safari 4 ACIS tests results (according to Apple)From another source:

On February 24 2009, Safari 4 was the first fully functional build browser to pass Acid3.[22]
On 08 June 2009, Safari 4 was the first official release version of a desktop browser to display a score of 100/100 and pass the Acid3 test.

The main page worked fine, but transferring funds leaves you with empty screens etc. There is no way of managing your money with Safari 4.
I haven't search for workarounds, since I don't want to search through knowledge bases, or sniffing through settings within Safari (or OSX). A browser should work.

So they might be perfect in a lab environment, but I'd rather have a less perfect browser which enables me to manage my money.

So, to summarize:

Safari 4: 100% ACID 3 proof, and a 100% failure rating in displaying websites
(since I only tried one website)

Anyway, back to FireFox for me.

B.t.w. I have tried the same with Internet Explorer 8 on a worklaptop (since it got pushed through my throat), and that one works fine. Even when it's not in its compatibility view mode (for displaying non-standard websites). Must the one of the few times that Internet Explorer seems to work....

Internal Server Errors

I've been experiencing some 500 errors on my blog (HTTP Error 500 - Internal server error). During these occasions, the SymCAImport tools seems to work fine, while the Wordpress installment hogs. So PHP screw-ups are less likely.

A brief conversation with the support department @ Dreamhost, suggested a Wordpress theme/plugin malfunction. So I downloaded the latest theme version, and deactivated most plugins. Let see how long thing keep working.
Anyone other ideas?

UPDATE: Got additional information from Dreamhost about the 500 errors. It seems that there was a 'naughty' person clogging up the cluster/server resources.

Website Downtime

It seems that my hoster Dreamhost ran into some problems yesterday. Lot's of websites returned 'Internal Service Errors' or ' Service Temporarily Unavailable'. These errors only occurred when addressing php content and not while accessing static html-files. So most likely a PHP (config) 'feature'.

The thing that annoys me the most about this downtime is not that it lasted almost a day, but the lack of communication. No mention of problems on their status page, and support-feedback was also thin.

I rather have a couple of days downtime, and knowing what the problem is (hard disk crash, power failure, human error), than 1 hour and not (ever) knowing what happened.

Anyway, the problem seems to be solved (for now), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on the feedback issue.

UPDATE: Got feedback from Dreamhost.com that everything should be working. No feedback (yet) on the cause of the problem though.

Why Linux Won't Work

.... for me at this moment (and probably for most others).

I'm still in the fase of migrating my Windows server to a more 'reliable' Operating System. The new server should cover the following basic functionalities:

• Filesharing (either via Samba or NFS)
• Webserver with PHP and Coldfusion
• SSH server
• RADIUS Server
• Central user database (e.g. an LDAP server)
• a NZB downloader of some sort
• etc.

Up till now I've tried several Linux distros (Ubuntu 7, Ubuntu 8, and CentOS 5), and none of them are that easy to configure.

It seems that NFS isn't that easy to configure, since Apple OSX requires some special features (standards anyone??). Especially when you want some sort of user authentication. Just do a search on Linux, NFS and Apple OSX.

So after NFS didn't really work, I tried SMB for filesharing. While CentOS has some GUI to configure the shares, it lacks the interface of permissions for users...
You create users within the Linux environment, and if you wanna connect to a Samba share you need to configure additional users (in a different userdatabase).
This can be done by synchronization, but you need to do some scripting etc.

So far I've managed to install a working SSH server (with x509 authentication) and a Webserver.

When I compare this with Windows.... Well, there's no real comparison. Windows has a real central user database (not talking about the Active Directory here, but the local user database). And every service I need can talk to this database, and every service recognizes this database. No need to start 'hacking' some configuration files to make it work.

Well, as long as there's no new (read:better) interface of configuring those services and combining them with a shared user database ....

LINUX >> /dev/null

Recommendations can be left in the comments (if there are any)......

OSX Finder Replacement [Update]

A while back I wrote something about Path Finder as a probable Finder substitute. Well, it's been a couple of months, and I must say that  I'm still using the crappy Apple Finder.

Why? Well, I guess that it kinda grows on you, eventhough Path Finder has 'some' neat features. It just didn't feel like a real substitute. It felt more like an add-on.

So, back to Finder with its little annoyances like;

• Not being able to move or delete files when the OS is busy creating the thumbnails.
• No Cut&Paste (⌘-x, ⌘-v) in the file system.
• ⌘-o to open files instead of hitting the Enter-key.
• Sort folders before files. Not mixing them.
• Clock/Date format (I want the date also to be visible).
• Manual refresh option for (share) folders.
• etc.
  

I have high hopes up for Snow Leopard. Hope that Finder gets a real good overhaul.

Panasonic Lumix LX3 Annoyance

The LX3 is in my possession for a couple of weeks, and last weekend I noticed something annoying. When I imported the photos in Adobe Lightroom, some of the photos were imported as RAW, and some as JPG.

By default I set my cameras on RAW (if they support it). When I purchased the LX3 there was no RAW importer for Lightroom or Photoshop, so I shot in RAW+JPG. This way I could see the photos and could work with the RAW files when a proper RAW converter (Adobe Camera RAW) cae along.

I checked the format settings and these were set at RAW, so where did those JPG's came from?
After some searching I found that the iA mode of the camera (intelligent Auto) decides which image quality setting to use. Something I didn't find in the manual (or I read over it).

Anyway, it's annoying as hell.

Broken SSL Trust

WebTrust broken?When a CA issues a SSL certificate they (the registration authority) should verify certain information provided by the requester. This includes at least the domain name ownership and preferably the person or company tied to the domain name ownership. Basic stuff really, but what happens when certificates get issued without any verification? Well, this happened to Mozilla [2].

Basically the complete trust framework collapses (for that CA). Especially combined with hosts file and/or DNS hijacking. What if this incident isn't the first? What if some cybercrook got some SSL certs due to similar mistakes of your favorite bank? You're no longer sure if the https connection of your bank really terminates on the servers of your bank. They could just as easily terminate on a server in Russia or Albania. Which leaves you with an empty bank account (most likely).

If the certificate is issued (signed) by a Comodo Root CA (as it was in this case), your browser accepts this as a valid/trusted CA and for the user everything seems fine. This takes me back to the issue of all those trusted root certification authorities in the average OS or browser.
This time, it's a Comodo affiliate that's screwed up (there's no other way of describing this), but what are the chances that some of those trusted 100+ CA's make a mistake? The bigger the list, the bigger the chance of wrongfully issues (SSL) certificates.

By the way, if you're using an older browser (pre IE6 e.g.), chances are that SSL certificate revocation checking is disabled by default. So even when the revoke they certificate you still wouldn't know.... You can verifiy this by opening the Internet Explorer options section and checking the Advanced tab.