Author: Vince Kimball

Turkeys, Laughs and SBS 2003. My twin sisters visited over the Thanksgiving holiday. One sister said her company, a provider of computer educational services, planned to adopt Microsoft’s Small Business Server 2003. I chuckled, because I had just finished a report on the product. She laughed when I told her she’d have to pay for the… Continue reading Turkeys, Laughs and SBS 2003

Microsoft's Security Risks. During a security Webcast today, Microsoft revealed that it receives 2,500 to 3,000 attempted intrusions or scans a day–or about 100,000 month. Despite the posed security risks, the last major breach occurred in October 2000. … [Microsoft Monitor]

BitTorrent Model for Tech Sales. Reading Scoble's post on Dave's sour encounter with Best Buy and Scoble's suggestions on how to improve the tech sales/purchase experience made me think about the problem as well (the blogosphere is like this in that blog posts are like can openers.  Reading a post could open your can.) A… Continue reading BitTorrent Model for Tech Sales

Microsoft Hiring Hypocrisy. Anway, I thought it was amusing that a company started by Bill Gates, a dropout like me, requires its engineers to have a degree.  Thinking that it might be a fluke, I checked some software architect positions at Microsoft Career pages and found that all of them requires a degree in CS… Continue reading Microsoft Hiring Hypocrisy

How BitTorrent Works. BitTorrent can be difficult to understand so I'll try to explain how it works.  Let me know if there are any mistakes. BitTorrent is NOT Napster BitTorrent is not a file sharing technology.  It's a download sharing technology.  With BitTorrent, you share with others what you are downloading while you are downloading.… Continue reading How BitTorrent Works

Developers and users perspectives. If you’re a software developer, you need to understand the perspective of people who use your software. I ran across a good, small example of the difference between the two perspectives, via an email from a NetNewsWire user. I mention it because it might be illustrative of one of the ways… Continue reading Developers and users perspectives

Looking for leadership in all the wrong places. Fingerprints of Unhappy Companies All Look the Same. John R. Brandt writes the column Brandt On Leadership for Industry Week. His latest article Come On, Get Happy, is another gem. Brandt says, It never ceases to amaze how completely the managers and employees of unhappy companies —… Continue reading Looking for leadership in all the wrong places

Gi-Fi?. Om Malik breaks the latest story: high up on the spectrum, it's gigabit wireless: While you can squeeze gigabits per second out of long-haul wireless using equipment from Proxim and a few others, short-range Wi-Fi-like gigabit networking is out of the question. Or is it? Om Malik finds that a serial successful businessman in… Continue reading Gi-Fi?

Unveiling The Wireless Networking Starter Kit, 2nd Edition. The second edition of my book, The Wireless Networking Starter Kit, is out!: My co-author Adam Engst and I spent three months on this revision, which was originally planned to be a small update to the original 360-page book, but blossomed into 560 pages for the same… Continue reading Unveiling The Wireless Networking Starter Kit, 2nd Edition