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So far I have a mixed feeling for Vista Upgrade. I think microsoft went with the release of Vista a little too early. So I would call this release as a post-beta release. There is word of advice for users who are planning to upgrade to Vista from Wndows XP. Dont expect every application to work flawless in Vista. If you are prepared to experiment only then go for Vista Upgrade. Up until now, Vista doesn’t support a significant number of applications, including some that are critical to business operation. Many hardware manufacturers also haven’t yet released drivers that support Vista. And up until now enterprises are waiting for the release of a more stable Vista release (SP1) next year or in 2009 before implementing Vista. The resolution of application compatibility and driver issues in Vista may come too late. While application compatibility and driver issues should not be a big concern in one or two years from now, Vista deployment by that time may be less beneficial, especially if the enterprise has found no compelling reason to move over to Vista, especially if Windows 7 is on the horizon. But on the other hand individual users can still go ahead with the upgrade is they want to reap some enhancements in security and the overall Graphical User Interface changes Microsoft incorporated in Vista.

In my personal experience XP still holds an edge over Vista in terms of stability and compatibility. I have heard from people that they dont prefer Vista due to its huge memroy consumption specially with its indexing feature. Even on a machine with 2GB RAM it hogs up memory very fast. Iam desperately waiting for the release of SP1 and hope that these issues will be resolved.

I heard so many rumors about Windows Vista, so I thought about giving it a try. I started testing Vista during the beta testing but lost the flow due to other endeavors. During the testing phase I realized that it did not comply with all the third party products, especially the device drivers. I bought my new HP Pavilion dv6000t Notebook preloaded with Windows XP professional in sep 2005. I was unlucky in getting a free upgrade copy of Vista from HP as they only offered it to people who bought the machine after sep 2005. Recently I got lucky as one of my good friend sent me free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate version (The most wanted..).

Installation Experience:

The Vista Upgrade Advisor did bring out issues with some of the softwares and device drivers on my laptop. After I backed up my data I went ahead with a clean install and the process went fine. The only issue I faced during the install process was setting up my webcam drivers. I had to dig into the WebCam manufacturers site for assistance. Finally I got it resolved with the help of Microsoft Vista Tech Support. Before that I was bounced by HP Tech Support because I had an unsupported OS on my machine.

 Vista User Experience:

I was amazed by the graphical enhancement they made in Vista. Even though I have worked on MacOS I did find microsoft’s improvement in the OS really interesting. Im not sure what’s in store for future from microsoft. I have been a microsoft fan since 1994. Lately I have been trying out some open source OS’s, which in my view have really come a long way. They offer almost all the features but the only thing which bring Microsoft’s OS is their support.

I would shed more light on my Vista experience in my coming blogs. Stay tuned……

Along the web development, email has made a huge contribution in wide spread of internet. E-mail is widely used and has a well-defined and universally implemented protocol and, it is a hot cake for hackers. It is easily done. Attacks on e-mail focus on two areas: the delivery and execution of malicious code (malcode) and the disclosure of sensitive information. E-mail has great latent risk due to the very sensitive nature of the data or information that is transmitted. E-mail can disclose a huge amount of company and personally sensitive data. The security risks linked with e-mail are often perplexed with the risks associated with collaboration tools that also serve as e-mail clients. Microsoft Outlook is one such tool.

The following are two issues to consider when comparing e-mail and collaboration tools:

• The acquisition and propagation of malcode
• The loss of privacy data.

E-mail, as defined by the Network Working Group’s RFCs, is implemented in simple

ASCII text. ASCII text cannot be executed directly. This can be a serious mutilation for malcode, which needs to be executed, promulgate, or do damage. Therefore, e-mail at its very basic core is safe because it does not transmit directly executable (binary) code.

When an e-mail client starts adding features to be more of a collaboration tool, such as Outlook, the malcode has many avenues of being decoded and launched. The goal of these tools is to make life easy and suitable for the users. This ease and expediency leads to the tools providing features for the user that the malcode can use to its advantage.

The basic protocols used in e-mail may not be inherently susceptible to malicious code such as worms and viruses, but the same cannot be said for protecting personal and sensitive data. For many years, the popular e-mail protocol, Post Office

Protocol (POP), was used in the clear (not encrypted). Even in today’s security-conscious society, most e-mail is still transmitted in the clear.

A variety of technology companies are involved in this emerging space of digital cinema. Companies such as Qualcomm, Boeing, QuVis, and Avica have all come to the table with various digital cinema products and services. However, after more than two years of market development, only about 60 screens across the U.S. have permanent digital cinema installations.

This small number can be attributed mainly to cost. Similar to the transition from “talkies” to sound films as well as in the case of the emergence of color film, cost is a significant barrier to entry. In an industry where production and distribution costs are off the charts and margins on theatrical exhibition are low, it is a challenge to rationalize funding the conversion to digital cinema.

However, from production applications such as dailies in digital format and digital asset management to promotion devices such as digital media trailers on the Web to (most recently) film distribution and exhibition, filmmakers and other film industry leaders are recognizing the economic value of integrating digital media into their work environments.

Sharing Folders on Local and Remote Computers

The shared resources of Windows Server 2003 are stored in a folder on local or remote computer, which is known as shared folder. Shared folders help you to access the shared resources of remote computers. You need to specify different share permissions to a set of users to access the shared resources. By default, all user accounts of a network have read access permission to access the shared folder in the network. Note: Only computers with hard drive partitions formatted in New Technology File System (NTFS) support data sharing.

Specifying Share Permissions

Share permissions allow user in a network to access the shared resources, such as files and folders. You can also specify different permissions for different sets of computers in the network. By default, the read permission is set for a shared file or folder. Various share permissions in Windows Server 2003 are:
No Access: Prevents access to the shared resources. It is the most restrictive share permission, which does not allow you to perform the read and write operations.
Read: Allows read access to the shared resources. Using this share permission, you can view the list of files and subfolders within the shared folder. You can also read the contents of the files and run the program files stored in the shared folder.
Change: Allows the creation and deletion of files and subfolders in the shared folder that has read permission. This permission also allows you to modify the contents of the shared resources.
Full Control: Allows you to read, write, delete and change the shared resources stored in the shared folder. The full control permission automatically inherits the read and change permissions. In addition, it allows you to take the ownership of shared resources. It is the least restrictive share permission.

Creating Shared Folders

To access the shared resources on the network, you need to share an existing folder or create a new shared folder. Windows Server 2003 provides two methods to create shared folders on local and remote computers, Windows Explorer and Computer Management. The Windows Explorer method creates the shared folder on local computers, and the Computer Management method creates the shared folder on both the local and remote computers. An administrator or a member of the Server Operators group can create shared folders on a server running on Windows Server 2003.