CDE Software: From the desk of Lance Rasmussen

That old trusty computer still works.  It has Windows 98, which is simple and seems to do the job.  Not much is really used on the computer, except for checking some emails and running your leagues.  Life is good, right?

Well…  Unfortunately technology is progressing and along with that, many software companies are now faced with decisions on trying to spend resources on keeping the applications workable on older systems or cut them loose and make things easier to develop new features with more freedom.

Microsoft, in 2005, finally phased out all support, security updates and patches and the majority of technical documentation for Windows NT, which was primarily used in the corporate world.  This was long replaced by Windows 2000, which was replaced by Windows XP Pro.   Now, the current major operating system for businesses is Windows Vista Business.

In 2006, Microsoft finally threw out Windows 98 out with the bath water as well as Windows Me (to which many in the support fields nicknamed Multiple Exception fault).  Windows 98 and Me were geared more towards regular individuals and home users.  While Windows 2000 was a choice, Windows XP Home edition became the logical replacement for Windows 98/Me.   Now with Vista out, you have several choices to choose from.

One of the biggest improvements with XP and Vista is the core is built on a very solid foundation that is universal.  Windows 98/Me had a major different core than Windows Windows NT and Windows 2000.  Whats this mean to the average Joe?  Reliability and more applications that are compatible.

Should you go run out and buy Windows Vista?  No.  You don’t need to shirk away from Windows Vista either, but Windows XP should be the bare minimum you are using at this point.

With new viruses coming out and the imfamous loads of security holes found daily in prior Windows versions, Microsoft essentially is now devoting time to patching up XP and the new Vista, to which there are many fewer “holes” (at least so far).

Some of the technology used now by software developers have now phased out Windows 98, Me and NT.  Windows Installer technology, which has become the leading technology used to install software on computers has come out with newer versions, at the expense of incompatability with older systems.  Internet Explorer technology now is at version 7.0, which can only go so far back.  .NET technology programs now are using version 2.0 or 3.0, which can not be installed on older Windows.

Speed of computers have changed so much now that you can easily go out and spend a small amount on a new computer that may have last years technology that is good enough. 

 Hows this relate to CDE Software products?  For the past couple years the tools and code design of our products allowed us to install and operate close enough to the intended design.  While we don’t support the older operating systems, it may work.  As new products roll out, support for Windows installations prior to Windows 2000 will be discontinued.  We’ve finally reached a point where we can no longer hold back features just for the few (less than 1% of our survey base that used Windows 98 or Me).

If you are an individual league secretary, then its time to go shopping.  If you are a bowling center with an automatic scoring system, you should contact your scoring company and research options in obtaining another networked computer with XP Pro or Vista Business on it.  In most situations, if the scoring system computer that the CDE products are on (or other modern Windows applications) can not be upgraded to Windows 2000 or newer, then usually they can stay as they are and you just network a new computer in.

You’re starting to see a lot of advertising campaigns use the buzzword “Web 2.0″.  Technologies are coming out that are “Web 2.0 compliant”.  Just what the heck is this “Web 2.0″ and was there ever a 1.0?  Do I have to upgrade my computer for it?

Web 2.0 is somthing that came about after the Dot-Com bust in 2001.  To one point, its used as a “cool term” for marketing.  In other cases, its used to earmark technology shifts from early generation web development to new generation development.

Using an example from Tim O’Reilly :

• Web 1.0 had Double-Click for advertising, which was primarily banner ads.  Web 2.0 is more like Google’s Adsense.
• Web 1.0 used download technology from Akamai. Web 2.0 uses BitTorrent.
• Web 1.0 referred a lot to Britannica Online.  Web 2.0 uses Wikipedia.
• Web 1.0 focused on everyone having personal websites.  Web 2.0 focuses on individuals having blogs (online “diaries”, such as what your reading here).
• Web 1.0 focused on advertising as being based on the number of pages viewd.  Web 2.0 focuses on the cost per click.
• Web 1.0 had Netscape as the major standard for search engines.  Google is Web 2.0’s answer.

Some of the technologies in browsers have changed.  One is using a term called AJAX.  In the past, when you were going to select an item, such as a car manufacturer, it would reload the page with the list of car models.  When selecting the car model, the page would refresh and show further specifics on the model.  With AJAX technology, you can cleanly (no pun intended) update the information without reloading the page.  The magic behind the scenes allows you as the customer see things seemlessly as if the page was custom programmed for you out of the box.

Some of these technologies require updated browsers, such as Internet Explorer 6 or 7 or Mozilla’s Firefox 1.5.   Depending on your operating system, you may or may not need to upgrade your operating system or computer to use these browsers. 

Web 2.0, however, shouldn’t be confused with Internet2, which will eventually speed things up much further on the Internet as well as change to IPv6 technology.  For those who have no idea what IPv6 is, the concept is simple.  Currently, networking and the Internet uses what is called an IP address.   Think of this as a personal phone number that instead of 206.555.5555 it is in the form of 255.255.255.255  Each group of numbers seperated by the decimal point can be 0 to 255.  Essentially each computer or network device is given a unique number either “permanently” or “temporary”.  There are various rules that dictate groups of these addresses that are set asside for private internal network use and some that are public, so that they can be found, such as a website, such as this. 

The problem now, is that with the boom of the Internet… we’re starting to run out of these “phone numbers”, to which there can be a maximum of about 4.3 billion.  There has been different technology improvements to help with this, but we’re getting close to having to make a change.  IPv6 is simply a change in how the phone number is.  Instead of only numbers, it also adds the letters A through F (this is called Hexadecimal, by the way).  Instead of decimal numbers, it uses a colon.  Instead of 4 groups, it has 8.  Instead of 4.3 billion as the max, you have about 340 billion billion billion billion combinations.   To put it in perspective, there are approximately 6.5 billion people alive today.

What would this look like in your web browser?  For the most part, browsers always use the pretty name to represent this “phone number”.   When you go to www.google.com, there is a lookup process (think of looking in a big big phone book off in never land) that says Google is currently at this phone number.  This process is called DNS lookup.  The whole idea is that people can easily remember names, versus phone numbers. 

If I knew what Google’s phone number was, I could go to my browser and go http://127.0.0.1  (this will go to your computer, but if it was Google’s number, it would go to it).    With Internet2 and IPv6, you would go to http://[2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7344]/      Thankfully, though, we as simple folks who use the Internet, will never have to take memory pills to have to remember such a long thing because of DNS.

It’s quite amazing watching the Internet technologies continue to grow.  While my examples do leave out a lot of detail, I wanted to try and convey the jist of things.

One of the features that CDE has had for a few years now, is remote technical support.  This feature allows us to view and control your desktop to see what you see and help assist you.  This requires that the computer with the CDE product be connected to the Internet.  Due to slow speeds, we prefer that your connection be broadband or faster.

cnet recently posted a great article talking about the importance of remote support at http://tinyurl.com/2qc8a8

We have found this tool to be really usefull when sometimes things can not be duplicated or hammered out over the phone.

Over the years, I’ve tried many different products.  Norton’s suite of products, MacAffee, Panda, Kapirsky, AVG and others.   I’ve often been asked “whats the best”?

 After the past few years, I’ve gravitated to simple, effective and focused tools.  I don’t need or want to install a suite of 5-10 products that does stuff I don’t need or want to understand.  I simply want something that will keep my inbox clean from viruses and protect my desktop in case I somehow run a product that is infected.

NOD32, from http://www.eset.com has become my favorite of late.  It’s simple.   It’s not the most prettiest interface on the block, but I don’t need pretty.  The application sometimes will update the virus definitions several times a day, which tells me that is something is “hot of the virus press” that I’ve got a great shot at not being compromised.

The email scanner works well with Outlook / Windows Mail, which I only use for newsgroup reading.   I used Mozilla’s Thunderbird 2.0 for email and NOD32 works like a champ, optionally tagging my incoming emails letting me know its been scanned.

Is it free?   No.  But it is very reasonable in price.  I find you get what you “pay” for with free products.  I don’t want spyware on my system to be used as the price, nor do I want to be staring at advertising, which helps fund the free versions to the software authors. 

Does this have several utilities?  No.  It’s virus protection done well and is focused on just that.  I would rather use a tool that ranks as one of the top tools for spyware protection to deal with that part of the suite from a company focused only on making that type of product be the best.  I don’t need a company doing a LOT of things… mediocre.

A great article was posted on the movement to protect people from spyware:

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/57528.html