It will never crash!

Which of the following operating systems is guaranteed never to crash? (Pick one answer only.)
          • Unix
          • Windows Vista
          • DEC RSTS/E
          • Apple OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
          • Free BSD
          • IBM OS/2
          • Microsoft DOS 6.11
          • Ubuntu Linux 7.10
          • None of the above
The answer, of course, is "none of the above" and it's one of the reasons that I'm so annoyed by OS evangelists who proclaim that all operating systems but the one they like crash every 2 or 3 minutes while the operating system of their choice will run for years with nary a problem.

What is an operating system, after all, but line after line of code that was written by people to run on hardware that has been developed by people. In an imperfect world, it is unreasonable to assume that any system will run indefinitely without a problem.

If you're interested in the components that make up an operating system, Wikipedia has a good article in reasonably plain English at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system.

"An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software.

"The most commonly-used contemporary desktop OS is Microsoft Windows, with Mac OS X also being well-known. Linux and the BSD are popular Unix-like systems."

What caused me to think about this is a book about Ubuntu Linux. After being away from single-user Linux for a few years, I was astonished to see how much easier the current distributions are to install. With modest hardware, a free operating system, and a bunch of open-source applications, it's possible to put together a home computer for about $400. It won't run Windows and it won't come with Windows applications, but it will have a word processor, a spreadsheet program, graphics applications, a presentation program, a Web browser, and an e-mail program.

The book I've been reading says that unlike Windows, Linux will never crash. Never? When I read something like that written by a supposed expert, I question the expert's credentials. It is true that Linux crashes infrequently. But these days, so does Windows. My XP system at the office usually runs for months between reboots and I don't recall ever seeing a system crash there. At home, on a Vista machine, I have seen a lot of crashes but those were all directly attributable to failing hardware. Once the hardware was made reliable, Vista became reliable.

Perhaps it is sufficient to say that I have seen machines running Apple's OS X and machines running Linux that became so befuddled that the only way to resolve the problem was to pull the plug. Maybe that doesn't qualify as a crash in this author's mind because there was no "mysterious error message", just a lack of response. To my mind, anytime a computer fails to respond to any external signal, that computer has crashed.

If you're looking for an operating system that won't ever crash, you'll have to wait. Today's three safest operating systems, at least as crashing is regarded, would have to be Linux, Unix (including Apple's OS X), and Windows XP. I specified only XP because it's been around longer and Microsoft engineers have been able to find most of the problems. Vista seems overall to be reliable, but it's still too new to be listed as "safe".

No matter what application you're running, it or the operating system will sometimes crash (so save your work often) and hardware can fail (so keep a current backup).

Still having trouble picking an operating system?

You're certainly not alone. Some people who have used Windows since the beginning are thinking about defecting because of what they've heard about Vista. Some Apple users threatened to leave when Apple migrated from OS 9 to OS X (and again when Apple dumped Motorola processors in favor of Intel) but most seem to have stayed. There are more valid choices today than there were even in the early days of personal computers. Choose Windows if you dislike Steve Jobs and can't trust community-written software. Choose OS X if you dislike Bill Gates and can't trust community-written software. Choose Linux if you dislike Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and you can't trust proprietary software.

You may have seen articles that compare operating systems to beers or to airlines. I recently ran across one of these, updated it a bit, and I'd love to be able to tell you who wrote the original, but I can't because I don't know. There's more than a little truth here. What if the writers of operating systems ran airlines:

DOS Air: The company went out of business because everybody had to get out and push the airplane to get it started, jump in as it started to glide, ride until it hit the ground again, and then start over.

MacLines: Everyone at the airline is unfailingly polite, but they all look, dress, and act exactly the same. If you ask a question about when the plane might be leaving or where it might be going, you'll be informed that you don't really need to know that.

OSXAir is a new division of MacLines. It uses sleek new planes and all terminals are gleaming white. As you approach the ticket counter, the clerk hands you a ticket with your picture on it even though you didn't notice her snap the picture. You never see any other passengers in the plane. The flight features music and movies from start to finish. When you arrive, you wonder where you are and how you got there.

Windows World Airways consists of several regional carriers and two worldwide divisions. The terminals are colorful and the personnel are friendly, but performance varies wildly from one division to the next.

• WindowsAir features planes that have minor engineering shortcomings. In some cases, these shortcomings cause no significant problems, but sometimes the plane simply explodes without warning.
• Windows NewTech Air uses larger planes that are capable of flying further before they explode but, when they explode, they destroy all other aircraft within 40 miles.
• Windows XP Airlines flies from airports that server only Windows XP Airlines. The planes are twice as large as they need to be. As you enter the plane, you are provided a uniform so that you, the other passengers, and the crew all look the same. Regardless of where you intended to go, all planes fly to Redmond.
• Vista Airlines uses the largest airplanes ever made and, as you walk through the terminal, security officers stationed every 10 feet repeatedly ask if you're sure that you want to keep walking toward the plane. Because the planes are so large, they require more fuel and, despite that, still get you to your destination in about double the time required by other airlines.

Linux Air was formed by disgruntled employees of all the other airlines. They built the planes, set up the ticket counters, and paved the runways. Although they charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench, and instructions for running "man install_seat.txt". The planes leave and arrive on time and the in-flight meal is extraordinary. Some passengers occasionally touch an unlabeled control that transports their seat to the outside of the airplane.

Movies online

Last year, some friends gave me a gift subscription to Netflix. I've enjoyed seeing a collection of movies from long ago, more recent movies that I've missed, and some old TV shows (Twilight Zone, Mission Impossible [everybody smokes!], The Outer Limits, The Avengers, and such). Recently Netflix added a Watch Instantly feature that allows me to watch a certain number of hours worth of movies every month on my computer. I can now say that I've done it once. That was enough.

That's nothing against Netflix specifically, although the Netflix feature requires Internet Explorer and will not work with Firefox. I'm not sure what happens to Mac users because only an antique version of IE is available for the Mac or for Linux users. So that was strike one.

This is on a 3Mbps connection, which is faster than average now that Wide Open West has figured out what the problem is and resolved it. (This would be strike two.) Even though Netflix said there would be no further interruption, the movie I was watching still had a nasty habit of skipping and stuttering. Sometimes the video got out of sync with the audio and then the video played double speed to catch up with the audio. (Strike three.)

But the three strikes aren't the main reason I won't be using the Watch Instantly feature.

The real reasons I won't use the Watch Instantly feature have more to do with me and with my surroundings and there are two primary drivers:

1. When I watch a movie, I expect to spend an hour and a half or more sitting in something other than an office chair.
2. Knowing that the movie is running on a computer, I am tempted to check my e-mail or do work during slow parts of the movie. Invariably, this means that I miss something and may require that I rewind the movie to see what I missed.

The first concern could be resolved with a more comfortable chair or a different chair that would be used only for movies; the second concern could be resolved only by handcuffing my hands to the chair. On-demand video is coming, but the computer is the wrong destination today. When we all live in fully-networked houses that allow me to serve video from anywhere to anywhere, Watch Instantly will work. Until then, we have DVDs.

It's the last show of the year: Happy Holidays

I mean that sincerely no matter what holiday you celebrate. For some reason, this is considered by some (mainly fueled by Fox and its so-called news operation) to be anti-Christmas or anti-Christian. It's not. It's also intended not to be exclusive because many people and many religions have holidays around this time of the year. Fox raised a big fuss a few years ago about the use of "Happy Holidays", but had to back off a bit when someone brought it to their attention that cards from George and Laura Bush said "Happy Holidays". So if the term "Happy Holidays" offends you, I'm sorry; but I don't plan to change anything.

Not my legs. Not my cat.

Nerdly News: No News is Good News

Instead of Nerdly News this week, spam. Some laughable. Some dangerous. The Storm Worm continues to mutate in ways that make it dangerous if you don't practice careful clicking. But really, nobody should ever fall for this. There's also an increase in Russian spam. Perhaps Russian spammers don't comprehend that most people in the United States don't speak Russian even though many people in Russia speak excellent English.

Click any of the images for a larger view.

	The first two spams are examples of recent Storm Worm approaches. The one at the left (with a nod to the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" methods) appears to be a message from one inquisitor to another. The first wants to share a video with the second. Click the link and you will have infected your computer.
	Not interested in politics or torture? How about sex? Sex always sells and here's a variant that offers pictures. Don't click it; you'll be sorry.
	Occasionally I take down all of my anti-spam measures and allow the crud to just flow in for a day or a few hours. In this case, it was just overnight. All of these messages (subject line prefixed with THISISSPAM) were identified as spam by Spam Assassin.
	How many messages arrived in less than 12 hours overnight? 258. Of those, how many were spam? 257.
	But there's a funny side to spam. Here's one in Russian. It caught my attention because the subject line is You need SPAM is us! It's an offer to provide lists of e-mail addresses I can spam. 4 million addresses in Moscow for 6000 rubles, 3 million in St Petersburg for 5000 rubles, 2 million in Kiev for 3000 rubles or just another 1000 rubles for all of Ukraine. Lawyers and judges (1.5 million) for 8000 rubles. I passed up this opportunity. At least they have the honesty to call themselves Spam Is Us.
	I wondered about this one. It's a spam for a conference of internal auditors in Moscow on Christmas day. Probably the number of US citizens who would have any interest in this program could be counted on the fingers of (at most) two hands.
	And there was this spam from "German Shepherd" (with "German" in Cyrillic and Shepherd" in Roman, even though the Russian word for "German" transliterates to "nimyetskij"). What is the dog offering? Tours around the holidays: Among others, the lights of Moscow for 550 rubles, Ancient Uglich for just 750 rubles, San Francisco for a mere 780 rubles (I believe that I smell a mouse, if not a rat), and the Secrets of Moscow Mansions for 400 rubles. I'd find it difficult to spend 3 days in San Francisco for just 780 rubles, and I would need to travel only from Columbus, not from Moscow. (780 rubles would be about $31.50)

It's dangerous out there. Be careful what you open. Be careful what you click on. Trust nothing. Oh ... and
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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