Season's Greetings 2008

I love the Christmas-tide, and yet,
I notice this, each year I live;
I always like the gifts I get,
But how I love the gifts I give!

Carolyn Wells

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2009 to all of you!

Cours du soir CEPL

Je dois malheureusement annoncer que je ne prends plus en charge le cours d'initiation en sécurité informatique de la CEPL à partir de ce semestre.

Je remercie toutes les personnes concernées pour leur bonne collaboration et je souhaite à tous les participants une bonne continuation de leurs études.

Actuellement, je ne donne donc plus de cours, mais peut-être un jour une nouvelle opportunité me permettra de nouveau de passer mes connaissances à d'autres personnes, une tâche que j'ai toujours apprécié.

Schlauer als der Wurm

Ein sehr informatives Video wurde jetzt vom Fraunhofer Institut auf Youtube veröffentlicht. Es beschreibt die Funktionsweise von Würmer und deren Angriffe auf Firewalls. Außerdem wird ein neuer Ansatz zu besseren Bekämpfung von Würmern im Rahmen des ReMIND Forschungsprojektes vorgestellt.

Cours du soir CEPL

Pendant le premier semestre 2008, les cours auront lieu tous les mercredis à 18h00 du 20 février au 21 mai 2008 au LTECG. Je rappelle que toutes les informations concernant la matière se trouvent sur la clé USB que les participants ont reçu lors du premier cours.

Attention! La séance du 23 avril n'aura pas lieu mais sera reportée au 21 mai!!!

L'examen aura lieu le 28 mai 2008 à 18h00 au LTECG. Dans l'examen, qui aura une durée de 1 heure 30 minutes, tous documents seront interdits.

Nouveaux défis professionnels

Pour tout ceux qui ne le savaient pas encore, je viens de changer d'employeur ce qui va me permettre de me concentrer de nouveau plus sur la conception et le développement d'applications de gestion. A partir de ce mois, je travaille donc comme informaticien auprès du Centre Informatique de la Sécurité Sociale.

A cette occasion, je voudrais encore une fois remercier tous mes anciens collègues de travail au Centre de Recherche Public - Gabriel Lippmann pour la bonne collaboration et l'ambiance collégiale!

Season's Greetings 2007

***

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Joyeux Noël et une Bonne Année!

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein Glückliches Neues Jahr!

Schéi Chrëschtdeeg a Vill Gléck am neie Joer!

***

Hasta la Vista, Microsoft!

Lately, I migrated to the new Windows Vista operating system since I got a new computer. I thought this would be a nice opportunity to switch from Windows XP because the new hardware would cause the "hungry" Vista system to run nicely, smoothly and without problems. I was totally wrong and I have to whine about it now.

I worked for several years intensively with Windows XP and I expected some improvements concerning security, user friendliness, stability and backward-compatibility. I was totally happy with my XP system but decided to migrate mainly because of DirectX 10 (only supported in Vista, nice marketing decision) and frankly, because I wanted something new.

It has been quite a year since Vista is out, but stability, features and third party support are a joke. Overall my Vista system works fine, but there are hundreds of small things that are irritating, do not work as expected or are simply worse than in XP, for example:

• sounds are sometimes mixed up and having separate volume settings for each program is just plain confusing,
• the new file explorer doesn't recognize when I insert a new CD/DVD unless I do a software eject (!) and re-close the drive (it even tries to format the disc, which makes a lot of sense since it's a freakin' ROM drive),
• screen saver is activated during Windows Media Player playback (yes, even if the option "Allow screen saver during playback" is deactivated),
• the sleep mode doesn't work half the time causing the system to become unresponsive,
• the sidebar doesn't offer many (useful) gadgets and uses a lot of CPU power,
• on the average, I have experienced more system hang-ups under Vista than under XP until now.

Ok, let's be fair, some problems could be related to the hardware, but I have installed the latest drivers that are certified for Vista.

Moreover, I think Microsoft is trying too hard to simplify everything for the user. A typical example is the defragmentation tool that has received a major downgrade (actually there is only a button that defragments all drives in the background, no visual feedback at all). Another example would be the backup tools that are completely useless from my point of view, even in Windows Ultimate. I want more options so that I can modify the behaviour of such tools. At least, they could have included it in the Ultimate edition, which is clearly aimed at IT pros.

But there isn't only Microsoft to blame, it is a disgrace for e.g. Nokia that Windows Vista support is very bad, I can't even synchronize my Nokia N73 calendar with Windows Calendar. I managed to get my five year old Artec scanner to work under Vista but had to replace my old Epson laser printer. There was no official Windows Vista support for both of them.

Ok, there are some features I'm absolutely happy with, the multimedia tools such as the photo gallery are very nice, the new Live Messenger and Live Mail clients are great and the Aero user interface gives the system a nice touch. Perhaps I have to familiarize more with Vista and the first service pack should also improve things. But it remains a fact that after several weeks of intensive Vista testing, I'm rather disappointed about the new Windows generation.