Munich ditching Microsoft Products

Munich (as city in Germany) started a transition from Microsoft Windows NT 4 and Office 95 (the migration started in 2004, and is a slow, ongoing process).

Munich is slowly rolling out their own distribution of Linux, which means that they control what versions of what software they have.

They can easily update all machines with little work by the IT department (most Linux distributions come with a built-in update checker, which can often be configured for a set amount of time between check-ins).

They have lost (some) compatibility with some versions of Microsoft Word. But migrating to Office 2007 would have the same problems as migrating to OpenOffice/Libreoffice.

This post is about the recent study funded by Microsoft and conducted by HP.

Communications Security

From CNN:
Google: 'Government surveillance is on the rise'

In 90% of all requests by the government to access a personal email account Google agreed.
This is why it's a good idea to encrypt your emails. I can't do it universally, due to not everyone whom I email having encryption software (or in some cases not knowing how to use the encryption software that others installed for them), but I can do it for those with whom I most want to keep a secure email link.

The government can almost certainly "brute-force" its way past an encryption with ease, but it does prevent them, or anyone else, be they criminals, or even even the email provider, from casually reading your emails, absent an unknown security exploit.

My personal suggestion is GPG (link is for the windows version).

US Elections

Prediction: By the end of this week, people will be calling shenanigans in the polls.

They will use one of several (interesting) points, one of which is how each swing state voted.