Some things are designed well, and others aren’t. Posts in this category are meant to call out both, and in the case of bad designs, provide comparison or contrast to the same function designed properly.
If you have anything to do with technology, the chances are pretty good that you wasted at least part of the month of December patching, upgrading, or reconfiguring software that uses Log4J.
Now that the dust has settled, we can look at the vulnerabilities that were announced in December, what factors led to the problem, and why it should never have occurred.
Previously, I’ve written about gun-related movie myths in “Movie Myths: Guns – Part 1“, and in there, I described in detail how guns work – both automatics and revolvers.
Since that time, I’ve thought about making a state diagram that helps explain some of the common gun-related continuity errors that you regularly see in movies and TV.
The result is the diagram that you will see in this article, along with a higher-resolution PNG and PDF that you can download for free, which would make a nice wall decoration for any gun enthusiast.
Download the PDF here, or the PNG here.
Read on for more information about state diagrams and gun-related movie continuity errors…
The company where I am currently employed uses WinZip as its desktop standard for archive software.
This isn’t my preferred option, but whatever.
One minute, I’m cruising around in a spreadsheet, and the next, this pops up:
They company in question has an enterprise license for WinZip, which means that I’m running a fully-licensed copy.
I will cover some of the history of WinZip, and why I think it’s irrelevant, and then I will tell you exactly why I think this pop-up is wrong. I will also make some recommendations for both software designers and corporate desktop administrators.
…and, “Why I think WinZip is irrelevant”
Back in the DOS days, there were competing lossless file compression standards, and that’s still true today.
In the 1980’s and early 90’s, disk space was always at a premium, whether it was deciding what to delete off your hard drive so that you could install a new program, or how many programs you could back up to a floppy disk.
And, before the internet, you connected to Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) through a very slow modem to find and download software. Smaller files meant that a BBS could host more files, and also, that your download time would be significantly faster.
The first commonly-used compression program for microcomputers was simply called “ARC”. Not only did ARC compress files, but it had the ability to compress multiple files in to a single “archive” file, and later versions could even span multiple floppy disks – handy if you were backing up your hard drive.
Due to its ease of use, single-file archive format, and itself being a small file that was easy to find and download, ARC quickly became standard among BBS operators and users. Every PC in the 80’s had a “C:\UTILS” folder, and ARC was one of the programs inside of it.
Although ARC was commercial software developed by SEA corporation, it was distributed as “shareware” – a license that allowed both individual users and BBS operators to freely “share” the file by copying it, but requested that users send in some money and obtain a proper license if they decided to keep using it. Of course, no one did that, and eventually, SEA released the source code for ARC.
A couple of years later, along came Phil Katz, who wrote a much faster and more efficient implementation of ARC, of course called PKARC, and rather than have both compression and extraction functions within the same executable, Phil Katz split the extraction function in to a separate program called PKXARC. This meant that you could download the much more svelt PKXARC if all you needed to do was extract files without compressing them, but in either case, you would benefit from the much faster code.
PKARC soon became the de facto tool for using ARC files.
Later, Phil Katz co-developed the ZIP file format – the same one that’s in use today. And, like ARC, everyone started using ZIP files, especially popular with BBS operators due to the smaller file sizes and faster extraction routines.
Soon, like ARC, every PC had PKZIP and PKUNZIP in their C:\UTILS folder alongside PKARC and PKXARC. Eventually, people just stopped using ARC altogether.
And thus, Phil Katz built the bulk of the PKWare software empire off of one little shareware utility.
However, PKZIP had one major drawback: It was a command-line program, requiring some knowledge of what a command line is, how to use it, and how to use PKZIP within it.
As operating systems evolved toward Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and began to focus on ease-of-use, there was clearly a gap.
You could download a ZIP file from a BBS using your terminal program running in a window, but then you would have to shell out to a command prompt and run some arcane (pun intended) commands to extract the files within it, in to a usable format.
In the early 90’s WinZip emerged as a graphical front-end to PKZip. With PKZip installed, and with WinZip properly installed and configured, a user could simply double-click on a zip file to extract its contents, or drag and drop some files to create a new ZIP file. WinZip handled the user interface, and on the back end, it ran PKZip with the appropriate command-line switches.
Eventually, WinZip adopted a “clean-room” ZIP implementation, and dumped PKZip. Now, there was no complicated dependencies nor configuration. If a user needed to open a zip file, they could simply download and run WinZip as a single program.
As Windows 95 boosted the popularity of home computing, WinZip quickly became much more popular than PKZip. PKWare made a feeble attempt to release a competing GUI product, but it was too-little, too-late. WinZip had been on the market longer, most users were familiar with it, it had better desktop integration, and it was far easier to use.
By the late 90’s, WinZip was one of the first programs you needed to download after any new operating system was installed.
Similar to PKWare, WinZip had a “trialware” license that allowed you to freely use it for a couple of weeks, and then either delete it or license it.
To help drive revenue, unlicensed copies of WinZIp would pop up a friendly reminder. Once you entered a license code, the reminder disappeared. Further, a license was perpetual, and initially allowed for perpetual upgrades. So for about $10 (if I recall), not only could you license WinZip to get rid of the annoying pop-up, but you could also freely download and upgrade to the latest version every couple of months when it was released.
WinZip prospered as it virtually ruled the market. Over time they added new features and updated the GUI, but WinZip was still WinZip.
And then Microsoft released Windows XP, which had built-in support for zip files.
It’s hard to believe that Microsoft turned a blind eye to this lucrative niche for nearly 10 years, but on the other hand, they were probably gun-shy after having recently fought off anti-trust litigation from Netscape. In versions of Windows prior to XP, if you double-click on a ZIP file without WinZip (or another ZIP handler) installed, you more or less get a message that says “what the heck do you want me to do with this??”
Now, with Windows XP and onward, you could double-click a ZIP file to open it, or right-click some files and send them to a “compressed folder”, which is Microsoft’s codename for a ZIP archive file.
Even worse for WinZip, by the time Microsoft released XP, there were Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives such as WinRAR and 7-Zip. Initially, each of these only supported a proprietary archive format (RAR and 7z respectively), but eventually they both ended up supporting multiple archive formats, including ZIP, and even the advanced features of the ZIP format, such as media spanning and AES encryption.
And, WinZip’s market began to dry up.
Casual users didn’t need to download anything – they simply used the operating system’s built-in ZIP file handler.
Power users could download FOSS utilities for free, such as WinRAR and 7-Zip, and simply avoid both the cost of WinZip and its increasingly clingy, laggy user interface and more frequent and annoying beg-ware pop-ups.
As it turns out, switching from a perpetual to an annual license model was a smart move for WinZip.
Rather than die out like ARC and PKZip, there is just enough recurring revenue from corporate licensees to keep it on life support.
So, despite being completely obsolete, WinZip is still running out there, with it’s ever-more kludgy and annoying user interface, limited features, and annoying pop-ups.
And, companies like the one I work for are still running it, because, hey, it works, and hey, they still have a license for it.
<RANT>
In case you don’t remember using a computer in the 2000’s, let me describe what it was like:
Play this every couple of hours on endless repeat while you’re trying to edit a document or watch a movie.
PEOPLE. HATE. POP-UPS.
People hate pop-ups so much that every modern browser has a built-in pop-up blocker – code that specifically stops a website from opening new browser windows.
People hate pop-ups because they are pre-emptive. You have to STOP doing what you WERE doing (which was important to YOU), and click “close” on a useless pop-up. You can’t ignore a pop-up, because it’s right there, blocking whatever you were working on behind it. It’s even worse when you’re typing, because you have to take your hands off the keyboard, which is both slow and distracting.
People HATE them.
So why have a completely random pop-up inside a fully-licensed product??
If I was running the trialware version (if that even still exists), then a pop-up is justified when I first launch the program. “Hey… we see that you still haven’t registered…” OK, fine.
BUT I HAVE registered. It’s fully-licensed. And, I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE WINZIP RUNNING!! So it obviously has hooks in to the scheduler (Microsoft’s biggest architectural mistake, but that’s another story) for the sole purpose of trying to sell me more WinZip crapware, that I can only assume has even MORE pop-ups!
What’s even worse is that I don’t need any of the “new features”, and I don’t want them. I don’t need some crappy product “running tasks in the background” or “sorting through my photos”.
All I need to be able to do is encrypt a ZIP file and read encrypted ZIP files.
BUT, because I’m on a corporate laptop, rather than downloading a superior product like 7-Zip, which is simple, fast, and free, I’m forced to run WinZip and deal with bulky, slow software and random crappy pop-ups. What a user experience!
</RANT>
Just let this sink in for a minute… My recent experiences with WinZip have been so frustrating that I just spent 3 hours of my personal time writing this blog post.
Why do corporations still use WinZip? Probably one of several reasons:
Tip of the day: DUMP WINZIP. STOP WASTING MONEY ON MAINTENANCE AND LICENSING. MOVE ON TO A SUPERIOR SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
If you are Microsoft:
If someone is making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS selling an add-on to your flagship operating system, hint, you might want to BUY THEM. Loot the codebase, integrate the functionality, and move on.
If you are a startup company with a niche product:
Enough ranting, I think my points are clear.
If you have a set of things, a permutation is a specific way that you can list those things. Although algorithms exist to list every permutation, most of them rely on recursion – the calling of a function from within itself – which is horribly inefficient.
If you want a non-recursive algorithm that lists every permutation, keep reading…
15 months ago, I bought a house.
During the course of that transaction, I had to disclose personal information to:
I was required by Federal law to disclose information, including my:
You know, everything you might need to, you know, KNOW in order to steal my identity.
The business purpose for this was ostensibly to:
And, it was ostensibly to be used ONLY in the course of doing business.
A year passes…
I get a “Happy Birthday” e-mail from:
In addition, I got an actual birthday card in the mail from the finance company that we ended up using.
Two decades ago, I would have thought “how quaint!” and moved on.
However, in the days of identity theft, YOUR BIRTHDAY is a significant piece of non-public personal data that should be closely guarded.
If I had gotten a birthday card at the beginning of the month with a note that says “Hey, happy birthday this month!” We know it’s your birthday, but we respect your privacy, so we’ve stored a generic representation of your personal data rather than your actual birthday.
Completely acceptable.
The reason storing my ACTUAL BIRTHDAY is NOT ACCEPTABLE, is twofold:
In addition to appearing completely unprofessional, the situation gives rise to the following, UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS:
<RANT>
And…
If WE NEVER DID BUSINESS AT ALL because MY WIFE FIRED YOU, then you have NO LEGITIMATE PURPOSE for storing my data, and ZERO REASONS to send me a birthday e-mail.
You know who you are…
</RANT>
Most data breaches result when companies store data that they don’t need, or store improperly, or both.
Send me a birthday card at the first of the month, and let me know that because you respect my privacy, you DO NOT STORE MY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY.
To assemble two or more completely dissimilar and poorly integrated components in to one unit, as in the patchwork manner of Frankenstein’s Monster.
We see competition shows all the time, such as “Top Chef”, “Next Iron Chef”, “Chopped”, all of the baking competition shows, and even shows such as “Forged in Fire” and “Next Mythbuster”, where the loser of each round gets eliminated.
The goal of the show is to find “the best” out of a group of competitors, but this is not the likely outcome.
Let’s look at why, and how to fix it.
Or, why floating point operations are slow, and how to avoid them.
We’ve all done this 1,000 times…
You purchase a piece of wood, or worse, a piece of fruit, peel the sticker, and it completely self-destructs, leaving bits of sticker, and a sticky residue.