Sam Gentile says that Don Box needs to get out into the streets and talk to customers, and says that he would find, among other things:

No one cares about Web Services in real usage (only geeks think they’re cool).

Sam, I know you’re out working with customers, but maybe you should talk to a few more. I’ve worked with multiple clients using web services…including a multi-billion dollar travel services company, who have built and deployed web services (can’t deep link, click on “Galileo Web Services”) for their customers to use. With these services, they can get a new customer up in hours or days, rather than the weeks or months that it took previously. And they have unprecedented monitoring and control capabilities, and the ability to protect their legacy systems in a new way by encapsulating much of the old error-prone logic.

I’ve also worked with clients of these particular web services, and it’s even better from their perspective. No more screen scraping; no more wading through a 500-page manual of structured field specs; and no more waiting for months for a private data line to be installed. And even better, there are higher-level services provided to easily accomplish certain travel tasks that used to be very complex. We’re talking about weeks of development, reduced to a couple of days. Seriously.

So Don, I think you’re doing fine – and many real customers do care about this stuff.

Dave Burke isn’t happy with Windows 2003 Server’s default security settings:

[…] But at the end of the flying day or computing day, what has changed?  Really?  As a developer (or flyer), there is just more crap to do to get to where you want to go.  But at the end of the day you still end up at the same place.

I’m sure lots of folks want to ream me for dissing the new W2K3 security features.  I’m in no position to question the array of security restrictions in W2K3.  Smarter guys than me thought they were a good idea.  Hey, I’m just saying that to me, using W2K3 is like post 9/11 Airport Security.

Windows 2000 was like buying a big new house, moving in, and seeing that all the doors and windows are unlocked and open. You have to remember to go around the house and close/lock them, assuming that you care if anyone breaks in.

Windows 2003 is a similar house, albeit with stronger doors and more tamper-resistant locks…but when you move in, all the doors and windows are locked – and you can open what you wish.

Seems like an easy choice to me.

So I’m trying to listen to PressPlay, and I notice that all my streams are only coming in at 20 kbps, which is just killing me – I feel like I’m listening to music on an old AM radio. I call them, and after a few minutes with the support guy, he figures out my account is on probation because the monthly fee on my credit card was declined. Ok, no problem, give him another card (need my music, WAY too quiet in here!), then call the credit card company and see what’s happening.

So I call in, enter my card number via touch tones, and get this security recording asking me to verify some charges. Wow, this is pretty cool – an automated security audit. Some of the charges didn’t sound familiar, so I pressed the appropriate button and talked to a real person.

Turns out there was a $1900 charge made a few days ago, which was declined because they had the wrong expiration date (I just got a new card recently with a new date). This charge, combined with the expired date, was evidently suspicious enough for them to place a security hold on my account – very nice. There was one more charge that wasn’t mine, for about $200 to a well-known auto insurance company.

So what I’m wondering is, how stupid does someone have to be to use a stolen credit card number to pay their insurance bill? I mean, hello?!? They’re going to be pretty easy for them to track down, I would think!

I’m as surprised as anyone about the recent round of lawsuits, including the suit against the 12-year old girl. But here’s a quote from the girl’s mom:

“It’s not like we were doing anything illegal,” said Torres. [Fox News]

This is exactly the problem. No one thinks it’s illegal. If you’re in the intellectual property business, take note – this is a problem.

This is worth re-posting…the feed validator has moved to http://feedvalidator.org.  There are other validators out there, but this is the only one really worth using, IMHO.

The Feed Validator, previously located at feeds.archive.org/validator/, now has its own domain: feedvalidator.org. If you have any scripts, templates, or applications that point to the Feed Validator, now would be a good time to update them. [dive into mark]