Perhaps because I frequent web news outlets with a geeky bent, I’ve seen a lot of negative reaction to Microsoft’s Service Pack 2 update to Windows XP. Much of this criticism is understandable. Microsoft has been pushing the security issue hard, and it will be near impossible for them to live up to their promises.

That said, let’s be fair to Microsoft. They’ve been criticized for a delayed roll-out of SP2 and for a slew of applications that “break” after it is installed. Well, rolling out a major (free) update to the worlds most popular operating system is not easy. The amount of backwards compatibility issues that Microsoft deals with dwarfs that of competing operating systems given their install base. Upgrading the install base of Windows XP is a massive engineering undertaking.

As for some applications “breaking” after SP2 is installed – sure, there may be (and likely) are bugs in SP2. However, much of the “breaking” I’ve heard of is due to new security policies that Microsoft has been criticized for not having in the past. For example, their Firewall is now turned on by default. This will wreak havoc on all kinds of applications (it messed up some online gaming software for me in the past). However, it is a necessary change. Sure, it will cause some annoyances in the short term – but it will make computing safer in the long term.

We can’t criticize Microsoft for shipping an operating system with no firewall turned on by default, then not give them credit when they finally do ship with a firewall on by default.

SP2 probably doesn’t make Windows secure. From my (admitted limited)understanding, there are fundamental architectural decisions that will prevent Windows from ever being as secure as the more network aware alternatives (Linux and Mac OS X). However, SP2 helps – if only a bit.

I now run Linux as my primary operating system. I run Windows XP occasionally, and I updated my XP partition on my laptop to SP2 today. When an application started to load up in the background, XP with SP2 told me about it, and asked me if it was ok for it to run. If I make legitimate software that runs in the background, this will be an annoyance and may make for a slew of calls to my support line. However, it will make it a hell of a lot easier to find all of that spy-ware running on your moms computer.

Bottom line: SP2 will help make home computers a little bit less annoying for our families to use. I think Microsoft deserves at least a bit of credit for that.

The excellent instant-messaging program/project, Gaim, could use a new logo. It would need to be something simple and elegant that works well as a little 16-pixel system-tray icon, as a full-size application icon, in larger spots (login screen, about dialog, etc.) and in other locations with status symbols with the icon (offline, busy, etc.).

Here’s the current Gaim logo dude and a screenshot of a folder that shows some of the other ways the logo is currently used.

Gaim is becoming quite popular as an instant messaging client. It is already widely used on Linux, and I think it could catch on like Firefox on windows too.

I wish I had more time to help, but I thought I’d try to spread the word. If you are interested in helping, join the Gaim-devel mailing list.

Update: It turns out the Gaim guys are still pretty happy with the little one-armed man. Still it can’t hurt to try some new things.