Why the Microsoft Office file formats are so complicated

An interesting piece by Joel Spolsky, a guy who worked for Microsoft back in the day.

If you started reading these documents with the hope of spending a weekend writing some spiffy code that imports Word documents into your blog system, or creates Excel-formatted spreadsheets with your personal finance data, the complexity and length of the spec probably cured you of that desire pretty darn quickly. A normal programmer would conclude that Office’s binary file formats:

* are deliberately obfuscated
* are the product of a demented Borg mind
* were created by insanely bad programmers
* and are impossible to read or create correctly.

You’d be wrong on all four counts.

Being the charitable guy I am, I only thought the first, second and fourth bullet points were true.

The advice on how to work around the difficult specs is good.

MS Office 2008 for Mac pricing

Perhaps the most interesting edition is the Home and Student version, which includes all the apps of the standard edition, but lacks the ability to connect to Exchange Servers, as well as some bundled Automator actions. The Home and Student edition will retail for the (relative) bargain price of $150, which leads to the inevitable question — does Microsoft really think Exchange Server access is worth $250? (Wired Compiler)

That's what I'd like to know. To be honest, Entourage with Exchange Server access is the biggest draw for me. I don't need the other "office" functionality -- I have iWork and NeoOffice. But I also work at a place that uses Exchange Server. If I want my Mac fully integrated (and not have to use Parallels to do the Exchange thing), I need Entourage. But the only way for me to get it is to buy Office for $150. No, wait -- $400. It was a tough sell at the previous price; it's impossible now.

MS Word in "safe mode"

In the wake of at least one targeted attack that exploits a new flaw in Word, Microsoft is advising users to run the application in "safe mode." (News.com)

No word yet on why Microsoft Word, as shipped, defaults to "dangerous mode".

Update: Oh, and how about a plug for the ever-so-safe alternative, OpenOffice.

Windows security

Last week, a Microsoft data security guru suggested at a conference that corporate and government users would be wise to come up with automated processes to wipe clean hard drives and reinstall operating systems and applications periodically as a way to deal with malware infestations. What Microsoft is talking about is a utility from SysInternals, a company that makes simply awesome tools.

The crying shame of this whole story is that Microsoft has given up on Windows security. They have no internal expertise to solve this problem among their 60,000-plus employees, and they apparently have no interest in looking outside for help. I know any number of experts who could give Microsoft some very good guidance on what is needed to fix and secure Windows. There are very good developers Microsoft could call upon to help them. But no, their answer is to rebuild your system every few days and start over.

Robert X. Cringely

Apple and Windows

Apple now has an official (if beta) way to install Windows on their new Intel-based Macs. All the hobbiests that have been creating hacks to do this can stop now.

I have to say, however, that the idea of a dual-boot Mac is completely uninteresting to me. If I had some must-run Windows software, I'd much rather be able to run it within a window in Mac OS. Such a virtual Windows environment would be safer and there wouldn't be the inconvenience of having to reboot. It'll come eventually.

Windows OneCare Live

Starting in June, Microsoft will charge users $49 for Windows OneCare Live, a subscription security service meant to protect you from the nasty malware that takes advantage of Microsoft's mistakes. You can't help but admire the vertical effectiveness of selling both the problem and the solution.

John Murrell

Mac viruses to increase?

eWeek has a "news analysis" declaring "Apple's shift to Intel processors will make it easier to create software exploits in Macintosh systems".

"Attackers have been focused on the [Intel] x86 for over a decade. Macintosh will have a lot more exposure than when it was on PowerPC," said Oliver Friedrichs, a senior manager at Symantec Corp. Security Response.

Correction: attackers have been focused on the *Windows OS* for over a decade. I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with the Mac. Red Hat Linux already runs on Intel -- are there a lot of viruses written for it?

I guess Mac moving to Intel means some assembly code compatibility but what good does this do you if the Mac's memory addressing and file system are different and you lack the usual Internet Explorer and MS Outlook exploits? Time will tell!

In any case, if you want to hear how bad viruses on the Mac is going to get, go to Symantec. They have a product to sell, after all. It remains to be seen whether it causes more problems on the Mac then it solves.

Secondhand Windows

Security consultant A.J. Reznor points out that every major worm other than the original Morris Worm from 1988 has leveraged a hole in Microsoft products. Reznor refuses to work with Microsoft products but still actively loathes the company because his network becomes "saturated with crap flying out of [Windows] machines." Spammers route their junk through MS machines infected with a trojan -- a harmful computer program disguised as an innocuous one -- that turns these machines into "zombies." "Even if we don't use them, we suffer from them," he says. "Kind of like secondhand smoke." (Adam L. Penenberg)

Yup. My employer does not use any Microsoft software yet our email slows down during major virus outbreaks due to the volume of email being sent to us by infected machines. I can't imagine how 100% Windows shops manage to operate under those conditions.