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Was the labotomy painful?

Perhaps you'd care to read an article on how Vista is less intuitive than previous versions? Perhaps a simple Google search would sway your opinion on Vista being slow? What about one of the countless articles on the net advising that Office 2007 has no added value, just a steep learning curve?

No? Didn't think so.

The reason, Mr Shill (and I hope you're getting paid for this), all these companies are refusing to upgrade is that all this won't actually give them any greater functionality, or improve their workflow (due to the learning curve). Especially when you take into consideration how much this software costs! Even considering the heavy discounts these organisations will doubtless get, Microsoft should not expect money for nothing.

OpenOffice might be bloated, but at least it uses a file format that's open and supported by many other office suites. Unlike that binary bilge Microsoft keep peddling and trying to force through standards agencies. My hope is that the DOT realise that before they get labotomised and start speaking like Microsoft drones: 'in order to leverage interoperable cross-markets, we're standardising on Microsoft Bullshit Ultimate Shill Server Lazy-Wanking-Bastards Edition'.

The National Enquirer at least pretends to be a newspaper. IT-Enquirer seems to publish nothing but lightly edited PR handouts.

(...bought my first Mac in February, 1984... with a teller's check... for $3000... and no way to print anythingbecause the ImageWriter because no cable was yet available...) ...the article sure reads like a Slashvertisement for "Pfeiffer's full report."

And, speaking as someone who personally perceives and is annoyed by logy, sticky, frictionlike behavior in Windows' UI... how the heck can you take an article seriously when it claims minuscule differences ("Windows XP scored 0.40 and Vista/Aero 0.52") in undefined metrics that are undoubtedly influenced by the hardware configuration?

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Vista on a PC with 1 Gig of RAM and an ordinary video card has higher "friction" than Mac OS X... isn't it possible that it would outperform a Mac if you gave it the spiffiest video card and 4 gig? Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Vista "needs" more powerful hardware and that in a year or so, a cheap PC with Vista will have it and perform with less friction than a comparably cheap Mac? If this were true, one could justifiably criticize Microsoft for high cost of ownership, software bloat, and selling wine before its time... but it would only be a rather qualified knock on Vista.

Here's an article mentioning the XCP technology written from a shamelessly pro-DRM point of view. Very little technical detail given (unsurprising given it's a puff piece), but still interesting to see what's currently being done (the XCP-1 watermarking technology) and what business would like to see done (RFID-tagged CDs and players which only play CDs that are correctly tagged).

Googling for Mathew Gilliat-Smith, First 4 Internet's CEO, reveals many articles:

http://news.com.com/New+CD+copy-lock+technology+ne ars+market/2100-1027_3-5492395.html
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121949,0 0.asp
http://www.it-enquirer.com/main/ite/more/digital_r ights_management/

They claim to the press that their software will not damage or criple computers. Oops. The PCWorld article pretty clearly explains the extent to which First 4 Internet's product controls the number of copies you make.

As Tiger coverage, this is definitely not in-depth. If it is anything, it's the sort of review you can expect after having worked with Tiger for one day. For real in-depth coverage, take a look at Ars Technica's 20+ page review. Other worthwhile information can be found on XLR8YourMac.com. And yet another that isn't too bad: the IT-Enquirer. That site even has a free downloadable eBooklet on Tiger.

Too bad the story submitter and the slashdot editors have worked together to give us a dollar amount an label it a server unit number, but still.... when looking at server deployments, I'm going to guess that if you're just looking for percent increases in units shipped, nobody this past year is going to beat XServe numbers.

These statistics are always hard to digest, though... what segment of the server market are we talking about, what constitutes a server, is that UnixTM or does BSD/Darwin count, etc... I always have more questions than such articles are prepared to answer.

Still, any increase in Linux sales is good news.