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Congrats, Apple! Once again, you're last to the finish line with another browser-related spec/feature/idea.

Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 and Acid3 tests. But more recently, Safari fell behind the other browsers in the HTML5 tests. I'm glad Apple is working on Safari again.

i believe multiple heads per recording surface was researched years ago but the additional high precision moving parts such as read/write heads a much greater liability in terms of reliability for the modest performance gains it would give.

when i first read about the new dual platter 'slim' form factor notebook drives i started thinking why don't we have half height 3.5in drives, like the good ol' days, to squeeze more platters, more easily, into a desktop hard drive.... and now this comes out.

Great! We could sue people as fast as software can file claims. I smell the Baby Cooper Dollar Bill in the making.

You might end up with a Baby Cooper Dollar Bill.

which literally freezes the data in a computer’s RAM

Whenever my co-workers use "reach out to" I always think of that graphic of the raccoon reaching through the fence saying DO WANT. Makes me smile.

... at least for gaming, the winner is 3 x 30" LCDs pivoted to portrait mode, according to MaximumPC magazine in 2011:
                  http://www.maximumpc.com/artic...

I don't have this setup but tried pivoting (smaller) monitors before (work apps, not games). I hit these issues:

1. Mainstream monitors (22"-24") are too narrow for some websites or applications

2. The 'Colour inversion' effect
This is worst with TN panels.You basically need the panel more or less perfectly vertical and have to look at it dead-on.
Even with TFT IPS panels, there's something a tiny bit 'off' that I can't put my finger on - its as if colour reproduction was designed to be optimal in landscape mode. Or something different about pixel spacing, or how sub-pixel colour elements stack up next to each other... Just guessing here.

3. For desktop use, you end up bobbing your head up and down.

MaximumPC.com recently posted their Best Free Video Editor Roundup. Although, the field of contenders doesn't look too promising considering Windows Movie Maker was the runner-up.

I'll see your dedicated audio card and raise you the AOpen AX4B 533 Tube!

http://www.maximumpc.com/artic...

Don't waste your time with a audio card, integrate a GD vacuum tube into your motherboard for the best integrated sound around! If you are an audio nut, nothing like going retro back to putting analog tubes into your digital computer! Time Travel to 2002 may be required however.

I never bought one, but I kind of wish I had just so I had one... maybe I can find a used one for cheap.... :)

This whole article is misleading and pointless, as it has been discovered (and confirmed by UbiSoft themselves) that UbiSoft INTENTIONALLY crippled the graphics of PC versions (only) of WatchDogs.

http://www.maximumpc.com/ubiso...

Assuming the asshat game developer didn't intentionally cripple it, top end PC graphics will always be capable of more/better performance than consoles. Its just common sense, not least because a top-end GPU card alone costs significantly more than an entire console.

There are numerous ways a view screen could be disabled (object smashed it, software error, etc.) even though the plane is perfectly fit for flying otherwise.

Indeed. For instance.

I have a Logitech Cyberman II controller still (can be seen here). It has a true six-axis knob and eight buttons - you never have to touch the keyboard. Twist the knob right to look right, twist down to look down; push forward to move forward, pull knob up to move up - revolutionary. I don't think most understand how awesome these controllers are, or how disappointing it is that game port support was completely removed by Windows 7 (and previously took a hack to add back into Vista) and that these controllers disappeared from Logitech joystick software updates before that.

Descent had several direct-to-metal ports, pre-directx or OpenGL, for video cards such as the Rendition Verite and S3 Virge. I tossed all my CDs of games unplayable without the old hardware a while ago. None of these cards won though, as the 3dfx Voodoo stomped them all for Quake.

A lot of devs in the game industry are also eyeing AMD's mantle, a GPU solution that tends to achieve 40%+ performance over DirectX/OpenGL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

There was an impressive demo at GDC this year by Oxide:
http://www.maximumpc.com/AMD_M...

But you didn't get ripped off and thats not what happened.

Did the original kick starters get what they paid for? (Dev units I expect?) If so, how did they get ripped off?

It's not what they're saying.

But some others agrees with you, namelly Nicholas Negroponte.

Let's see what time has to say about it.

Kickstarter is not an investment website, its a donation website. Not really sure how they got ripped off other than you don't like Facebook (me either!)

Yes and no. People does donate with something in mind. And they want this state of mind enforced.

You don't donate money to homeless if they're going to buy booze, do you? Most of us don't donate money to them even if we're sure they're going to buy food. Why?

With Kickstart it's the same thing. The guys can be right under the Law, but they have to face the public opinion about the matter. Kickstarters are feeling ripped off, and since they were the very simple reason Oculus managed to get a 2 Billion USD company, it's God Damned Good to spend a good fraction of this money trying to explain themselves - and perhaps, giving something interesting back to these guys.

Bad P/R can be good just to politicians.

uh, the kickstarters didn't buy stock, they donated money. they got exactly what they payed for.

It's not what they're saying.

Citation: http://www.maximumpc.com/steam...

Ya, it seems that everyone hates DRM in all shapes and sizes, except if it's Steam when suddenly the fans come out to defend it.

While ATI has listed LibreOffice for one of the few programs that use Mantle I can not find any other information on this?

They didn't list it as using Mantle. The title of the article is "Mantle update, frame pacing fixes, and more arriving soon". The article first discusses Mantle, then goes on to discuss frame pacing then at the end is the only mention of LibreOffice in the article:

Finally, the Catalyst 14.1 driver is also the first HSA-enabled driver, which allows Kaveri APUs to intelligently cooperate with a GPU to share the workload. The only supporting applications listed by AMD at this time are LibreOffice v4.2.0.1+ and Core AfterShot Pro v1.2.0.6+, but it says more will come online soon.

At no point does it - or any other article or reference I can find - state anything whatsoever about LibreOffice using Mantle.

MaximumPC paints this a little bit different. Where only lower end cpu's get a big boost in conjecture with higher end AMD cards.

I was wondering how that made any sense, because I've never seen my i7 more than 20% used in any game where I've monitored CPU usage. However, I haven't played the Battlefield games in years.

CPUs can bottleneck even at 20% utilisation. The task manager will show 20% average utilisation, but that could mean that it sat at 100% utilisation for 20% of the time, rather than 20% utilisation for 100% of the time (or some mix in between).

I submitted the story.

While ATI has listed LibreOffice for one of the few programs that use Mantle I can not find any other information on this?

This begs to differ if LibreOffice uses GPU directwrite or OpenGL and does it work on platforms than Windows. Of course this is not critical unless you do multimedia heavy presentations I am somewhat curious. I wonder if anyone who develops it can care to comment?

Also I use LibreOffice in conjunction with MS Office. I can't afford publisher and it is nice to use it to repair office documents that MS Office says are corrupt. This is a highly recommended upgrade even if you use MS Office full time.

MaximumPC paints this a little bit different. Where only lower end cpu's get a big boost in conjecture with higher end AMD cards.

I was wondering how that made any sense, because I've never seen my i7 more than 20% used in any game where I've monitored CPU usage. However, I haven't played the Battlefield games in years.

Haven't played in years, eh? You might as well have said decades then. From a technological standpoint, that much has changed.

MaximumPC paints this a little bit different. Where only lower end cpu's get a big boost in conjecture with higher end AMD cards.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to in the link. The only comparisons are low(er) end CPUs with high end cards or high end CPUs with low(er) range cards. You don't get a boost if you've got high-end CPUs and a lower end card, but that should be completely obvious: the point of Mantle is to shift the load to the GPU. If the GPU is already maxed out, you won't see much (or any) gains at all.

I find it interesting is some of the LibreOffice 4.2 code uses hardware acceleration and this driver with mantle. I think LibreOffice also is supposed to come out today.

Great day to upgrade your software.

MaximumPC paints this a little bit different. Where only lower end cpu's get a big boost in conjecture with higher end AMD cards.

I was wondering how that made any sense, because I've never seen my i7 more than 20% used in any game where I've monitored CPU usage. However, I haven't played the Battlefield games in years.

MaximumPC paints this a little bit different. Where only lower end cpu's get a big boost in conjecture with higher end AMD cards.

I guess we will wait and see with benchmarks later today when 14.1 is released.

This is great news for those like me on older Phenom II 2.6 ghz systems who can afford to upgrade the ram, video card, and to an ssd but not the cpu without a whole damn new system. I use VMWare and this obsolete system has a 6 core cpu and hardware virtualization support. Otherwise I would upgrade but only an icore7 or higher end AMD FX-8350s have the same features for non gaming tasks. I can play Battlefiend 4 on this soon with high settings at 1080p would be great!

Not anymore. Asus mentioned they have sold millions of high end/gaming motherboards as gamers no longer buy Dells and replace the GPU like they did in the old days.

You can thank crappy PSU's and proprietary tiny cases for this decline as gamers are the only ones who upgrade besides corporations and they only do so every 10 years now when MS decides it needs more money for another OS upgrade.

I was about to ask you to back up that claim, but a quick google shows what you're saying as true: http://www.maximumpc.com/gigabyte_asus_wrestle_motherboard_shipment_crown2013

The article is a bit dated, but apparently Asus was expecting to ship 22.2 million mid to high end boards in 2013. It's starting to seem custom rigs (particularly for gaming) is hardly a niche. Maybe the market's somewhat smaller than desktop machines, but it's certainly large enough to be considered healthy and is still growing.

http://www.maximumpc.com/build_pc_recommended_builds_october_2013

That's what "They" call a Baseline machine.

http://www.maximumpc.com/build_pc_recommended_builds_october_2013

The GPU and CPU alone on the "Baseline" machine costs more than a PS4.

Hey, I'm a console gamer, it's what "THEY" say is a baseline machine, not me.

http://www.maximumpc.com/build_pc_recommended_builds_october_2013

If you want a really uncommon port, consider that until 2009 HTC was using a proprietary USB Mini-B-like connector for headsets on all their smartphones. And there was also the Pop-Port, which I mentioned above.

"Long term, I think we will go controller-less before too much longer. Between touch and "connect-like" systems, they will go away."

Maybe so. But the controller market illustrates that fad (and money) can win out... not necessarily the best controller. Much like the old VHS vs Beta market.

The greatest game controller yet invented was the Logitech Cyberman 2. It let you easily do with one hand what other controllers do with 2 separate joysticks, leaving the other hand free to push buttons. And it was very intuitive... no big learning curve like there is with the X-Box style controllers. (Many people insist that there is no big learning curve with those controllers, but that's simply false. They just grew up with that style so they're used to it. Take any young adult who hasn't used one before, and see just how big the learning curve is.)

In any case, the Cyberman II was accurate, simple, intuitive, easy to control, and well-built. It was used on the Space Shuttle for example (really). You won't find an X-Box-style controller there.

The difference was one of the only two controllers on the market that had a true 6 degrees of freedom. And it was much more usable than the other one which had a "ball" controller and a trigger. You had to hold it in both hands all the time. Cyberman 2 sat on the table or in your lap, and had a much more logical and usable button arrangement.

But it was too "different". Companies were writing games for X-Box style controllers and there just wasn't market support for it. So it faded out of existence, again much like the Betamax.

I've been using that Zalman design for several years already, which was an improvement over the previous Zalman design I was using for the same dusty situation. That is what has worked best for me over time.

However I appreciate the suggestions for water cooling from this thread. I haven't been considering it, and when I did long ago, it was too exotic and pricey, and I was concerned about water-related risks as well.

I was doing some Saturday morning window shopping, and I suppose if I was to buy a new case + cooling comb right this moment, I'd focus on a 140mm exhaust area & water cooling.

http://www.maximumpc.com/nzxt_kraken_x40_review

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352029

PLENTY of companies offer free/cheap streaming from PC. Sure its not out of the box, but its trivial to install and free. You have no argument. http://www.maximumpc.com/how_stream_your_games_twitch_tv_2013 P.S. Twitch.tv is the Xbox's partner for streaming..........

Here's one of mine: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/the_complete_beginners_guide_linux I haven't read Computer Power User in a long time so I really don't know if they have a Linux column or not.

I tried explaining to them I don't need them tracking me via scanning my card so I can save $1.50 a week, but they don't seem to understand. Instead now, I just tell them I'm an asshole. It's much more simple, and they only ask me half the time now.

It isn't unusual for companies to subject their employees to considerable pressure to get customers to sign up for various types of company cards. Some will even fire employees that don't get enough people to sign up.

Best Buy Firing Employees for Not Pushing Company Credit Card Apps?

This has been asked and answered many times here. 1080 because that's what the lowest common denominators LCD makers put out these days. LCD^2..

Starting about 4 years ago in a laptop you could get this kind of screen size in a 1920 x 1200 resolution (WUXGA). In the past 4 years I've had three laptops, two ASUS and One Alienware (Dell). Two of which supported 1200p. Unfortunately my latest ASUS only supports 1080p and as almost everybody on this website will tell you, it's a step backwards. While there are now higher res laptops coming out they're all in the 14" range. Great size for a traveler in an airplane, lousy if you want to write code or work on large documents. Since you can get the Retina (2880x1800) in the Apple I believe it will be a few years before you see that higher res in the 16-18 laptop/portable form factor but the demand has to be there otherwise, nobody will make them.

Even this guy wants higher resolution in laptops.

PC game companies write their products for the lowest common denominator: keyboard and mouse. Gamepad support is an afterthought, and it often shows.

Are you talking major developers or indie developers? And are you talking about games in mouse-heavy genres (FPS/RTS) or games in other genres?

Since we're talking general-purpose gaming, I'm talking in general terms.

How so? The drivers for both my Xbox 360 controller and my Logitech controller installed automatically when I plugged them into my PC's front USB ports.

Getting all controller functionality working in all games generally requires user interaction in setting up a system tray app. Otherwise, your 360 controller triggers function as rudder pedals and your Logitech controller won't rumble (and will have the same "rudder" issues if you forget to flick the switch to DirectInput instead of XInput)

What you are referring to are essentially custom order items through specialty boutiques. Meanwhile, I can think of at least half a dozen retail shelves that have consoles on them within ten miles of where I sit.

So your argument, as I understand it, is that products on brick-and-mortar shelves are inherently superior to mail-order products. What did I misunderstand?

My argument is that you're not going to get all the benefits you keep listing (small footprint, quiet fans, etc.) with the $400 price point you cited earlier. I can wait two weeks and spend $1000 to have the PC you're describing, or I can spend $300 and have a console now.

An advantage of PC games is that many support scalable detail levels,

Complete with scalable price tag. And they don't scale at the same rate.

Meanwhile, the game publisher is expected to make sure that their products look acceptable at all possible scaling options (or at least the popular ones), rather than focusing on other issues.

when you upgrade your PC, your game will grow with you.

You assume perfect backwards compatibility with your old hardware and software. Some GPU manufacturers have a hard enough time not breaking compatibility with current games/DirectX versions/etc. between different driver revisions.

I admit that Windows still requires a bit of tweaking for set-top use. but apparently there's an app for that

This would be described by the phrase "mucking about with drivers" that I used earlier.

Console UI can't be customized at all.

Aside from the fact that the 360 you were using in comparison can be set to boot directly to a game, time spent customizing is time spent not playing a game.

PC game companies write their products for the lowest common denominator: keyboard and mouse. Gamepad support is an afterthought, and it often shows.

Are you talking major developers or indie developers? And are you talking about games in mouse-heavy genres (FPS/RTS) or games in other genres?

even using a simple gamepad in Windows means mucking about with drivers.

How so? The drivers for both my Xbox 360 controller and my Logitech controller installed automatically when I plugged them into my PC's front USB ports.

What you are referring to are essentially custom order items through specialty boutiques. Meanwhile, I can think of at least half a dozen retail shelves that have consoles on them within ten miles of where I sit.

So your argument, as I understand it, is that products on brick-and-mortar shelves are inherently superior to mail-order products. What did I misunderstand?

The GBA was sold concurrently with the DS and DS Lite

And the PSOne was sold concurrently with the PS2. And the gaming PC was sold concurrently with homework-and-Facebook PCs with Intel GMA (Graphics My Ass) and with netbooks containing a Pentium 4-equivalent Atom CPU. It's called the daddy system. An advantage of PC games is that many support scalable detail levels, which is like getting the PS2 and PS3 versions of a game in one box: when you upgrade your PC, your game will grow with you.

Setting aside for the moment that we're suddenly living in a world where the steps to play a game are more complicated than "Insert game, turn on,"

Wii has been more complicated than "insert game, turn on" since 2006: you have to use the remote and the Sensor Bar to activate the Disc Channel, even if your game uses GameCube controllers or the Wii Classic Controller.

does the Windows 8 UI even accept a gamepad as input out of the box?

I admit that Windows still requires a bit of tweaking for set-top use. but apparently there's an app for that, more than one in fact. Console UI can't be customized at all.

Oh wait, DX 11 introduced stereoscopics for Nvidia, I remember the talk at EQ2 forums and how impressed people were. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_WpjH586M Anf here is a good overview, basically DX11 is DX10 effects plus a bit improvement with better performance. I've seen rain drop calculations on ocean waves in the Crysis 3 Engine as example, very nice. Of course if you play a game where you just race through you won't realize these things most likely. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/directx_11_deconstructed?page=0,0

WIndows 7 is much faster and leaner than Windows Vista

Any scientific data to support that assertion? (For me Vista was and is fast enough. I see no difference between 7 and Vista installation)

How about here?

That was 3 years ago and hardware is much newer now so XP would likely be very laggy. Compared to Vista, Windows 7 trounces it HUGELY! 50% better network performance and 25% with HD access. Vista really is a terrible OS whether the service packs fixed many issues or not.

Now this is a laptop........ with power...............but won't run on batteries too long.................. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/origins_eon17-slx_laptop_ready_dance_dual_gpus

No, he's right. GDI+ does not make effective use of the GPU.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/gdigdi_move_over_microsoft_introduces_direct2d

[Microsoft's Thomas Olson] points out that GDI/GDI+ use software rendering for tasks that modern GPUs can now perform...

Quartz Extreme has supported GPU acceleration since OS X 10.2, released in 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_Compositor

WebOS didn't have "some technical problems", it used entirely the wrong paradigm. And by the time it came out, Palm was already dead.

Your revisionist history does not agree with the facts. The Palm Pre, running WebOS was released June 2009 for Sprint to strong favorable reviews. Bugs in the initial release were promptly dealt with by updates. A second model, the Pre Plus, also running WebOS, in January 2010 for Verizon and AT&T. During this period of time, the company continued to attract investments, so it was solvent and perceived as promising by investors. Verizon placed a huge order. Version 2.0 of the OS was ready to go. Every account agrees on one thing: what killed Palm was the invasion of the Droid i-clones. Cheap, rushed to market with little development time (because manufacturers simply layered an imitation of the already market-tested Apple user interface on top of the existing Android code base), the droids "sucked the air out of the room." Verizon backed out of the deal, and as a result, Palm ran out of money.

So I think that it is pretty clear that Palm's death (and probably the impending death of Blackberry) was due to Apple's inability to protect its design from imitation. And the net result of the failure of the law to protect Apple's distinctive product design is that consumers are left with a much more limited range of choices, which basically boil down to iPhones and i-clones.

And if WebOS had been a success, Apple would have sued Palm into oblivion.

Yeah, right. Apple hasn't sued anyone into oblivion. They've managed to slow down the introduction of a few of the most blatant imitators, and they've managed to push a few competitors into working around a few distinctive features, but there is no evidence that Apple's legal action have had more than a modest effect on sales of competitors--most of which still look and act very much like an iPhone. The diversity in the smartphone market that existed before the droid i-clones arrived, with both Blackberry and Palm actively pursuing distinctively different approaches, has vanished, with Microsoft now offering the only surviving alternative to Apple's vision of portable computing.

I'd say that overall, the story of Apple and and its competitors in the phone market provides powerful evidence that stronger protection of overall look-and-feel, as opposed to individual features, would provide great benefits, forcing manufacturers to develop their own individual styles, and increasing diversity and choices available to consumers.

This 'Maximum PC' magazine article from July 2011 recommends 3 x 30" pivoted LCD screens as the ideal multi-monitor display setup

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/multiscreen_madness_we_test_four_incredible_display_setups

to do a direct upgrade without a clean reinstallation. Fair enough. The upgrade price from XP and Vista and Win 7 is said to be $39.00 as well. I have read that we are probably going to see at a faster OS cycle from Redmond. And I hope the price slide starts to apply to Office. I am currently running 7 on my two newest machines. Vista on my old laptop and XP on my old Desktop. At that price point I might consider an across-the-board upgrade.

I think they could do themselves a huge favor if they fired all the minimum wage idiots who probably lose business for them and paid knowledgeable people a good wage instead.

They fired their well paid knowledgeable people a long time ago so they could hire the minimum wage idiots.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/best_buy_firing_employees_not_pushing_company_credit_card_apps

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/roger-kline-best-buy-thief,news-11080.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywEKlYCFPIM

I've always thought that chrome looks remarkably a lot like Safari with its interface elements... including the lack of a menu. There are a lot of Safari overtones. Then again, since I haven't used Safari in a good long while it might actually be Apple copying from Chrome now.

Below are pictures of Safari 5 VS Chrome.

http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u69/Safari_5.jpg
http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-screenshot.jpg

In all honestly, (some people may not agree) I can't help feel that the lack of a normal menu in Chrome was a lucky mistake rather than a calculated move when working with the old Webkit code.

He back tracked on his comments, but didn't say it wasn't happening. Microsoft has already demoed Windows 7 running on hardware weaker than current WP7 hardware and demoed full Windows 8 running on WP7 hardware in 2011. I believe all current WP7 phones will get upgraded to WP8. They will probably lack features like iPhone 4 doesn't have all the iOS features than iPhone 4s does, but iPhone 4 does run iOS 5.

Microsoft had Windows 7 running on a phone weaker than all current WP7 devices in prior to 2010. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/microsoft_had_windows_7_running_arm_two_years_ago

Full Windows 8 OS running on a 1.2 GHz, single core Qualcomm chip at Computex 2011, all of the way back in June 2011.
http://www.windows8release.com/2011/06/qualcomm-ti-announce-arm-chips-which-supports-windows-8/

Exactly right.

I find it amusing how there's a double standard for quality when it comes to A/V... In a home theater system, marketing a device as "all-digital" implies that it offers uncompromising quality. On the recording side, saying something's digital is seen to imply that it's losing some extra part of the sound that can apparently only be captured in an analog system. This is a debate that's been raging on for all of digital audio's life, and it doesn't look like the madness will stop anytime soon.

I can appreciate that an old audiophile wants things to sound exactly how he expects them, which means keeping his old analog system with all its defects, noise, and nostalgia, but let's not force this analog nonsense on future generations under the guise of "better quality".

Yeah. Mp3 is far superior to any "old" analog technology. Right? [/sarcasm] The fact of the matter is that quality recordings can be made, and distributed, in digital format, but they are aren't (a very few exceptions noted). So yeah. That's why I own vinyl and a turntable.

Exactly right.

I find it amusing how there's a double standard for quality when it comes to A/V... In a home theater system, marketing a device as "all-digital" implies that it offers uncompromising quality. On the recording side, saying something's digital is seen to imply that it's losing some extra part of the sound that can apparently only be captured in an analog system. This is a debate that's been raging on for all of digital audio's life, and it doesn't look like the madness will stop anytime soon.

I can appreciate that an old audiophile wants things to sound exactly how he expects them, which means keeping his old analog system with all its defects, noise, and nostalgia, but let's not force this analog nonsense on future generations under the guise of "better quality".

"Read ALL about it" from Maximum PC in 2011 -> http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/windows_7_market_share_us_passes_xp

* With that "all said & aside"?

Do you honestly *think* that will be LESS, 2 yrs. from now? Do you also think that no patches will be issued in the timeframe for security vulnerabilities discovered?? Face it - it's a BIG "NO" to both.

They'll only get better/stronger vs. exploits found, and yes, Windows 7 will take even MORE 'marketshare/user mindshare' from XP, as will Windows Server 2008 R2 vs. Windows Server 2003.

(I can't comment on Windows 8 though - but I will say I am probably not going to like that new "Metro" stuff, @ least NOT right off (lol, IF ever)).

If anything, Windows 7 &/or Windows Server 2008 R2 will be in INCREASED USAGE above those figures cited on April 8th 2011 (1 year ago almost to the day) and will be continually patched beyond that (with XP up to that time).

Yes folks - Windows XP is seeing it's "last hurrah" in 2 yrs. time, and good riddance - about time.

Windows 7 is overall a BETTER OS by far, and will also get better/stronger (as will XP in that timeframe as well via patching)!

XP is only "better" (once more - also along with Windows Server 2003 + even Windows 2000) in 1 respect I have found and noted to MS mgt. (Foredecker here on /. no less):

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2773391&cid=39618241

(Which oddly, even VISTA could do THAT, up until 12/09/2008 MS Patch Tuesday, but that more efficient feature was pulled with NO reason why I could determine, nor the MS personnel I questioned on it).

Other than that though?

There's LITTLE QUESTION that Windows 7 + Windows Server 2008 R2 are making huge headway in marketshare/user mindshare and increasing numbers of users all the time (which again, won't decrease and only grow given historical trends)

APK

P.S.=> NOW, a "bit of a history lesson" from 2011, on Linux:

KERNEL.ORG COMPROMISED - The Cracking of Kernel.org: (very bad - do you trust it now?)

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/08/31/2321232/Kernelorg-Compromised

---

Linux.com pwned in fresh round of cyber break-ins: (lol)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/12/more_linux_sites_down/

---

Mysql.com Hacked, Made To Serve Malware:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/09/26/2218238/mysqlcom-hacked-made-to-serve-malware

What's that site running? You guessed it - Linux -> http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=mysql.com

---

London Stock Exchange serving malware:

http://slashdot.org/submission/1484548/London-Stock-Exchange-Web-Site-Serving-Malware

(I mean hey - NOT ONLY DID LINUX FALL FLAT ON ITS FACE less than a few minutes into the job http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/02/19/0147232/London-Stock-Exchange-Price-Errors-Emerged-At-Linux-Launch, & crash not only ONCE, but TWICE there? You see "Linux 'fine security'" in motion @ the LSE too!)

---

DUQU ROOTKIT/BOTNET BEING SERVED FROM LINUX SERVERS: (very recent):

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/11/30/1610228/d