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It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

Why would MS want to implement Grand Central Dispatch? MS has their own parallelization libraries supported by .NET and C++ available for Windows with full tooling support which is infinitely more functional.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd504870(v=VS.100).aspx

And Grand Central Dispatch isn't for GPUs, just CPUs. And Apple decided to use proprietary syntax in c and C++ to represent task closures, whereas Microsoft followed the proposed C++0x draft syntax for lambdas. And Microsoft doesn't require you to shell out for an OS upgrade, it's fully supported on Windows XP.

When did Windows prevent normal users from just running executables?

Software Restriction Policies started in Windows XP. This is similar to the UNIX feature of mounting /home noexec.

I'm surprised no one has suggested the most obvious upgrade path from the DOS batch file, Windows PowerShell. It's the intended replacement for batch files, and basically looks like Perl, but a little more Windowsy. It's integrated with lots of .NET goodies and ActiveDirectory, but in many ways it will be familiar to DOS scripters.

This being /. though, I'll have to mention a small customized LiveCD (think DSL sized) with a (perl script | python script | brainfuck implementation | emacs extension | vi/vim script | whatever)

Why reboot onto a CD ?!?
Python, Perl, and the likes are all freely available on Windows too.
Several even features way to pack everything needed (Run-time env + your script + its dependencies) into a single installer or executable.

I would definitely vote for them as they are widely available language on lots of different platform and each feature huge collection of extensions.

(As are Visual Studio Express and Monad PowerShell if you deffinitely need a pure Microsoft solution while trading some freedom and portability)

This being /. though, I'll have to mention a small customized LiveCD (think DSL sized) with a (perl script | python script | brainfuck implementation | emacs extension | vi/vim script | whatever)

Why reboot onto a CD ?!?
Python, Perl, and the likes are all freely available on Windows too.
Several even features way to pack everything needed (Run-time env + your script + its dependencies) into a single installer or executable.

I would definitely vote for them as they are widely available language on lots of different platform and each feature huge collection of extensions.

(As are Visual Studio Express and Monad PowerShell if you deffinitely need a pure Microsoft solution while trading some freedom and portability)

Agreed, but does anyone get excited about the Microsoft brand? Do normal people queue outside the critically acclaimed Microsoft Temple on day one for a "Bluetrack" mouse?

Christ, I'd never been to Microsoft.com since getting service pack updates for my XP laptop...compare *THIS* http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/default.mspx monstrosity to Apple's page for their keyboard http://www.apple.com/keyboard/

And we seriously wonder why Apple is doing so well?

Xbox aside, I dont think anyone truly gets hyped over a Microsoft product? Perhaps there will be news coverage of the next OS release, but its ALWAYS seen as hyper-nerdy, and has mention of "Few can forget the fiasco of the previous Microsoft Windows release....". If all Apple has is "marketing", then why dont Dell, HP, Acer....bother making their websites and PR look GOOD?

I disagree. Use Tcl/Tk, Perl/Tk, or any other cross OS scripting language that contain a graphical toolkit. Using Tcl/Tk at my last job, I was able to create some nifty little utilities with a GUI, and I didn't have to worry about compiling. I also didn't have to install Tcl/Tk on each computer that was going to use it, as I used a wrapper to put it together for release.

I still used the command shell fairly extensively when it was needed and I used C# when it was called for. Right tool for right job and all that.

Windows Vista or later have a SUA (Subsystem for Unix Applications) and Powershell. While I have only just started looking into Powershell, it looks like a very good shell for Windows systems that finally (almost) brings it up to Linux/Unix standards of a shell.

Oops, MCSE does not really exist anymore. Microsoft's new certification lines are "MCTS" and "MCITP". And if those are a joke (the TS line is pretty easy -- ITP somewhat more challenging), then I'm sure the Linux certs, in whatever form they come, are equally useless or useful in determining your level of knowledge. Hell, even someone with 5+ years of "work experience" may be a complete joke... but you've got to go on SOMETHING, right?

VB Express is Free, and probably much more powerful. (although I've never seen AutoIt so I can't have an opinion there)
http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-Basic

I'd tend to try powershell also. Plenty of resources here.
The repository has lots of examples.

I'd tend to try powershell also. Plenty of resources here.
The repository has lots of examples.

"Microsoft hasn't really been growing for a decade" is only true in the broader, "hahahahahaha" sense:

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/Yearly%20Income%20Statements.xls

Deciding just how much they grew is sort of a difficult exercise, as both 2000 and 2009 had 'interesting' business events, but the low end argument is that they increased earnings by $5 billion, which is about 50% of their 2000 income. It is also about 80% of Google's earnings (which is an interesting comparison, because Google is widely hailed as a success, whereas people often say that Microsoft hasn't don much).

It wouldn't be insane to argue that they increased income by $7 billion, a 100% increase over their 1999 earnings, and it wouldn't be shocking to see them back near $18 billion for 2010 (they have already reported $14 billion of income), which is a $9 billion increase over 2000.

Of course, none of those numbers account for inflation.

So really, what happened is that Apple grew a whole bunch more.

Did some quick research on it and it does look like it would work. But I did find this information:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=655463&page=6

But here's the problem.... usually, when you use the printer object in VB to print with, it puts MORE PCL code round what you send (or PostScript, depending on the driver you use) and that messes the whole thing up.

So one of my colleagues found a reference at MicroSoft on how to do what they call Raw Printng, which is direct to the printer not thru' the driver. We experimented with it and it does work. Here's the url: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q154/0/78.asp

DOS batch files has too many limitations when compared to other scripting languages. It's frozen in time. I consider Windows PowerShell to be the batch file successor.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/powershell.aspx

I don't know who your customers are ... is this a sort of IT mass production heavy printer thing you're producing? I'm guessing so if they're LAN printers but who knows? Anyways if you're shipping this thing to residences, give the tool to your parents or -- failing that -- someone age ~15 or ~65. Give them the documentation you have and do not say a word. See what they do with it and how intuitive it is to them and take notes while they're using it. Do they successfully test the printer or fail? If they fail, that's actually your failure. So know your audience and maybe rethink the tool. But assuming that your audience isn't afraid of a command line interface, go for it. I guess you could look into whether or not Powershell gives you any advantages (probably not). You're in a different world than I so that last suggestion may be off the mark.

Chrome is a world-wide-web (read: HTTP) browser, not a (remote) file explorer, shell client, or telnet prompt. Adding protocol support besides HTTP(S) is bloat.

Windows Explorer is decidedly not a local file manager. It's the desktop shell, storage interface, filesystem browser, network share browser, FTP browser, URI forwarder, archive & picture & games viewer, control panel, fully extensible, and dozens of more things. Explorer is basically the entire user front-end of Windows, massively componentized.

FTP support in a web browser is a bad idea exactly because it's a file managing task, better handled by the native file browser. Compare ftp.mozilla.org in Chrome and Explorer. In Explorer, it seamlessly responds like any local file location, allowing right-click operations and drag-and-drop abilities. In Chrome, it's a proprietary and severely limited, read-only hardly-functional implementation.

Correct response for any URL-accepting application in this instance is to forward an unrecognized protocol (such as ftp://) to the OS for it to handle.

There are always the free Express Editions

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

There's a nice handy place for all of Microsoft's express editions

  http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Except you can now download Visual Studio Express that pretty much compiles anything writtin in the full version of VS and its free. http://www.microsoft.com/express/downloads/ so even that is a mute argument.

I went and looked at the downloads for the RDS. I noticed something that contradicts the "free" aspect "freely available to everyone": "You should install Visual Studio (2008 or 2010) before you install RDS." @ MSDN download site for RDS

-admittedly this might mean that if you have both VS2010 and RDS you need to install VS2010 first to not cause installation problems. However, this seems that you need to pay for the $1000+ Visual studios before you can use this "free" RDS.

From the horse's mouth. Read the first few paragraphs under 16-Bit Applications. The article is about Windows 95, but has a brief description of Windows 3.x cooperative multitasking.

Also, the terminology is well-known and long-standard in computer science. Of course, if you don't work (or have no degree) in the field, we shouldn't expect you to be aware of it. Hmmm, this paragraph could seem condescending - it's not intended that way at all.

- T

Well, good thing you werent condescending, because I don't think you can get more "from the horse's mouth" on this question than Microsofts Raymond Chen, which writes:

"Enhanced mode Windows allowed you to run multiple MS-DOS prompts that were pre-emptively multi-tasked"

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/05/17/10013609.aspx

From the horse's mouth. Read the first few paragraphs under 16-Bit Applications. The article is about Windows 95, but has a brief description of Windows 3.x cooperative multitasking.

Also, the terminology is well-known and long-standard in computer science. Of course, if you don't work (or have no degree) in the field, we shouldn't expect you to be aware of it. Hmmm, this paragraph could seem condescending - it's not intended that way at all.

- T

...Windows 3.0/3.1 (enhanced mode, at least) was actually a 32-bit protected mode OS will virtual memory and pre-emptive multitasking.

No. Read the first few paragraphs under 16-Bit Applications. The article is about Windows 95, but has a decent description of the cooperative multitasking of Windows 3.x. I can't believe there are so many posters here who think 16-bit Windows had preemptive multitasking. The kernel had 32-bit code for protected mode memory management and not much else.

And yes, it did run on top of DOS, but I lack a citation for that.

- T

In ASP.NET 4.0 it's possible to disable the viewstate on the page level and have all the controls inherit that state. Then you can selectively enable the ones that you want to use viewstate. Ref: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.control.viewstatemode(VS.100).aspx

You're thinking of getting XP? Mac Os X 10.3 was released October 24, 2003; 6.5 years ago. Microsoft is retiring their extended support for Windows XP Professional in the US on 4/8/2014; 4 years in the future. If your current Mac lab is any indication, you may be keeping whatever you get now for longer than 4 years, so you may want to rethink getting XP.

M$ is doing that to try to force the few people who had useful 16 bit software to throw it away so they'd finally spend money on newer stuff.

No, they are doing it because the 16-bit subsystem (NTVDM) uses the processor's virtual 8086 mode which is not available under x64. They would have to emulate the whole thing under x54, which is what Virtual PC does already.

And developers using file access APIs in Windows can get case sensitive behavior. It's just a single FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS flag to CreateFile and friends. It's actually easier to do that in Windows because it doesn't require a reformat and reinstall.

Only on slashdot would anyone take this kind of time, to talk in this level of detail about the windows API regarding case sensitive file names in a thread of commentary which had nothing at all to do with what you are talking about. The shame in /. is to tap into the wealth of knowledge that's is it's reader base, you apparently have to float around and make baseless trollish remarks and you will get in response a wealth of information, no matter how tangential.

On Linux and OSX apps that want to edit non user files either need to be started as root or they won't run.. period. When MS Windows reaches the same point Microsoft will have finally caught up.

The same is true on any NT based Windows operating system. Set up a limited user account in Windows XP and try to run software that makes changes to the system...it won't work! Unless you use runas to run the software as an administrative user, it cannot change the system files. The only exception is if they are on a FAT partion (which doesn't support ACL's).

Right now I have mission critical accounting software that won't run as anything but administrator and I don't feel like were winning the security war at all.

You seriously can't blame Microsoft because the developers of your accounting software chose to do things that require Administrator priviliges. Developers were told to stop doing that when Windows 2000 was released. Microsoft's only fault there is that they didn't put any hard enforcement of the rule until Vista.

As for the accounting software, there may be ways you can adjust the ACL's on the files and registry entries the software uses so that it can run under a regular user context. A lot of software got caught because they were doing stupid things like writing to the local machine registry hive or to data files inside their Program Files subdirectory. Of course, allowing all members of "Users" to change those objects might be another security issue in itself...

Did your son try Windows XP Mode? http://www.microsoft.com/france/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx It's a free virtual XP machine for Windows 7. Also, what was the program?

And developers using file access APIs in Windows can get case sensitive behavior. It's just a single FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS flag to CreateFile and friends. It's actually easier to do that in Windows because it doesn't require a reformat and reinstall.

For the record, note that this is no longer true as of Windows XP and later. FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS is overridden by the ObCaseInsensitive registry key, which defaults to 1, meaning that all opens will be case insensitive. See this kb article for example. Changing this requires a reboot, but not a reformat.

And developers using file access APIs in Windows can get case sensitive behavior. It's just a single FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS flag to CreateFile and friends. It's actually easier to do that in Windows because it doesn't require a reformat and reinstall.

For the record, note that this is no longer true as of Windows XP and later. FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS is overridden by the ObCaseInsensitive registry key, which defaults to 1, meaning that all opens will be case insensitive. See this kb article for example. Changing this requires a reboot, but not a reformat.

You were speaking from the developer level when you were talking about case insensitivity.

And developers using file access APIs in Windows can get case sensitive behavior. It's just a single FILE_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS flag to CreateFile and friends. It's actually easier to do that in Windows because it doesn't require a reformat and reinstall.

I cannot see how you can honestly say that case insensitivity is the exception and not the rule when 99% of people in the world use a filesystem that is case insensitive for all practical purposes.

Case-insensitive volume formats are only common if you're talking about hard-drive-based filesystems for consumer use. As soon as you move beyond that market into anything remotely enterprise-y (e.g. home directories on any NFS server, some SMB servers, some AFP servers, etc.), there's a very real chance that you're getting into case sensitivity territory. As soon as you talk about the world of servers, it's almost a given.

Further, every CD-ROM (except the base ISO-9660, which is almost useless), every DVD, every Blu-Ray disc, a sizable percentage of cell phones, and lots of embedded systems use a case-sensitive filesystem. Want that game to work when run from optical media? You'd better work with case-sensitive volumes. Want to port it to iPhone? It had better work with case-sensitive volumes. Want to be able to fetch files over the Internet? Yup. Case usually matters. And so on.

The average home has one hard drive, thirty or forty DVDs. When viewed in a broader sense (not limited to local hard-drive filesystems), case sensitivity is the norm, and case insensitivity is the exception. Case-sensitive volumes likely outnumber case-insensitive volumes by several orders of magnitude.

That said, I wasn't talking about the number of instances of any given filesystem when I referred to case insensitivity being in the minority but rather that *recent* filesystems are almost *universally* case sensitive. That's a pretty strong indication that technology is moving towards case sensitivity, not away from it. Thus, designing software that doesn't take this into account is very shortsighted, and is likely to be costly in the long run.

Put another way, if you want to talk about total number of instances of a filesystem, ignoring DVDs and CDs, the most popular filesystem that a home user will encounter (by a large margin) is non-long-filename FAT16 on flash cards. That doesn't mean it's acceptable for a photo viewer application to barf when it sees a filename that's more than eight characters long, even though 99.999% of them won't be.

Hey look, text with links added to it.

Hey look, text with links added to it.

Does anyone who has real experience administrating an NComputing environment care to weigh in on the usability and sustainability? Other than horsepower limitations, I've heard that they frequently react poorly to patching the base Windows environment.

We have some resource-restricted K-12 environments looking at this, as well as Microsoft's Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 to save money on workstations and power infrastructure. Fair warning, the Microsoft site seems practically devoid of substantial implementation detail and is more geared toward the kind of fluffy K-12 marketing that makes school administrators spend your tax dollars. I think it's somehow using USB keyboards, mice and monitors -- but I haven't been able to tell.

These technologies seem to be under consideration in place of, say, a "nettop" (atom-based) lab running workstation management for ease of administration, and possibly one of the many teacher-snoop-and-control software applications for managing their use. Given state testing requirements, most of our region uses Windows or Macs for compatibility with their testing software. The Macs are generally too expensive for regular purchase cycles, but it's apparently easier to find grants for them as opposed to PCs.

I've been searching for the "encryption algorithm" or at least some way other way to "encrypt" data in GP in some other way than within Dexterity code. I was really hoping that there would be some .NET library that would do this for me, but I was never able to find anything that would help me do this.

How did you possibly fail to find this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hs24szh9.aspx The Express Edition lacks a 64-bit compiler, OpenMP, profiling, and remote debugging. It also lacks a bunch of other stuff that I've never needed to use, but which others probably use regularly. Compared to the tools available on Linux, BSD, and MacOS X, VS EE is quite lacking.

Except you are a liar and I am not.

Sure, you can say whatever you want (e.g. how "open" OSX is); it doesn't make it so. Especially since there is no definition of "open" so the flaming can go on forever.

Feel free to link a page similar to this: http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1063/ for any OS that meets the criteria I mentioned.

Well, if you define criteria narrowly enough you can easily use "most" and "least" in your sentences.

But here you go anyway.

I suspect we will not hear from you again :)

Enjoy!

OSX is the most open platform any commercial software companies are writing consumer applications for.

Choosing to do a free release of an old game on alternate platform as an experiment is not quite the same thing

How about a new release of new software on an alternate platform AND providing support with it. From Microsoft no less. Too free for you? How about Sybase? They sell linux versions of thier database management software for linux on PPC and x86 platforms.

How about VMware? They sell virtualization solutions for...you guessed it, linux! Oh, and that brings us to another of your "points":

OSX is the most open platform that runs Microsoft Windows.

WRONG. Either you're running windows in a virtual app, or you're not running OSX. OSX itself does not run windows.
Maybe...and this might be a difficult concept for you, but maybe you should think before submitting comments. That preview button gives you a change to re-read. Use it.

Who is really to blame in this is Microsoft. Some fool of a Microsoftie decided that, by default, whenever media (CDs, USBs) was inserted into a removable drive it should run AUTORUN on that drive. It can be disabled with TweakUI (link below) but you need to be a geek to think to do it and must do it on all your machines (and possibly all accounts on your machines) and if you forget, like I did, once, whamo! You're infected. A virus scanner can help, but they won't catch the latest viruses/horses (which is exactly why cybercrooks keep writing new ones) if you set them to scan all removable drives and you plug in your 1Gb USB HDD you will be in for a long wait. Like the massive security hole that ActiveX became, Microsoft has no foresight. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Seriously.

I've been a *nix user since 1996. I'm a fan. I try and turn people to the light side every day. Linux rocks seismically.

But I'm fed up of too many idiots dissing the researchers at Microsoft. Sure, the company makes dumb-ass decisions. What do you expect? Their responsibility is to shareholders, whose interest is clear and short-term by and large.

Check out their research.

Here's their latest sidebar snippet:

Understanding the Rainforest Ecosystem
http://research.microsoft.com/c/1101/en-us/news/features/rainforest-051910.aspx

The company, with its billions, employs some of the most productive and interesting research in applied Information Theory in the world. Yes , they suck at implementations for end users because they're committed to some daft User Interface decisions. But fuck, do they hire and fund well.

My favorite is Haskell. Guess who funds Simone Peyton-Jones? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones). Microsoft.

Microsoft is a company. It's an independent personality in law. Its responsibility is to its owners. And that would all be evil and everything except that _lots_ of fine upstanding pillars of the academic community take Microsoft's shilling to pay the bills and still work on AMAZING technology.

We /.ers love to praise Google, dis M$, scorn Apple, and worship *nix. Dumb. It's an ecosystem. We all contribute. Sure it's competitive. We all win.

Or am I just an idiot?

Seems to be compatible with Mindstorms
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff631056(v=MSDN.10).aspx

The practical difference between a Caesar cipher and DES is that the Caesar cipher is faster so more transactions can be performed. You could do more leaving things in plain-text, but regulations usually require encryption of some sort for this kind of data. However, those same regulations don't usually stipulate any particular strength of encryption, so Caesar becomes ideal.

Actually, RC4 is not that much slower than Casear, mainly because is implemented sort of like Caesar with extra steps to modify the substitution table at runtime. OpenSSL can do RC4 on modern hardware faster than 300 MB/s. Even though it is as a "combiner" stream cipher and as such tricky to actually use securely, it would be much better than the probably ad-hoc implemented Caesar.

If there was a recognized, official (or even semi-official) standard API and ABI for cryptography libraries, ITAR would be less of an issue.

You mean like their official ones? They could have used their own crypto API, but they didn't.

If standards better-mandated what level of security was required, weak algorithms would never be used. No corporation would dare risk the penalties and so no vendor would dare supply soft crypto.

You are right - this is 50% of the problem here. The other 50% is MS just being lazy.

Microsoft Robotics: 3rd Party Hardware

I'm getting tired of website that go through all the trouble if inserting images into every paragraph, and then add the same placeholder image to each paragraph because they can't be bothered to insert a picture of each robot. The good news is that I now don't have to wonder about how much effort they spend on the software.