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on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows?

There is a wrapper around Mozilla that exposes it via the same COM interfaces that IE provides for hosting purposes. It would be possible to use that, and write a simple stub DLL that would be registered for CLSID_WebBrowser (MSHTML), but would instead instantiate CLSID_MozillaBrowser (the wrapper). Once done, all applications on the system should pick the new engine. It would be somewhat more complicated to do this for specific apps only, but still possible if you intercept DLL calls using something like Detours, and look for and intercept any attempts to do CoCreateInstance(CLSID_WebBrowser). No idea if anyone actually tried, but it should be fairly trivial for anyone moderately proficient in Win32 development.

I don't think any modern version of Windows will let you do direct hardware access without using a driver. Sure, you could do it with Windows 9x, but NT won't let you.

That's why a window system is supposed to provide an API to query each screen on the display server. Google says the appropriate function in Windows is called GetDeviceCaps. But is the HORZSIZE guaranteed to be accurate, even if the end user has logged in remotely or tweaked the "horizontal size" and "vertical size" knobs of a monitor?

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the following companies and/or any of its representativs or employees. I am merely an very very satisfied customer.

If you don't want to build your own system you could consider buying a prebuilt system. It saves you a ton of trouble, lowers your electrical bill, reduces your carbon footprint, and has cool features that are hard to get right in a homebuilt system (such as small size, passive cooling, hot-swap bays or wall-mount kits).

I researched the market for prebuilt WHS servers and ended up with a Tranquil SQA-5H (see http://tranquilpc.co.uk/ for the full product range) and it is probably the best piece of computer hardware I have ever purchased. Room for 5 harddrives, easy to work with, and the machine itself uses only 29 W.

Similar products are available from HP (check out http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/mediasmart-server/) and a lot of other vendors (like Acer, Velocity Micro, Niveus). They are all available under the "Buy" tab of the Windows Home Server website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

- Jesper

I did a fresh install of 7 recently (June 10th) after some tweaking of my system rendered it unstable. (not the point of the post, just background on why I did the reinstall)

I did the Windows 7 clean install, loaded my drivers, and activated it.

Grabbed the normal updates and, during that process, I right clicked the automatic update entry for IE8 and selected "Hide Update" because I choose not to load the IE8 software.

Now with patches loaded, I go back to see if any of the patches needed patching. I go back to Windows update to get the latest round of patches and guess what the first entry on my Windows update page was...IE8! "critical", no less)

I went through the process to hide it again. I load the other patches

The next week MS released some more patches. I went to Windows Update to grab them and you wanna guess what the first "critical" patch was? IEfucking8!

I made a thread at the Windows 7 forum, http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaapps/thread/2d8a57f3-8904-49b8-a626-c6a5481ca9b4 asking them why they are trying to ram this program down my throat when I have specifically chosen not to use the program and, to date there have been 166 views of the thread, but no replies from MS...not that I expect a reply...

I use windows home server as well and its great. You can install the windows home connector software on your desktops and it'll do backups according to the schedule you set and keep them for however long you want. Default schedule is to run between 12am - 6am and keep 3 daily, 3 weekly, and 3 monthly. With the WHS BDBB, you can make a backup of those backups to another drive to take offsite if you wish. Also, these desktop backups are fast after the first initial backup. Only the changed clusters are backed up aftet that. here is a doc that goes into it more. http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/8/0/18096c95-4850-4176-9821-970691b98aaf/Windows_Home_Server_Technical_Brief_-_Home_Computer_Backup_and_Restore.docx

Any be "reliable" you actually mean "used to have a known, unpatched for more than 1/2 yead data loss bug?"

If I buy a gaming PC, it will come with a gaming keyboard.

A gaming PC is much more expensive than a game console, especially when you have to buy four of them, one for each of the four gamers in your household. I'm starting to think a lot of PC gaming fanboys live alone.

Each keyboard device can be enumerated as a game controller

I'd like to see your reference for this. I tried looking it up myself and got irrelevant results. More worrying is the prevailing mindset shown in the first result from such a search: "The only important thing to consider in a Visual Basic game is that a joystick exists. If there are additional game controllers in a system, they are simply ignored."

I tried replacing "DirectX" with "XNA" in this query under the impression that Microsoft wants new development to be managed. This query led to this page, which claims that XNA supports multiple "Chatpad" keyboards. But do standard USB keyboards show up as Chatpads, or do they show up mixed into "the current keyboard state"? The XNA Input Overview states "Mouse: Number Allowed on System: 1" and "Keyboard: Number Allowed on System: 1".

Going even further, it would also be possible run completely under 3D accelerated VMs and have each OS use specific input devices on a single PC.

But then you'd still have to buy four operating system licenses and four copies of each game, and it still wouldn't be as efficient as a game that can split its own screen.

I don't do split-screen gaming.

Super Smash Bros. series allows four players; it does not split the screen. Bomberman series allows four players; it does not split the screen. Mario Party series' real-time phases allow four players; most of them do not split the screen.

It's just so ghetto.

Since roughly March of last year when Bear Stearns failed, the global economy has been in recession, a lot of people's incomes have become ghetto. So gamers on a ghetto income have to make do with ghetto gaming.

If I buy a gaming PC, it will come with a gaming keyboard.

A gaming PC is much more expensive than a game console, especially when you have to buy four of them, one for each of the four gamers in your household. I'm starting to think a lot of PC gaming fanboys live alone.

Each keyboard device can be enumerated as a game controller

I'd like to see your reference for this. I tried looking it up myself and got irrelevant results. More worrying is the prevailing mindset shown in the first result from such a search: "The only important thing to consider in a Visual Basic game is that a joystick exists. If there are additional game controllers in a system, they are simply ignored."

I tried replacing "DirectX" with "XNA" in this query under the impression that Microsoft wants new development to be managed. This query led to this page, which claims that XNA supports multiple "Chatpad" keyboards. But do standard USB keyboards show up as Chatpads, or do they show up mixed into "the current keyboard state"? The XNA Input Overview states "Mouse: Number Allowed on System: 1" and "Keyboard: Number Allowed on System: 1".

Going even further, it would also be possible run completely under 3D accelerated VMs and have each OS use specific input devices on a single PC.

But then you'd still have to buy four operating system licenses and four copies of each game, and it still wouldn't be as efficient as a game that can split its own screen.

I don't do split-screen gaming.

Super Smash Bros. series allows four players; it does not split the screen. Bomberman series allows four players; it does not split the screen. Mario Party series' real-time phases allow four players; most of them do not split the screen.

It's just so ghetto.

Since roughly March of last year when Bear Stearns failed, the global economy has been in recession, a lot of people's incomes have become ghetto. So gamers on a ghetto income have to make do with ghetto gaming.

You're looking for the Enhanced Write Filter. It redirects all writes to RAM, meaning your changes are lost when you reboot. (Or you can have a shutdown script that commits changes to disk if you want.)

It's part of the XP Embedded SDK, so it's designed for things like letting you run XP from a ROM chip or from a CD-ROM. I use it on my netbook because having all writes trapped in memory makes it's cheap, slow SSD seem ridiculously fast.

Already exists for windows: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

And it's free.

xbl has done a pretty good job of streamlining the indie-game process. They've made it simple enough that allowing indie-devs to publish games equates to almost NO EXTRA WORK on the part of MS. Which is smart.

Of course there are admin costs, but dev fees and sales quite handily make up for that. The fact is, putting a limit on the number of indie games is an active act, requiring work. The end result can only have lead to lower indie sales.

I agree with you that some people look for the conspiracy everywhere, but in this case MS took an action that would lead to less indie sales. I can only think that was in response to some external stimuli (major game publishers).

Take a look at the screenshot: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

If Adobe had their way, we never would have seen TrueType and you would have to pay $100 for every typeface and each would have to be installed on only your machine. Of course, it would look very good. If MS had their way, everything would be TrueType and you could only use the fonts that come installed with the OS, and any extra would be excluded at the OS level... and they would all suck.

Adobe and Microsoft are on the same side here: in favor of a font format with as much protection for authors as possible. Microsoft is siding completely with the font foundries. They're opposed by Mozilla, Apple, Google, and Opera, who have all implemented support for raw TTF in their browsers and don't think another format is necessary to protect font authors' interests.

Net result? If MS adopts @font-face for IE, game over (in a good way), and we will see a flowering of online type design. If MS drags its heels on this, @font-face could die on the vine, and we'll be stuck with Arial, for a VERY long time.

IE has supported @font-face since IE4. I.e., for twelve years. It works perfectly fine in practice. You just need to provide two separate rules, and two separate font files: one in EOT format for IE, one in TTF for everyone else. IE implements CSS 2's @font-face, which was dropped from CSS 2.1, while the others implement CSS 3's version, so probably IE doesn't have as many web font-related features. But basic support is definitely there. So yes, you will be seeing web fonts used, I pretty much guarantee it.

Actually, yes, Arial is free. Microsoft gave it away under a freeware-style license, and while MS themselves no longer distributes it, the EULA allows for re-distribution so there are still a lot of sites that host it.

See http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq8.htm
or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web

Publish the specifications of the integration API that IE supports, so that it can be implemented in other browsers

You mean the ability to host IE in applications? It has been public for a long time now, and people have re-implemented that on top of Mozilla.

Publish the source code to IE so that people can see what's missing from the API

So corporations should be forced to open source their products now?

Bundle Mozilla, Opera and Safari

Why not Chrome? Who decides?

Ask the user for a URL, then download a browser as part of the installation process

Ask the user to insert a CD containing the browser

That doesn't make much sense. It's obviously far more convenient to finish the installation, and let the user use the preinstalled browser to download and install whatever he wants (or, if he really has browser-on-a-CD, stick that into the hard drive and watch autorun install it). There's no point in making this part of install process at all.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

And Moonlight is currently supported by Microsoft, but there's still the patent issues, and no reason to assume the support will continue forever. Moonlight and Mono in general lags far behind Silverlight and .NET -- much like the situation with Wine and Windows.

Which patent issue? Is there something specific you're thinking of that hasn't been covered under the Community Promise etcetera?

I am guessing the point here is that if the network is too slow, it automatically switches to a lower-bandwidth stream. Useful, I suppose. I don't see where it's groundbreaking.

It's more complicated than that; it's not just classic stream switching. The big differences compared to past approaches are that there's not buffering on stream switching, http is the only protocol required, and the indivdual chunks of video are small enough to get picked up by proxy caches. The latter delivers a lot of the scsalability value of multicast, but with the existing web infrastructure.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=03d22583-3ed6-44da-8464-b1b4b5ca7520

Good thing I'm using Internet Explorer!

Oh wait...

NT/2k/XP have a variety of binary shims for working with different hardware; the selection of that shim is done at install time and the setting is read from disk at boot time. If the shim specified on the boot drive does not match the hardware, Windows won't boot.

There are ways to convince it to select the correct blob (The second one is going to be the most interesting for people working with a system that won't boot):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824125

(I haven't looked closely, but apparently this is no longer an issue as of Vista)

Okay, so I'm on XP at the moment... Just what incentive is there for me to upgrade, exactly?

I have to admit, I'm getting really tired of people asking this often rhetorical question about Windows releases, as it only indicates one of the following things:
* The poster is incapable of doing their own research to find the answers to incredibly basic questions
* The poster has found the answer but feels the need to post the question regardless probably to elicit a certain response

Seriously, you want to know what the incentive is to upgrade? You get all of the features new to Windows Vista and all of the features new to Windows 7. Now, if you can read all of that and legitimately tell me that you find no real compelling reason to upgrade, then that's fine, I disagree but I'll accept your view, and more importantly, you've answered your own question.

Realistically, many people will get extremely enthusiastic over the latest Ubuntu release despite the fact it's only 8 or so months since the last release, and while it provides some useful new functionality, the overall changes are a fraction of the massive overhaul that Vista received and that Windows 7 incrementally improves. Mind you, I have no problem with this either, but it does boggle my mind that someone can either be so ignorant of what a new Windows release contains or so inept as to be unable to find this out.

The rest of your complaints are really just an assortment of mundane issues and unrealistic expectations, I can't be bothered addressing them all, but a few picks:

1. If your PC only just qualifies to run Windows 7 then it's probably pretty old (I link to the Vista reqs as 7 reqs are not yet finalized, but are rumoured to be the same, and the general consensus seems to be it is both snappier and less resource intensive than Vista anyway). None of these requirements are exhorbitant, and while it's a favourite past-time of many Slashdot posters to insinuate that Vista needs an absolute beast to run smoothly, this is far from the truth. What it NEEDS is a relatively modern machine, your XP machine purchased in 2002 is not modern. I wouldn't expect to run the latest Ubuntu smoothly on 2002 era hardware, if at all, and similarly, I don't hold Windows to a different standard.

2. Upgrading 98 to XP is not as big a task as you'd think. Yes, you're moving from a 9x system to an NT system, but keep in mind that much of the codebase was shared to an extent (e.g. IE/DirectX/WMP), etc..., and the release of XP and 98 was only about 3 years apart assuming you were using the first edition of 98; if you are using the second, you're down to about two years. In contrast, an upgrade to Windows 7 from XP is not only EIGHT years newer, but a massive overhaul of the underlying NT system. And honestly, as many have stated in this thread, you shouldn't rely on major OS upgrades without a fresh install to be reliable or even stable. You're welcome to give it a shot, but you should not expect everything to go right, and a clean install will almost always deliver better results in the long run, even if it requires more effort to be invested initially.

3. What interface tweaks do you lose that you can't duplicate on 7? Do you use every feature in XP? Do you realistically expect to use every feature you gain in any given OS upgrade? Is it really that hard to backup all of your programs and data? For christs sakes, take some initiative and figure these things out for yourself, and if it isn't worth the effort, then don't upgrade, no-one is forcing you to.

Is it really that hard to do a little research rather than run to Slashdot to have people answer things for you?

Nowadays, any content management system worth anything has a built-in wiki and most allow direct linking and searching between the local wiki and wikipedia.

For example Documentum and Sharepoint both have federated search providers for Wikipedia.

Plus, because the OP works for a "large company" they probably already have DCTM or MOSS installed somewhere.
Why reinvent the wheel when you've already bought a better one? (job security?)

1. Windows 98 Upgrade will upgrade Windows 3.11.
2. Windows XP Upgrade will upgrade Windows 98.
3. Any upgrade version of Windows 7 will upgrade any version of Windows XP.

So that's great news for all you folks running Windows 3.11 on at least a 1 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM ;-)

Seriously, Microsoft has generous upgrade paths. Upgrade editions of Windows 7 will even work on Windows 2000.

I'm going to rip it apart for different reasons than RMS would.. I installed moonlight, but every time I tried to access a silverlight page it refused to even try to load, said I needed silverlight instead.

Go here: http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight-preview/

Install the extension, then go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx

It will work beautifully.

Because requiring Silverlight (and therefore Windows) severely dilutes the notion that Gate's action is altruistic. The content is only kinda free.

Wrong. Choose to use it or not as you wish but dont spread incorrect information.

Silverlight for Mac-> download

And of course you can choose the Mono implementation if you want FOSS versions instead Mono-> download

I'll give you 3 reasons to not use Silverlight, even the Mono implementation:

1. embrace
2. extend
3. extinguish

Because requiring Silverlight (and therefore Windows) severely dilutes the notion that Gate's action is altruistic. The content is only kinda free.

Wrong. Choose to use it or not as you wish but dont spread incorrect information.

Silverlight for Mac-> download

And of course you can choose the Mono implementation if you want FOSS versions instead
Mono-> download

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

Their ex-staff might have financial difficulties, but I don't see anything in that link that shows that Microsoft has financial difficulties.

So far they don't look like they're hurting.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY09/earn_rel_q2_09.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx

If that's considered "financial difficulty" I wouldn't mind having more of that.

Maybe on July 23 they might declare a loss against all odds...

Their ex-staff might have financial difficulties, but I don't see anything in that link that shows that Microsoft has financial difficulties.

So far they don't look like they're hurting.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY09/earn_rel_q2_09.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx

If that's considered "financial difficulty" I wouldn't mind having more of that.

Maybe on July 23 they might declare a loss against all odds...

Actually the workaround is released as a security update , and pushed via windows update

Many businesses still run Win2K, but Microsoft no longer supports it. End of life for that product was announced three years ago. It may be "stable, well-known & well-documented" but Microsoft does not support it any longer and does not issue any new security updates for it.

Christ, you're a moron. Microsoft is still releasing security patches for win2000 and will continue to do so for quite some time.

Why don't you look at today's "patch tuesday" announcements from Microsoft. Look at the web page, and scroll down a bit. Look at the many places where "windows 2000 service pack 4" is mentioned and the easy clickable links to download the win2000 security patches for today's announcements.

Idiot.

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 pedophilia.

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 [microsoft.com] is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman [geocities.com], spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox [microsoft.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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 [microsoft.com], 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 [salon.com] 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 [comp-u-geek.net] slut [rotten.com]!

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 [goatse.fr] perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children [slashdot.org]. 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 [rotten.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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

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 pedophilia.

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 [microsoft.com] is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman [geocities.com], spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox [microsoft.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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 [microsoft.com], 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 [salon.com] 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 [comp-u-geek.net] slut [rotten.com]!

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 [goatse.fr] perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children [slashdot.org]. 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 [rotten.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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

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 pedophilia.

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 [microsoft.com] is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman [geocities.com], spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox [microsoft.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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 [microsoft.com], 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 [salon.com] 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 [comp-u-geek.net] slut [rotten.com]!

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 [goatse.fr] perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children [slashdot.org]. 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 [rotten.com] 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 [goatse.fr] 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

A temporary fix that sets the 'kill bits' of the ActiveX control is available, but experts believe it's likely most users won't take advantage of the protection.

Well, Computer World (and CWmike in particular), perhaps more users would take advantage of the protection if you would provide them a link telling them how when you first mention it rather than wait until the end of the article where they may not associate it as being the aforementioned solution.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome. So what's with Google's Chrome?

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can mine our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And they're going to come out with their own operating system?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit trying to syphon off my personal data in between crashes!

In the long run, they'll switch. Until everything becomes a webapp, the ecosystem almost demands it. Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.

No, I think they realize this too.

You should check out the new "TS RemtoeApp" features of the new Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008. It lets one make any TS functional application into a web app.

I don't know how well it works, as I don't have server 2008, so it might be yet another failed implementation... But just by the fact the feature is listed, I would say they are aware of the problem, and at least paying lip service to it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753844(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730673(WS.10).aspx

In the long run, they'll switch. Until everything becomes a webapp, the ecosystem almost demands it. Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.

No, I think they realize this too.

You should check out the new "TS RemtoeApp" features of the new Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008. It lets one make any TS functional application into a web app.

I don't know how well it works, as I don't have server 2008, so it might be yet another failed implementation... But just by the fact the feature is listed, I would say they are aware of the problem, and at least paying lip service to it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753844(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730673(WS.10).aspx

Correct, Windows XP will be on Extended Suport until 08/04/2014.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-gb&C2=1173

Here is a list of what is covered (Security Hotfix Patches & Microsoft Knowledge Base.)

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

There's also a horrible rumor going around where people are assuming Windows XP will become "disabled" in 2010 unless you upgrade.

Correct, Windows XP will be on Extended Suport until 08/04/2014.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-gb&C2=1173

Here is a list of what is covered (Security Hotfix Patches & Microsoft Knowledge Base.)

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

There's also a horrible rumor going around where people are assuming Windows XP will become "disabled" in 2010 unless you upgrade.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7.

And they want my personal data to help make their browser better? They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, WebKit nightlies run circles around most websites with nary a freeze or crash. So what's with Google's Chrome?

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral students, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google search, Ads, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint pretty Trojans to try to mine our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And they're going to come out with their own operating system?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing, sneaking, spyware when my Mac has gone dead and cold and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit the crashing and quit syphoning off my personal data!

Yeah. Way to innovate there, Redmon. Congratulations on entering the 1990s!

Outlook has supported threaded discussion views for email and post folders since the 2000 version. Here's a walk through for 2003. First hit on Google searching for 'outlook threaded view'

While threaded mode is useful for some things, there are other nice ways to visualize your stuff on Outlook that I like.

View -> Arrange By -> Conversation on OLK2003 is essentially the same as GMail mode, for example.

A quick switch to Message Timeline view is also extremely useful in those situations where someone says "it's an email from 03/12/70" or something like that and you want to look quickly at the entire sequence sorted by message rather than simply by date.

The "Show in groups" thing is priceless as a visual aide to stuff that's happened in the last few weeks.

I think Outlook is an example of Microsoft's better software efforts. It has its quirks and limitations of course, but overall it's far better than most other mail clients I've used in the past 15 years. And I'm not even considering Exchange integration here.

Congratulations on getting modded up though. My theory that mod points are being increasingly farmed out to rhesus monkeys and squirrels on steroids continues to pan out.

You might be able to burn ISOs, but you still can't mount them.

Back in XP, Microsoft had a utility you could download called "Windows XP Virtual CD" that let you mount ISO images. Not sure if they ported it into Vista. Interestingly enough, you can't find it via MS's download pages, but it's linked from several KB and MSDN articles.

Here's an article that links it if you're interested in it.

My workplace (over 100k users) just migrated to Microsoft hosted email. And we're in some areas direct competitors of Microsoft.

For mounting ISO's under WinXP, this has worked for me. It's small and simple and doesn't have any extra crap:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/b/6/7b6abd84-7841-4978-96f5-bd58df02efa2/winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21.exe

Your announcing on a technology site that you just pre-ordered TWO copies of an OS that's in a free public beta? See if you can cancel the order, create a (free) technet account and download then burn your disks. You can use this version until March 1, 2010 and then decide if it's worth your money.

So what exactly does windows 7 have that is either exciting or even worth a hundred euros?

Support for third-party applications that require Windows 7, and security updates past April 8, 2014. Whether that's worth 100 is subjective, of course; personally, that's only worth about 40 to me.

It's not three-d graphics. It's layered two-d graphics with interesting transforms.

I think you're talking about SL2. SL3 has "proper" perspective 3D graphics, with much of what WPF can do graphically, including hardware acceleration to boot (as mentioned in TFA). To quote the official propaganda:

"Perspective 3D Graphics. Silverlight 3 allows developers and designers to apply content to a 3D plane."

P.S. By "worked on" do you mean "developed sites/apps using" or "worked in the team @MS that developed" Silverlight?

It's patented but under an irrevocable Open Specification Promise

Thats only for MS's XAML script language thats in Silverlight/Moonlight, there may be patents MS has on Silverlight that aren't related to XAML. And for Mono, the potential patent issues with Winforms, ADO.NET and ASP.NET still remain (is Moonlight using Winforms, or doing its graphics stuff using GTK via Cairo directly?) In any event, Mono/Winforms is still a minefield.

And this still doesn't deal with the extremely problematic language (which is still there) of MS's 'Covenant to Downstream Recipients of Moonlight'. Going by that obtuse document, the only people safe from MS's lawyers are ones running Moonlight in a browser on Novell Linux, everyone else is fair game.

Wake me up when the Mono guys can clear up the issues discussed in the 'Mono and Microsoft's patents' section of Mono's wikipedia page, and the Moonlight guys can do the same for the 'Controversy' section on their wikipedia page, *and* MS changes the language of their 'Covenant' to include non-Novell users. Until then, Mono/Winforms & Moonlight are still non-starters for any non-Novell Linux distro or user.

it's actually safer to use than theora

Nice try.

As was pointed out in the argument over HTML5 we had a few days ago, using theora is no more dangerous than using H264, which in turn is no more, or less!, dangerous than using any other software that may have patents on it. We have no way of knowing if MPEGLA is the only entity that has patents on H264. This problem is simply inherent in our screwed-up software patent system.

Theora may not be safe. H264 may not be safe. Anyone claiming that one is clearly or definitely safer than the other is either uninformed, or trolling.

And since MPEGLA can change the license requirements at any time, including extending it to the distributors of H264 *content*, not just encoder/decoder implementors, as some believe they will soon do, this is just a rerun of the .GIF fiasco, only more inexcusable, because now we should know better.

'a lot' is not the same as 'exactly the same'.

Right. the biggest deviation from the rule that "WPF is a superset of Silverlight" is that Silverlight has the Visual State Manager.

Microsoft's position (or a least what Scott Guthrie says) is that Microsoft is working to keep the two synched - some new features will appear first in Silverlight, some in WPF, depending on release schedules. Visual State Manager will be in the next release of WPF (with .Net 4.0, probably by end 2009).

if Silverlight does all WPF does

It will never do that, for 2 reasons.

1) Size - WPF is the UI end of the .Net iceberg. The full .Net framework (including WPF) will never begin to fit in the 5Mb or so for the silverlight download. e.g. Silverlight has no way to connect to Databases across the network - just to Web services in SOAP, XML or JSON.

2) Security - Silverlight apps are not trusted to do things like read and write all of the file system, unrestricted access to network, printer, keyboard etc that a fully trusted .Net app has.

Now, if Silverlight can't do some of the things a WPF app can then I'm not sure I need Silverlight - Flash is much more widespread

that's your choice, and many people will choose the same. Others will choose otherwise. Some code can be shared between Silverlight and regular .net apps, and the same skills and tools apply.

I understood Gazelle as a desperate response to the announcement of Google Chromium OS and then you put a female(that is important) researcher in the news and use you PR stalin organ just to shout the Google Chromium OS announcement down. Everyone know that Gazelle is vapourware.

And of course we have other funny spin as well:
* Will Google Chrome OS bankrupt Canonical?
* Guardian: Google Chrome OS: is it copying Microsoft's Gazelle or is it more like Splashtop?
* Microsoft's Web Browser-Based OS: Gazelle with a link to the research paper.

Of couse the experimental study "Gazelle" is presented as the competitor. Not "Windows 7", ha ha.

Essentially Chrome OS shoots the cash cow, the bullets are cheap and it is fun. The Google OS is largely driven by the hardware manufacturers and their interest to lower OS target costs and get more better and more interface information. As it is branded Google Chromium OS you just expect it to support the browser but of course you can run every Linux desktop application you want and oops, the other cashs cows of Microsoft as Microsoft Office are not even available for the Linux platform.

The question for me is why no one attempted to create a Fox Operating System. ;-) To my knowledge the Google OS will not ship with KDE or Gnome but rather a lightweight ressource saving environment.

For Microsoft it all feels a bit Berlin 1945, with Gazelle as the latest Wunderwaffe. Google is so scared about the competitor...

It is a fact, Google can seriously wreck Microsoft with a minor investment and that will make Microsoft do all the wonderful stuff that only competition can achieve. Of course the manufacturers like that.