Domain: microsoft.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to microsoft.com.
Comments · 34,132
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Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o
Nothing handles MSOffice files well, not even other Microsoft applications. Their format is a mystery wrapped in an enigma enveloped by a binary blob
Um, actually, it's documented.
By the way, I keep hearing those horror stories about incompatibilities between Office versions, but the last time I've actually seen one was somewhere around Office 97 timeframe. Did anyone actually have that sort of troubles opening, say, Office 2000 document in 2007? Or are those just stories from ages past that live on by constantly being retold ("I know a guy who knows a guy
...")? -
Re:Probably Not
Hell, Microsoft isn't even making any new versions of Frontpage
That is because it has been renamed SharePoint Designer -
Re:Macros
The Office Compatibility pack only helps users of 2003 to open 2007 documents. 2000 users are still left out in the cold. Your company would have had to migrate either way.
Ummm, no. Did you even read the link you provided? Click on the "system requirements" and it clearly says "Office 2000" along with Office XP and Office 2003.
Sheesh. RTFLYP!
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Re:Yes, yes, and yes.Tell them they can have a copy for home!!
The chances are good that you can pick up a full - legit - version of Office at work or order one online for home use for no more than the cost of shipping and handling the media.
The chances are also good that you really will be getting a full version of Office - with components like Outlook that are missing from OpenOffice.
PDF support is a 900 KB download. Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS
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Re:Yes, yes, and yes.Tell them they can have a copy for home!!
The chances are good that you can pick up a full - legit - version of Office at work or order one online for home use for no more than the cost of shipping and handling the media.
The chances are also good that you really will be getting a full version of Office - with components like Outlook that are missing from OpenOffice.
PDF support is a 900 KB download. Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS
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Re:Macros
The Office Compatibility pack only helps users of 2003 to open 2007 documents. 2000 users are still left out in the cold. Your company would have had to migrate either way.
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Re:Short and long answers?
Saved us from getting the latest and greatest version of Office.
So would Office 2007 compatibility pack. Added Bonus of not having to have everyone sent to you for conversion. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101686761033.aspx
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Re:OpenXML Plug-In Exists for Novell's OO.o
I will say that although I have not had the joy of opening Office 2000 files with OO.o 3.0, I do recall there being some serious issues between powerpoint slides.
I've heard that about prior versions of OO.o, but I don't know if the same is true of 3.x. I have had problems with some older Word documents not showing some images when opened in OO.o, including 3.0. If your main concern is viewing or converting old files, why not keep Office 2000 around? What's the point of getting rid of it completely?
Just use OpenOffice.org to create all new or revised files, as they can be opened universally, in part because free ODF plug-ins and converters are everywhere. If you have an older file that needs a revision, convert it to an older or more consistent format (Office '95 and '97 formats work for me most of the time), and then open the converted file in OO.o, without losing any formatting or data. A variety of external or command-line format converters also exist, which are useful for batch converting legacy files.
I have several old copies of Office 2000 and 2003 floating around the office, mainly to convert between old file types ad-hoc. Microsoft also offers read-only Office document viewers and converters of their Office line, for free:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/HA010449811033.aspx
I think most of these tools, and some versions of the full MS Office Suites, also work on other OS platforms via WINE.
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=31
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/differences/I regrettably give you the option of getting Novell's OO.o distribution (here) in which you can install an extension for OpenXML.
Why the regret? Novell maintains a good package of OpenOffice installers and extensions. There are also Open Source ODF and OpenXML converters:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter
And OpenXML support comes with OpenOffice.org 3+ "out of the box":
http://blog.mypapit.net/2008/04/openofficeorg-30-supports-microsoft-openxml-docx.html
Going forward, the ability to convert almost every legacy document format that ever existed, to an International Standard like ODF, makes most file format differences a non-issue.
Not everyone has caught up with current standards, so we make it company policy to use ODF formats internally, but we convert files down to Office '97 or PDF when sharing them with external contacts. Everyone with any Office suite from the last 10 years can open our converted files without installations or issues.
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Re:Wrong Question?
Nevermind those particular sales, let's just look at the facts:
Guidance for year ending June 30th 2009:
Revenue = $67.3 billion to $68.1 billion vs. operating income of $26.3 billion to $26.9 billionI'm no expert, but that seems sustainable to me.
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needess to ask what OS ..
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Re:Macros
Microsoft's constantly changing file format forces the world to upgrade.
That may have been true in the past, but the office 2007 compatibility pack is wonderful to open office 2007 files with office 2003, office xp or office 2000.
It's so good, that my company feels no need to upgrade to office 2007.
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Re:Probably Not
I don't think "most" means what you think it means. Visio isn't even in ANY standard Office 2007 suite from Microsoft. If someone needs Visio, they can get it. But for 99.9% of employees, OpenOffice.org has all the features they need.
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Spy vs. Spy
But the cheerleading is missing.
I laugh in the face of a Linux cheerleader, for he is ill equipped.
That's right, our side's got freaking Evangelists.
I dare you to find a more epic term to describe your purveyors of software :D -
Re:How can it spread through USB sticks?
How does one disable autoplay in XP, without making a half dozen manual registry changes?
Through a policy (gpedit.msc).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953252
The article is about 10 times as long as it needs to be, look for the subtitle "How to use Group Policy settings to disable all Autorun features".
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Re:follow the money.
Also, I think it's SP3 you mean about the tampering with IE. It'll install IE7 if you want it or not unless you already had it installed.
This is incorrect. I've recently installed SP3 on dozens of PCs. Several of those recently don't have IE7 due to some incompatibility issues with custom apps and they still didn't have IE7 post-SP3. They're still chugging along just fine with IE6 with the warning that they shouldn't use that old POS. Luckily, these rigs aren't used much for Internet browsing but I installed the latest Firefox at the same time just in case.
The only way to uninstall it without going through a big hassle is to have IE7 installed prior to installing SP3 if I remember right.
Actually, SP3 will make it impossible to uninstall IE7 without a whole bunch of hassle. This is clearly documented in http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/d/8/cd8cc719-7d5a-40d3-a802-e4057aa8c631/relnotes.htmthe release notes for SP3, right up top. For those who don't feel like clicking, here's the relevant text:
If you have installed Windows Internet Explorer® 7 or a beta version of Internet Explorer 8, and then install Windows XP SP3, you cannot uninstall Internet Explorer.
To avoid this, ensure Internet Explorer 7 or a beta version of Internet Explorer 8 is not installed before installing Windows XP SP3.
If you have already encountered this issue, uninstall Windows XP SP3, uninstall Internet Explorer, and then reinstall Windows XP SP3.
Hope that clarifies things a bit.
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Re:Evolution
Downadup and other such similar worms exploit a vulnerability in the Windows Server service: Server Service Vulnerability -- CVE-2008-4250
The vulnerability is detailed by October 23rd's Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067. -
Re:Stupid..
a) it had the same price
That's because Windows Media Player is free.
In a grocery store close by, I can buy a box of juice, the label says 1 liter and there's another liter free!!!
Oh, wait... what's the catch? -
Re:Just take the first 65k rows
Actually, Excel 2007's limit is 1,048,576 rows or 2^20 which is pretty round in binary, but still somewhat arbitrary.
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Re:Hookay... damage control? Paid by MS?
I agree with what you say, but then again MS has never really been known for sensible and consistent UI design. Their XP PowerToy Calculator does show all the operations with a history, but the rest of the UI is still awful.
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse.
You are all idiots, including the original poster. In the future it would help if actual facts were used in main page posts as opposed to rhetoric. If you refer to the following link, you will see SilverLight supports all the aforementioned OSs: http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx#sysreq
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Re:AD licensing
No, that is just plain wrong.
Operating System Environment (OSE)
An operating system environment is an instance of an operating system, including any applications configured to run on it. More specifically, an operating system environment is:
â All or part of an operating system instance, or all or part of a virtual (or otherwise emulated) operating system instance that enables separate machine identity (primary computer name or similar unique identifier) or separate administrative rights, and
â Instances of applications, if any, configured to run on the operating system instance or parts identified above.Windows Server 2008 Standard and Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V
âEach software license allows you to run, at any one time, one instance of the server software in an OSE on one server. If the instance you run is in a virtual OSE, you may also run an instance in the physical OSE solely to run hardware virtualization software, provide hardware virtualization services, or run software to manage and service OSEs on the licensed server. We refer to this in shorthand as 1+1.
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V â
â Each software license allows you to run, at any one time, four instances of the server software in four OSEs on one server. If all four instances you run are in virtual OSEs, you may also run an instance in the physical OSE solely to run hardware virtualization software, provide hardware virtualization services, or run software to manage and service OSEs on the licensed server. We refer to this in shorthand as 1+4.Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V, and Windows Server 2008 Itanium Based Systems
â After the number of licenses equal to the number of physical processors on a server are acquired and assigned, you may run on that particular server: One instance of the server software in the physical OSE, and any number of instances of the server software in virtual OSEs.
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Re:Stupid..
That's because Windows Media Player is free.
"This download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows"
So no, it's not free. You just don't pay for it because it's incorporated into the cost of the Windows licence.
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Re:Stupid..
a) it had the same price
That's because Windows Media Player is free.
b) they not only removed the Windows Media Player, but also Windows Media Codecs
Good grief. They get forced to remove WMP and then people get mad when then they go and remove WMP. When you uninstall Quicktime are you shocked to learn the MP4 and other Apple codecs are also removed? Besides, they're free too.
The whole point was to give consumers "choice" by making them install WMP themselves. Don't ask for something and then cry when you get it.
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Re:Stupid..
a) it had the same price
That's because Windows Media Player is free.
b) they not only removed the Windows Media Player, but also Windows Media Codecs
Good grief. They get forced to remove WMP and then people get mad when then they go and remove WMP. When you uninstall Quicktime are you shocked to learn the MP4 and other Apple codecs are also removed? Besides, they're free too.
The whole point was to give consumers "choice" by making them install WMP themselves. Don't ask for something and then cry when you get it.
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Portable apps are handy hereIf you do find yourself in a position to work on or repair unfamiliar Windows installations, you might want to consider putting together a toolkit of portable applications on a flash drive or a usb pocket drive. This would allow you to spend more of your time debugging and repairing windows systems and less time installing support software or struggling with their generic counterparts.
Some useful sites I've found are:
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
- http://www.nirsoft.net/
- http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/31/portable-wscc-simplifies-access-to-sysinternals-nirsoft-utiliti/
- http://portableapps.com/
- http://portablefreeware.com/
- http://www.getusb.info/55-portable-apps-for-making-a-usb-super-stick/
- http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/
- http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/02/24-killer-portable-apps-for-your-usb-flash-drive/2
- http://www.emergingtechs.com/posts/35-portable-applications-every-tech-needs/
- http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/07/21/15-portable-apps-to-help-troubleshoot-pcs/
Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit, which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.
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Re:About Time...ntdsutil (included with Windows Server) is plenty capable of doing backups and restores of AD data. Microsoft has lengthy documentation on the subject, including how to properly prepare and what to do when the feces hit the oscillator.
A few documentation links:- Performing an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects
- Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller
- Active Directory Backup and Restore General Guidelines
Also, you do know that ntbackup.exe is "a VSS aware backup program," right? Bonus: It's included at no charge from Microsoft.
In short, RTFM and STFU.
--Whizzmo -
Re:About Time...ntdsutil (included with Windows Server) is plenty capable of doing backups and restores of AD data. Microsoft has lengthy documentation on the subject, including how to properly prepare and what to do when the feces hit the oscillator.
A few documentation links:- Performing an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects
- Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller
- Active Directory Backup and Restore General Guidelines
Also, you do know that ntbackup.exe is "a VSS aware backup program," right? Bonus: It's included at no charge from Microsoft.
In short, RTFM and STFU.
--Whizzmo -
Re:About Time...ntdsutil (included with Windows Server) is plenty capable of doing backups and restores of AD data. Microsoft has lengthy documentation on the subject, including how to properly prepare and what to do when the feces hit the oscillator.
A few documentation links:- Performing an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects
- Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller
- Active Directory Backup and Restore General Guidelines
Also, you do know that ntbackup.exe is "a VSS aware backup program," right? Bonus: It's included at no charge from Microsoft.
In short, RTFM and STFU.
--Whizzmo -
Re:About Time...ntdsutil (included with Windows Server) is plenty capable of doing backups and restores of AD data. Microsoft has lengthy documentation on the subject, including how to properly prepare and what to do when the feces hit the oscillator.
A few documentation links:- Performing an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects
- Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller
- Active Directory Backup and Restore General Guidelines
Also, you do know that ntbackup.exe is "a VSS aware backup program," right? Bonus: It's included at no charge from Microsoft.
In short, RTFM and STFU.
--Whizzmo -
Re:it goes on to say ..
Yes, so I read that they tried blank machine account passwords where Microsoft (indeed) uses a random password only known to the computer (and the hash in AD)...
For more information (just some google hits):
http://blogs.technet.com/asiasupp/archive/2007/01/18/typical-symptoms-when-secure-channel-is-broken.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785826.aspx -
Re:Not good enough
I've run into that issue as well.
You can change the layout in the registry. Here is an article on how to do it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138354You just need to get the proper code for Dvorak (which should be listed in one of those keys as the default or as an option)
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Re:hate to say it...
They could put list price out there but almost no one pays list for their products. Govt, Education, Non-profits...plus there are all kinds of support levels that will change the per seat price dramatically. Can you go to Redhats or Sun's site and see a list of prices for their directory services? A freaking directory isn't something you just bop over to newegg.com and buy. If this is the main reason you discount the most scaleable and powerful directory system in the world then you REALLY just need to stick with AD as you are a nub...
I'm not going to waste my time trying to track down prices when they could say something like:
$20/user for the first 100, then it drops to $10 until you reach 10,000, then it drops to $5 up to 100,000 users. If you are a non-profit, you get a 10% discount. If you are in the medical field, you get a 10% mark-up so we can call the license "medically certified", etc...
It's not that f*cking difficult to post a price matrix. Microsoft even has one for Windows 2008 here.
It doesn't include the charity discounts, or volume licensing prices, but at least you get a rough idea how much it costs.
With the Novell solution, I'm wondering if it's going to cost my small business $300, $5,000, or $50,000 to use.
Give your price up-front. It's ok if there are special deals for special businesses or quantities. Just give your 'this is the worst case' price up front.
It's like going to a car dealership. I walk in and see a car for $10,000, I know I can probably get it down to $8,000. But I know that a car marked as $20,000 won't drop that far.
I don't want to waste my time looking at a Lincoln when my budget is $10,000. -
Re:Why Vista Really Failed
Vista needed beefier hardware because it wasn't tuned to run on a 1GB machine with integrated Intel graphics.
We could go with that. W7 beta definitely runs OK on a 1GB machine with integrated Intel graphics.
It doesn't cover the slow file copy problem, though. Or the multimedia interfering with networking problem. Or the problem with the backdoor that listens over the Internet by default for authentication attempts despite the fact that best practice has for 10 years to by default not do that.
But yeah, not running on bog standard hardware - that's a nit some people would pick.
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Re:Well
well MS claim ( http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?C2=1173 ) they will be supporting XP proffesional x64 edition for as long as they are supporting the other editions of XP.
The OEMs seem to be less enthusiastic though, while loads of them offer supported downgrades to XP proffesional I haven't seen any offering them to XP proffesional X64 edition (both editions are covered under the vista buisness downgrade rights afaict).
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Re:False, false false...
Sadly MS lies on that spec page they submitted to Apple. The Download link will eventually land you to 1.0 Download which is not anything like 2.0 which everyone uses.
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=1.0 (notice the 1.0 mentioned).
In fact, they actually let PPC macs download the Intel only binary once and left everyone with a non working, initialising plugin on their Internet Plugins folder. Such pages are planted on purpose so they will have a FALSE answer when a real pro media IT manager asks about multi platform support. Same trick they do with Windows Media Player. Instead of warning Intel users NOT to install it, they let them download (also submit to Apple downloads) and they end up with a non compatible crap breaking every single browser on their OS.
That is the company we deal with here. A company who doesn't hesitate pulling such kid like tricks.
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Re:Not Samba?
I'm afraid I disagree with you there.
I have set up several domains based on XP clients with a Samba Server as Domain Controller.
It will handle user authentication, profiles, user shares, group shares and domain trusts.
(even sucurity policy through ntconfig.pol )
Using LDAP as authentication backend also gives you a Directory Service (as in Address Book)From what I have heard, recent versions of Samba (less that 3 years old) can serve up a full AD implementation, but you need a Windows Workstation to administer the domain.
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You are wrong
Given that you need servers with 5000 CALs
You are wrong. Windows Media Server is licensed per server, not per client. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/server/version.aspx
I'd do it for 10.000. Easily.
Assuming you would be paid $40/hr (thus about $75 including overhead), that is about 133 hours of work. Even a conservative 150 hours, that is about a month to create, test and integrate a system that works as easy as youtube without using Silverlight or Flash. Keep in mind if the backend doesn't support your solution (like the website is centered on ASP.NET), you might wind up building the whole thing from scratch too.
Remember the requirement is to make it embed and if you are forced to use Flash or Silverlight, offer a secondary stream.
It's just that he
... got money from microsoft.You keep saying this, but I've yet to see any proof. You do realize that if you are using the FEC as proof, any donor has to disclose their employeer, right? The FEC then lumps all the employees who donated from an employer into a single number. Given how many people work for Microsoft, and how many of them live here in "ultra-liberal" Washington State, I wouldn't be surprised to see a spike in donations from Microsoft employees. I'd expect the same from Google too.
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Re:Remind me again...
The Opera complaint was cheap but fun.
It was real, and it worked, and forced Microsoft to change to standards mode by default in IE8:
"While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue"
See the bolded part there? That's Microsoft being terrified because of Opera's complaint.
Because administration needs to educate companies that just don't behave.
The only way to teach a company is to hit their wallet.
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Opera forced Microsoft to be standards compliantYou can agree or disagree with Opera's antitrust complaint, but the fact is that it worked:
While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue
So even if this thing goes nowhere, Opera's complaint still forced Microsoft to default to standards mode in IE8.
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Re:When is someone going to point out...
If you want the terms of use for Microsoft software, here they are: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx.
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Re:Turn off rpc?
You might want to read this: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx
This indicates it's the Server service's handling of rpc requests that's at fault. Does the Server service not use the rpc service to handle rpc requests? I assumed it did. Can you definitively say it doesn't? How do you know, just out of curiosity?
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Re:Genuine Advantage Validation
So don't go through the automated process. Send them to Microsoft's Security Bulletin Search and they can search for the updates by hand.
I do this for my 2K system and my parents XP systems. Not because the systems aren't legitimate but because we have dial-up and getting automated updates would take forever. I just d/l the patches at work, plop them on my thumb drive and install.
One caveat. Every so often there is a patch/update which does require you to validate your system. You are notified so you have the option of not getting that update (or have a friend get it for you). -
Re:Do you really want to know?
Actually, many (most?) Microsoft installers I've seen recently now ask if you want to be included in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, with No being the default option.
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Re:Linux on the desktop
Ah, so that's why they're called Sticky Keys.
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Re:amazing
The minimum spec for the original XP and for SP3 both is a 233Mhz processor and 64MB of RAM. A 300Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM was recommended. These were extremely low-balled numbers, but a system configured such would boot and run.
Many of the applications require much more than that, though. IE7 requires 64MB minimum for just itself. Here's that requirements page.
If you take 64 MB for the OS and 64 MB for the browser, a 128MB system will probably swap from a single browser window loading a complex page, let alone doing a large download.
Now, add in Windows Firewall, some anti-virus software, and a couple of other resident programs. For testing, most of this should be turned off. The Windows Firewall I'd leave on because my Linux box would have iptables and possibly Shorewall or some other management wrapper around iptables running.
Firefox 3 isn't exactly stingy on memory use, if that's what he's using on both platforms. Neither is Flash, as it seems most download speed test web sites use.
So, yeah, he might be swapping pretty heavily at 512 MB although you're right that the base system would run okay with even less than that.
That's not the only explanation for such a difference, though. He might be running on-demand virus scanning against the download. He might not be telling us that he's saving the download to disk and one has a faster, after-market hard drive in it. An uncontrolled test is only of anecdotal value.
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Re:Is this....
That's a myth.
Clarification about the use of QoS in end computers that are running Windows XP
As in Windows 2000, programs can take advantage of QoS through the QoS APIs in Windows XP. One hundred percent of the network bandwidth is available to be shared by all programs unless a program specifically requests priority bandwidth. This "reserved" bandwidth is still available to other programs unless the requesting program is sending data. By default, programs can reserve up to an aggregate bandwidth of 20 percent of the underlying link speed on each interface on an end computer. If the program that reserved the bandwidth is not sending sufficient data to use it, the unused part of the reserved bandwidth is available for other data flows on the same host.
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Re:Nokia did that already
I don't know why they did not take a normal QR and print it a lot larger. What I meant by "honesty" is that the only explanation I can think of is that there is a printing resolution limit (probably due to color printing alignment issues). They don't mention this limit but don't want to lie in their example, so to make the QR bigger they made it have a lot more data than necessary.
Ok, I understand what you mean about bigger -- but honestly, I've seen lots of QR codes that size -- they're typically the ones that don't scan. Not printing it a lot larger, is sort of exactly the point -- small QR codes are difficult to scan reliably. MS tags do a better job in that area.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag...
I don't know what you are talking about, and you seem to be ignoring my TinyURL example. TinyURL is a "redirecting service" that can be used by QR codes. The Microsoft one says "123456" and you store the actual link on Microsoft's servers. A TinyURL QR would say "http://tinyurl.com/123456" and you store the actual link on TinyURL's servers. The TinyURL is 19 bytes larger, but you are not locked into using TinyURL!
I meant to say that the URL encoded into the tag was merely http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. As you said, the MS tag just stored an ID. The ID was looked up against a webservice, which redirected you to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ -- I thought that maybe you mistook the URL of the webservice (plus the ID etc.) -- all visible in the browser address bar, as the URL encoded into the tag.
Having said that, I do agree that the QR code is way more complex than what I'd expect for a URL that size. I didn't mean to ignore your TinyURL example -- but it's not exactly good design to have to rely on TinyURL -- I mean, if you have to do that, why not just do exactly what MS tags does in the first place?
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Re:Nokia did that already
I don't know why they did not take a normal QR and print it a lot larger. What I meant by "honesty" is that the only explanation I can think of is that there is a printing resolution limit (probably due to color printing alignment issues). They don't mention this limit but don't want to lie in their example, so to make the QR bigger they made it have a lot more data than necessary.
Ok, I understand what you mean about bigger -- but honestly, I've seen lots of QR codes that size -- they're typically the ones that don't scan. Not printing it a lot larger, is sort of exactly the point -- small QR codes are difficult to scan reliably. MS tags do a better job in that area.
The biggest dishonesty is they they are comparing a very long URL with a Microsoft number being looked up on their servers.
I think you're mistaking the redirecting service for the data encoded in the tag...
I don't know what you are talking about, and you seem to be ignoring my TinyURL example. TinyURL is a "redirecting service" that can be used by QR codes. The Microsoft one says "123456" and you store the actual link on Microsoft's servers. A TinyURL QR would say "http://tinyurl.com/123456" and you store the actual link on TinyURL's servers. The TinyURL is 19 bytes larger, but you are not locked into using TinyURL!
I meant to say that the URL encoded into the tag was merely http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. As you said, the MS tag just stored an ID. The ID was looked up against a webservice, which redirected you to http://www.microsoft.com/tag/ -- I thought that maybe you mistook the URL of the webservice (plus the ID etc.) -- all visible in the browser address bar, as the URL encoded into the tag.
Having said that, I do agree that the QR code is way more complex than what I'd expect for a URL that size. I didn't mean to ignore your TinyURL example -- but it's not exactly good design to have to rely on TinyURL -- I mean, if you have to do that, why not just do exactly what MS tags does in the first place?
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Re:PDF isn't a proprietary format
Office 2007 does have "Save as PDF," but it must be downloaded separately from Microsoft.
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what a useless article
So where is the paper/thesis/documentation of any type whatsoever that describes their p2p solution?
Collaborative p2p worm containment has been around for ever, what does Senthil Cheetancheri's proposal has to offer over previous work?
a small subset of prior work that does exactly what the clueless article sais they do.
http://gridsec.usc.edu/wormshield/
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=66830PS: I doubt Senthil's research reinvents the wheel but I would appreciate an actual link to his work from the
/. story.