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Let's see: 32K file name and path limits (instad of 255)

NTFS doesn't have a 255 character limit on paths. The default file handler API in Windows (even 7/2008) is limited to ~254 characters. You can force force the use of the newer API (with 32K path lengths) by using \\?\, but I've personally found application support to be spotty, even under MS applications.

Specifics available here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

This is the important part of the letter I sent off to my Congressman. I am open-sourcing it, so feel free to copy and modify as needed:

Discussion of H.R. 3261 (Stop Online Piracy Act)

Deterring physical counterfeiting is a worthy goal – By physical counterfeiting I refer to things like DVD disks and other consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and military goods as mentioned in the bill. The best way to catch people selling counterfeit goods for gain is to “follow the money”. This is because to make any gain off their activities, the money has to reach them somehow, and so leads you to them.

Sec 102 violates Due Process – It authorizes the Attorney General to determine who is committing a crime and take action against them on his own recognizance, before any determination of guilt. It bypasses long cherished legal principles such as “presumption of innocence” and “right to face your accuser”.

Sec 201 misunderstands the value of distribution – I will use Microsoft Office as an example. If you visit http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/try/ you can see that Microsoft offers a free trial of their Office software, a major commercial product that sells for up to $500 depending on version. They distribute it for free for the obvious reason that they want people to try out their software.

Mere distribution is not the same as a full license to use the software, with service, support, and customization, as evidenced by the above example. Therefore punishing someone for the act of distribution as if that constitutes the full retail value, as section 201 does, is wrong.

Attempts to block communication will not work – The bill includes what it refers to as “reasonable measures” to block access to infringing websites. The original design of the Internet was to preserve military communications in the face of damage during a nuclear war. More recently as a commercial network, great effort has gone into making it reliable in the face of inevitable hardware failures. So by design, any attempt to block data flow will not work short of shutting down the network completely.

In particular, the Domain Name System (DNS) interference (which I understand is being reconsidered by the bill’s sponsor) will not work for the same reason criminals get disposable phones. The DNS is essentially the phone book for the Internet. It associates a name with a number which the network knows how to connect to, just like the telephone network does. If one number is blocked, serious infringers will simply get another one, under a new name.

Blocking websites will not stop illicit activities because there are many other methods of transferring digital data. The saying goes “it’s all ones and zeroes”, meaning binary data bits. Computers and the Internet cannot distinguish a photo of your cat from the latest Hollywood movie during transmission and storage, because it literally is just a long string of 1’s and 0’s. The interpretation of what the data means only happens once a program loads it and a human sees it.

To block illicit activities, you would have to block every possible channel of communication, including email, removable disks and drives, even the old phone network, which people used before broadband. If you block one channel, wrongdoers will simply use a different one. I won’t bore you with a list of possible methods, but suffice it to say I know a number of them just involving the Internet, but not websites you might try to block.

I agree with but since no one seemed to have any answers for this person... I have not used these but they seem to be options a Dreamweaver replacement. NVU http://net2.com/nvu/ Quanta Plus http://freecode.com/projects/quantaplus Amaya http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ Blue Griffon http://bluegriffon.org/ Hope this helps the original poster. Oh and if you just want free as in beer. http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express I have used any of them but out of this is you will probably find something that will fill the bill.

I hadn't heard of Blue Griffon, so I looked it up and found that it is made by the same guy who made Nvu all those years ago. Nvu hasn't been updated for over 6 years, so as a result the community forked it and it became KompoZer. Now, though, KompoZer hasn't been updated in almost 2 years. The other options don't appear to be faring much better on the release front. It looks like Blue Griffon might be the way to go at the moment.

LWATCDR posted:

I agree with but since no one seemed to have any answers for this person... I have not used these but they seem to be options a Dreamweaver replacement. NVU http://net2.com/nvu/ Quanta Plus http://freecode.com/projects/quantaplus Amaya http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ Blue Griffon http://bluegriffon.org/ Hope this helps the original poster. Oh and if you just want free as in beer. http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express I have used any of them but out of this is you will probably find something that will fill the bill.

Good of you to actually address the OP's question. However:

NVU - only useful for sites hosted by the program's vendor.

Quanta Plus - only runs on Linux (DW is a Mac/Windows application).

Amaya - hasn't been updated since 2009, and it's utterly broken in many respects (can't cut-and-paste tables, for instance).

Blue Griffon - shows promise. I haven't used it, so I don't know how well it works, but at least it's currently under development. Otoh, it's still in beta, it's "free to download" - which means they plan to charge some unknown amount for the commercial release version - and it has a bunch of add-ons that are NOT free, and do not appear to be OS.

Visual Web Studio Express - is a Windows application. OP may well be working in a Mac environment. Also, resulting HTML is likely bloatacious and nearly impossible to hand-tune.

This has the smell of Lamport's bakery algorithm.

What is significant about the bakery algorithm is that it implements mutual exclusion without relying on any lower-level mutual exclusion. ...
I don't know how many people realize how remarkable this algorithm is. Perhaps the person who realized it better than anyone is Anatol Holt, a former colleague at Massachusetts Computer Associates. When I showed him the algorithm and its proof and pointed out its amazing property, he was shocked. He refused to believe it could be true. He could find nothing wrong with my proof, but he was certain there must be a flaw. He left that night determined to find it. I don't know when he finally reconciled himself to the algorithm's correctness. ...
For a couple of years after my discovery of the bakery algorithm, everything I learned about concurrency came from studying it.

The problem with the bakery algorithm is its assumption that you have unbounded integers.

From Lamport's comment about "On Self-stabilizing Systems":

The note contains the intriguing sentence: "There is a complicated modified version of the bakery algorithm in which the values of all variables are bounded." I never wrote down that version, and I'm not sure what I had in mind. But I think I was thinking of roughly the following modification ...

A distributed ratcheting attack against the backery algorithm is very interesting to nerds in the know. Someday I'd like to sue someone who interrupted me with a nuisance phone call for the value of what I was just about to write down. Lamport could argue for 8 figures.

They did resurrect Frontpage, it's called Expression Web now

I've definitely had problems at work with long paths on Windows 7. And seems like others have problems too:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/53779044-d453-458b-b8c4-96d41711ea69

Microsoft does not say encouraging stuff: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx#win32_file_namespaces

I've definitely had problems at work with long paths on Windows 7. And seems like others have problems too:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/53779044-d453-458b-b8c4-96d41711ea69

Microsoft does not say encouraging stuff: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx#win32_file_namespaces

... to not one.

The real world disagrees with your statement: we have TFS projects with long directory and file names, such that we cannot map the entire TFS source in a single folder. Even naming it e.g. "c:\x" (or "d:\", putting it on a separate drive), the paths and files still exceed MAX_PATH (which is 260, not 255).

So, this feature will be useful to our shop.

It's also useful for "rolling backups"; I administer family machines, and one has been upgraded from a desktop, to a laptop, to another laptop. The first upgrade, I copied all the files to "c:\e" (old machine was an eMachine). That laptop died, we used a restoration company that started with a "G" to get the data back (now we backup via WHS), and I saved that in "c:\g" (so there's a "c:\g\e" with the desktop's files). The third machine (second laptop) has "c:\h" (which also contains "c:\h\g\e"). Other times I've saved backups with more descriptive names, like "Backup of the Dell Inspiron 5150, 2011-11-11", and sometimes those backups fit inside each other like expressed above.

So, I have examples from both home and work where having longer-than-MAX_PATH file/path names would be useful.

I agree with but since no one seemed to have any answers for this person...
I have not used these but they seem to be options a Dreamweaver replacement.
NVU http://net2.com/nvu/
Quanta Plus http://freecode.com/projects/quantaplus
Amaya http://www.w3.org/Amaya/
Blue Griffon http://bluegriffon.org/
Hope this helps the original poster.
Oh and if you just want free as in beer.
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express
I have used any of them but out of this is you will probably find something that will fill the bill.

Symbolic links to directories are fine as long as you use junctions (available in WinXP) instead of symbolic links (available in Win7 (Vista?)).

Symbolic links (not junctions) to files or directories are recommended as prohibited, and Win7 seems to ship that way:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349804(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_16

Expression Studio 4 Web Professional * Estimated Retail Price $149 USD

Expression Studio 4 Ultimate * Estimated Retail Price $599 USD

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Purchase.aspx

I do wish Windows had a sane soft-link system like *nix does; I've yet to run into an application that automatically dereferences a .lnk when opening it. You have to futz around with opening the link manually, reading it's redirect, and then opening THAT instead. Very crude and ugly.

Man, if only.

(OK, it's not quite sane considering you have to distinguish between links to files and links to directories at creation time. I'm not sure what happens if you flip it behind its back.)

Seriously; why does it have to be open source software?

If you're developing with PHP and a slice of ASP, as such also aiming for Microsoft environments then why not get their Expression Studio 4 Web professional ?

First its affordable; hardly as expensive as Dreamweaver is. Second; it allows for some "WYSIWYG"-like editing but focuses on using an editor where you can get a good view of what your result is going to look like. Third; it ships with a graphical editor. Not as extensive as Gimp or Photoshop, but its very usable for getting contents ready for the web.

And the feature I like best is the option to check up on how your webpage will look like in different browsers. Obviously all strains of their Explorer but they also included support for Firefox and Safari as well. Make no mistake here; its fully using the engine of the browser to render the page. Even allows you see the differences side by side.

It supports HTML, PHP, and obviously ASP as well. Granted; its not open source and also not freely available. But why does that have to be a requirement if all you want is get a job done?

7) Geometry Data Types perhaps? There might be some merit to this one if anything. I'm not going to waste any time digging further into the aspects of your feud though.

I'm going to hell for saying this... But take a look at Microsoft Expression

I tried Dreamweaver and just didn't like it. Played around with several other WYSIWYG editors and got frustrated with them crashing or making buggy code. On a whim I tried MS Expression (I was really doubtful being that is was the successor to FrontPage). I about shit myself when I tried it, it was awesome!!!

Granted, I don't do much web development, which is why I like WYSIWYG editors, but I showed it to my friends that are web developers (text editor gurus) and they dropped their jaws, they liked it!

Why not try Visual Web Developer? Its free, and the closest to what you're looking for in the WYSIWYG aspect. http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-web-developer-express

Here are the requirements for the exam she passed according to this guy. Suffice it to say you need to know a little more then that. If you aren't impressed by that I would hate to be your kid. Clearly setting records just isn't good enough for you.

The prerequisites to making the switch is first and most importantly having an appropriate business case for OLAP. The second prerequisite is that you've tried doing analytics in a traditional RDMS, perhaps jumped on to the NoSQL bandwagon, and you've failed at it (i.e. success for a little while but then your data eventually brings your queries down to its knees). Don't worry, failure isn't necessarily wrong, it's just you and your team needed the experience before you could make the next leap.

The risks are a knowledge jump in to an OLAP mindset from a traditional SQL mindset. Invest in you and your fellow developer's knowledge. Push back on management and sales when they want more immediate results and let them know that it will take 3-5 months to replace your current system. Do your proper technology evaluations. Learn FoodMart and Adventureworks and let them guide you down the path of good fact and dimension design. Don't snub your nose at Microsoft as they absorbed the company in the 80's that basically pioneered this stuff and made billions, but also don't take their stuff too literally as there are several products out there and some that do things better.

Read The Data Warehouse Toolkit thoroughly and practice using Mondrian which is an open source Java OLAP engine that can sit on top of PostgreSQL, MySQL, and others. Find a good ETL tool rather than trying to write your own at first and don't be afraid to force your internal users to use this tool to create their facts. Don't worry if you don't get it the first time, but keep trying and keep discussing with your fellow developers as it takes a team to work out all the kinks. Later on you'll probably end up seeing how you did things wrong, but hopefully you can get most things right in the beginning.

By magical computer I suppose you mean... Being able to overwrite the area of disc that contains revoked crypto certificates, and using a known broken crytpo certificate.. Like what's already happened, but ok, we can call that a magic computer.

See: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms01-017

Wow, I didn't even have to come up with a new technique, just rehash an old one.

The problem with this is that I use task manager to see how close to the limit my system is, and to gauge how much memory to get on a system. It's all well and fine to use free memory for caching disk or whatever, but I'd like my "gas gauge" back please! Give me a memory monitor that actually tells me how much memory I could use for my apps, and how close to the edge I am.

As things are, you need Process Explorer for that, and a decent understanding of virtual memory management in NT to understand what it actually tells you.

Why are you talking about phones? We're talking about UEFI here, which will be used for your next PC hardware... Will you do without a computer as well?

If by "PC hardware" you're referring to x86-based machines, the offending Microsoft document says:

MANDATORY: On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following:

a) It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK.

b) If the user ends up deleting the PK then, upon exiting the Custom Mode firmware setup, the system will be operating in Setup Mode with Secure Boot turned off.

c) The firmware setup shall indicate if Secure Boot is turned on, and if it is operated in Standard or Custom Mode. The firmware setup must provide an option to return from Custom to Standard Mode which restores the factory defaults.

On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enable.

So, just as they mandate "can't allow tweaking" for ARM, they appear to be mandating "can allow tweaking" for non-ARM.

From now on, It'll also be your fault for not having backups:

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows XP
OS X (leopard, snow leopard, Lion*)
Linux
Linux
Linux...

(some of the linux methods will also work on OS X and Windows....)

*Lion doesn't even require a separate partition or disk. Of course, it will not protect you against disk failure in that case.

From now on, It'll also be your fault for not having backups:

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows XP
OS X (leopard, snow leopard, Lion*)
Linux
Linux
Linux...

(some of the linux methods will also work on OS X and Windows....)

*Lion doesn't even require a separate partition or disk. Of course, it will not protect you against disk failure in that case.

From now on, It'll also be your fault for not having backups:

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows XP
OS X (leopard, snow leopard, Lion*)
Linux
Linux
Linux...

(some of the linux methods will also work on OS X and Windows....)

*Lion doesn't even require a separate partition or disk. Of course, it will not protect you against disk failure in that case.

Why, oh why, does the logo for TwC's tenth anniversary look like a dangling dong, or standard medical journal iconography for a penis and bladder??
Even worse, it's got the outline of testicles underneath... with GREAT BIG BLUE BALLS...(wow, is that supposed to say something about the org?)
And a yellow drip at the tip???? Is it peeing itself? Or maybe it's a giant orgasmic blast of security!!!!

No kidding, I couldn't make this crap up. Go look at http://www.microsoft.com/twc in the funny purple box.

How in the hell did this sort of Ariel+Phallus/LandOLakes-Boobies image get thru Microsoft PR review?

What's the tagline for the next ten years? "TwC Next, UUUNNNH!" or maybe "TwC Next: It Burns!"

Removing the GUI is forcing people to learn more efficient ways to manage their environment.

Removing the GUI would be a stupid move by Microsoft. I doubt they would actually do that despite what Don Jones says.

As the summary says, Microsoft is telling _developers_ of server software not to assume the presence of a GUI. So if you're writing software for servers, you may have to provide configuration and management methods via the CLI as well.

If Microsoft somehow comes up with a decent standardized way of making writing such interfaces easier, server software for windows might actually end up easier to manage than for Linux. Not sure if that is possible, but perhaps the geniuses in Microsoft Research can think of a way. The ".Net framework" of server management, or something.

While Microsoft doesn't have to much more efficient in that the GUI isn't a big resource drain for most server hardware, there are many areas where Windows as a Server is still behind.

For example:
1) Windows Services aren't shutdown in an order that respects the service dependencies as provided/registered by the services. The service dependencies are only used during start up[1]! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/203878
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms685149(v=vs.85).aspx

2) To make matters worse a .Net service can't register to be notified that windows is shutting down: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7437590/is-it-possible-to-register-for-preshutdown-service-events-using-net

3) The Windows event log looks nice in (some) theory but is a piece of crap in practice. IMO tail -f syslog |grep -i pattern |grep -v foo works better in practice. Yes if you're Facebook/Google scale you'd need something much better than syslog, but whatever it is, it's not the Windows Event Log/Viewer.

4) In normal Windows convention and operation you cannot rename/overwrite folders/files that are in use (aka open). This makes updates/upgrades harder to do well and in a consistent manner. This is one of the reasons why on Windows you often have to reboot just to update stuff that in Unix/Linux servers would not need a reboot to be updated. If you have $$$, you can work around this by having load balancing (but it still sucks for a developer to have to resort to this for _reliable_[2] updates: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556 ) . It's not so simple on most Unix/Linux machines to some of this "perfectly" either - since you normally can't do two directory renames atomically: e.g. move the directory "current" to "bkp" and "new" to "current" atomically, but just doing it and hoping for the best is often good enough ;).

Caveat: I'm not an expert on Windows (or Unix) stuff (only started on VB.Net last year) so maybe I'm wrong. But if I am do let me know because I would really like easy solutions to the above (no, I do not consider it easy to write a Windows C++ service that registers for Preshutdown and then shuts down the .Net stuff in the correct order, yes it can be done, but it'll take time that I'd rather spend on other stuff).

[1] And quite often just because the OS has successfully started a service doesn't mean the service is ready for work, so services that depend on it still need to check for readiness - this is not a Windows only problem (can happen on Unix/Linux machines as well), but Microsoft could create a way for a windows service to say it's "ready" and allow services to depend on a service being "ready" rather than just "started".

[2] Yes you can have something shutdown your service and try to do the moves and copies (of

Removing the GUI is forcing people to learn more efficient ways to manage their environment.

Removing the GUI would be a stupid move by Microsoft. I doubt they would actually do that despite what Don Jones says.

As the summary says, Microsoft is telling _developers_ of server software not to assume the presence of a GUI. So if you're writing software for servers, you may have to provide configuration and management methods via the CLI as well.

If Microsoft somehow comes up with a decent standardized way of making writing such interfaces easier, server software for windows might actually end up easier to manage than for Linux. Not sure if that is possible, but perhaps the geniuses in Microsoft Research can think of a way. The ".Net framework" of server management, or something.

While Microsoft doesn't have to much more efficient in that the GUI isn't a big resource drain for most server hardware, there are many areas where Windows as a Server is still behind.

For example:
1) Windows Services aren't shutdown in an order that respects the service dependencies as provided/registered by the services. The service dependencies are only used during start up[1]! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/203878
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms685149(v=vs.85).aspx

2) To make matters worse a .Net service can't register to be notified that windows is shutting down: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7437590/is-it-possible-to-register-for-preshutdown-service-events-using-net

3) The Windows event log looks nice in (some) theory but is a piece of crap in practice. IMO tail -f syslog |grep -i pattern |grep -v foo works better in practice. Yes if you're Facebook/Google scale you'd need something much better than syslog, but whatever it is, it's not the Windows Event Log/Viewer.

4) In normal Windows convention and operation you cannot rename/overwrite folders/files that are in use (aka open). This makes updates/upgrades harder to do well and in a consistent manner. This is one of the reasons why on Windows you often have to reboot just to update stuff that in Unix/Linux servers would not need a reboot to be updated. If you have $$$, you can work around this by having load balancing (but it still sucks for a developer to have to resort to this for _reliable_[2] updates: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556 ) . It's not so simple on most Unix/Linux machines to some of this "perfectly" either - since you normally can't do two directory renames atomically: e.g. move the directory "current" to "bkp" and "new" to "current" atomically, but just doing it and hoping for the best is often good enough ;).

Caveat: I'm not an expert on Windows (or Unix) stuff (only started on VB.Net last year) so maybe I'm wrong. But if I am do let me know because I would really like easy solutions to the above (no, I do not consider it easy to write a Windows C++ service that registers for Preshutdown and then shuts down the .Net stuff in the correct order, yes it can be done, but it'll take time that I'd rather spend on other stuff).

[1] And quite often just because the OS has successfully started a service doesn't mean the service is ready for work, so services that depend on it still need to check for readiness - this is not a Windows only problem (can happen on Unix/Linux machines as well), but Microsoft could create a way for a windows service to say it's "ready" and allow services to depend on a service being "ready" rather than just "started".

[2] Yes you can have something shutdown your service and try to do the moves and copies (of

Removing the GUI is forcing people to learn more efficient ways to manage their environment.

Removing the GUI would be a stupid move by Microsoft. I doubt they would actually do that despite what Don Jones says.

As the summary says, Microsoft is telling _developers_ of server software not to assume the presence of a GUI. So if you're writing software for servers, you may have to provide configuration and management methods via the CLI as well.

If Microsoft somehow comes up with a decent standardized way of making writing such interfaces easier, server software for windows might actually end up easier to manage than for Linux. Not sure if that is possible, but perhaps the geniuses in Microsoft Research can think of a way. The ".Net framework" of server management, or something.

While Microsoft doesn't have to much more efficient in that the GUI isn't a big resource drain for most server hardware, there are many areas where Windows as a Server is still behind.

For example:
1) Windows Services aren't shutdown in an order that respects the service dependencies as provided/registered by the services. The service dependencies are only used during start up[1]! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/203878
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms685149(v=vs.85).aspx

2) To make matters worse a .Net service can't register to be notified that windows is shutting down: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7437590/is-it-possible-to-register-for-preshutdown-service-events-using-net

3) The Windows event log looks nice in (some) theory but is a piece of crap in practice. IMO tail -f syslog |grep -i pattern |grep -v foo works better in practice. Yes if you're Facebook/Google scale you'd need something much better than syslog, but whatever it is, it's not the Windows Event Log/Viewer.

4) In normal Windows convention and operation you cannot rename/overwrite folders/files that are in use (aka open). This makes updates/upgrades harder to do well and in a consistent manner. This is one of the reasons why on Windows you often have to reboot just to update stuff that in Unix/Linux servers would not need a reboot to be updated. If you have $$$, you can work around this by having load balancing (but it still sucks for a developer to have to resort to this for _reliable_[2] updates: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556 ) . It's not so simple on most Unix/Linux machines to some of this "perfectly" either - since you normally can't do two directory renames atomically: e.g. move the directory "current" to "bkp" and "new" to "current" atomically, but just doing it and hoping for the best is often good enough ;).

Caveat: I'm not an expert on Windows (or Unix) stuff (only started on VB.Net last year) so maybe I'm wrong. But if I am do let me know because I would really like easy solutions to the above (no, I do not consider it easy to write a Windows C++ service that registers for Preshutdown and then shuts down the .Net stuff in the correct order, yes it can be done, but it'll take time that I'd rather spend on other stuff).

[1] And quite often just because the OS has successfully started a service doesn't mean the service is ready for work, so services that depend on it still need to check for readiness - this is not a Windows only problem (can happen on Unix/Linux machines as well), but Microsoft could create a way for a windows service to say it's "ready" and allow services to depend on a service being "ready" rather than just "started".

[2] Yes you can have something shutdown your service and try to do the moves and copies (of

If you run Windows Server 2008 R2, the "recommended" setup is to install the OS without a full GUI, called Windows Server Core. It includes a very minimalist set of tools, such as "task manager" that you can launch, but not much else.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee391626(v=VS.85).aspx

I tried doing that but always came up with the same image. :P

Considering that the BSD network stack is pretty much THE reference, whatever you code has to stay compatible with it.

"Compatible" at the API level or "compatible" at the network level? ("Compatible" at the API level is irrelevant, as it's not going to happen; PE is not a.out or ELF.)

So you're going to need to copy ALL the BSD constants,

No, you're not. Nobody's going to give a damn about AF_DATAKIT/PF_DATAKIT, for example. You're only going to have to copy the names of the ones that matter, namely AF_INET and AF_INET6.

and ALL the BSD typedefs,

Again, you'll only have to copy the ones used in socket calls.

So, tell us, how are you going to write something that complies with the standard without those constants, typedefs, and api? Magic? Time machine? Million Monkeys?

So, tell us, how are you going to write something that complies with various UN*X standards without using the code of an existing implementation?

As indicated, you don't have to copy the exact definitions of the constants; even the existing *BSDs don't all have the same numerical value for AF_INET6 (28 in FreeBSD and DragonFly BSD and 24 in NetBSD and OpenBSD; it's 30 in Mac OS X and presumably iOS).

In any case, even if they copied and pasted some typedef calls, that, in and of itself, doesn't mean that it's derived from the BSD code in any interesting way.

As for the "api", an API isn't code, it's documentation. There are a number of cases where multiple implementations of an API exist without sharing code. (You may have heard of some software called "the Linux kernel" and "the GNU C library" - and those APIs include more than the socket calls, so arguing that the Linux networking code may have been in part based on the BSD socket code is insufficient to dismiss those examples.)

Didn't Microsoft buy the company that created it?

Not even that.. they licensed the technology. PrimseSense is currently showing products at CES. ASUS showed a Primsense offering as well.. the WAVI Xtion at last year's CES.

I think the Microsoft Marketing department had more to do with Kinect hardware development ( putting the logo on the reference design ) than Microsoft Research. I wonder if MS even did the XBox driver for Kinect.

Here's the Microsoft press release

Tell you what, even, IF Microsoft "stole" research from every single one of those organizations, how exactly did they put it together? You think all the work from 6 disparate labs just fits together like a puzzle? And without doing a shred R&D work, Microsoft managed to become the biggest software company in the world? And despite publishing thousands of papers in peer reviewed journals, absolutely none of this research is coming back into the company?

Sounds to me like you're suffering from an acute case of cognitive dissonance. "I hate microsoft products. But microsoft does tons of original, publishable research that that computer science community at large finds valuable. Therefore that research couldn't possibly be used in the products I hate!"

I'm big on the Linux. Like it a lot. Yes, another linux nut.

Yes... another Linux nut indeed.

Who still pays for antivirus?

People who buy cheap machines from OEMs that come laden with crapware. After the 6 month "free trial" the software pops-up a big glaring "you're not protected anymore please pay" sign, and most people probably give in.

I just encountered TWO different "free trial" antivirus programs installed on a family member's cheap E-Machines POS (they really cashed-in there). I removed both and replaced it with MSE.

The sad thing is, you can get a crapware-free PC, but the price premium is astounding. I'm constantly amazed just how much companies like Symantec pay to put their shitty "free trial that is not a free trial" products on PCs. And since people insist on paying the least they can (insert above family member here), they will always be flooded with crapware.

Regardless of what corporate AV suite you intend to go with (Symantec or not), be sure you have at least 4GB of RAM installed for all Windows 7 workstations

How would one use more than 3 GB of RAM with a device for which a 64-bit driver is either unavailable or defective? An example of the latter is Zebra's LP2844 printer driver, which wouldn't work with my company's in-house label printing software.

I thought Microsoft would make it easy to answer the question "What will it cost to protect the eleventh PC in this organization?" but I couldn't make head nor tail of Microsoft's PDF document describing pricing for Forefront.

It is rare indeed that a programmer has the artistic eye for design and are a great programmer.

Is it really that rare, or are you just looking for love in all the wrong places?

John Brockman: the man with a three digit speed dial

I quickly realised, but did not articulate, something the anthropologist Gregory Bateson told me 10 years later: that of all our human inventions, economic man was by far the dullest.

We've had superlative typography since the 1980s, but instead the world standardized on Widow Maker and other typographic abominations. Economic man noted the score, and the rest is WYG will make your eyes bleed. Then Steve figured out how to pour feminine charms back into the genie bottle by making the terms of engagement non-negotiable. That's one way to do it. Who knows what user interface nightmares ensue once you begin speaking with each other.

The contributors to Edge are what I call third-culture thinkers or intellectuals. Not only are they focused on science-minded pursuits based on evidence and empiricism, they are also public communicators, reaching out to the public by means of their books, lectures, etc. They live by their wits, and doing so in the changing times of the digital age is a challenge. Their concerns are very different than, say, the casual user, who has signed up for a social network and by default becomes the product whose private information is sold to advertisers.

If it's asking too much to straddle two culture, how about being insanely good at just one? From How (La)TeX changed the face of Mathematics

Big mistakes people should stop making:
1. Worrying too much about formatting and not enough about content.
2. Worrying too much about formatting and not enough about content.
3. Worrying too much about formatting and not enough about content.

Tyler Cowen: Be suspicious of stories

Tyler has a nice riff there about how ditching the "good vs evil" depiction of world events immediately raises your IQ by ten points. There are many writers out there who could raise their IQ by an additional ten points investing less in glassy gassy.

Sure, if you want to buy a cheap POS computer.

Say all you need is one point-of-sale application that works on Windows, and it ran on an old computer that recently broke, and a cheap computer will run it adequately. So of course you'd buy a cheap POS computer to replace your old POS computer.

A copy of Windows 7 can be picked up for £60 (£90 something for 7 Pro)

Is that OEM pricing? Because OEM Windows is not licensed for use on one's own computer, only for use on a computer that will be sold to an unrelated party.

Oh true that £60 price was for an OEM copy, how odd that Amazon sells OEM copies to consumers. The "legit" retail price is £90 for 7 Home Premium.

And my POS was not shorthand for point of sale - it was piece of shit. Probably a little harsh (I'm sure budget machines are not *that* bad, but most of them are pretty shoddy). Like I say, there will always be a market for "as cheap as possible".

Sure, if you want to buy a cheap POS computer.

Say all you need is one point-of-sale application that works on Windows, and it ran on an old computer that recently broke, and a cheap computer will run it adequately. So of course you'd buy a cheap POS computer to replace your old POS computer.

A copy of Windows 7 can be picked up for £60 (£90 something for 7 Pro)

Is that OEM pricing? Because OEM Windows is not licensed for use on one's own computer, only for use on a computer that will be sold to an unrelated party.

I'm not sure if the client for the upgraded DB that will run on Vista or win7, will run on XP

I'd be somewhat surprised if a buissness software vendor wasn't supporting XP at this point but stranger things have happened.

We're in a can't afford to upgrade and can't afford not to situation.

A few other options that you may or may not have considered.

Firstly dell will still sell you computers with XP drivers available. Afaict they can't sell off the shelf pre-downgaded machines anymore but you can still downgrade them yourself and if you have an existing dell XP pro CD there will be no activation issues. http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx

MS also offer "XP mode" which is an XP vm running under virtual PC and is available for 7 pro/enterprise/ultimate users at no extra charge. Have you tried running the client for your database under this.

And of course there is the option of just replacing the bloody caps.

More details (but not more content):

Update 7.10.8107.79 indeed "Fixes a Google mail syncing issue."

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/update-history.aspx

You've either ignored or missed that I have one machine running Win 7 64 bit, for the sole reason that an application requires more the 4 GB memory.

I did miss it, oops! I was working up a good froth too! While some trickery permits windows to support 3gigs, you may be surprised to discover that applications on Windows XP 32bit are limited to 2gigs per process*. In reality besides specialized programs, games are the only thing which average users run that could come remotely close to that.

Memory Limits for Windows Releases says:

Limits on memory and address space vary by platform, operating system, and by whether the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE value of the LOADED_IMAGE structure and 4-gigabyte tuning (4GT) are in use. IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE is set or cleared by using the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE linker option.

Linker in this case means it needs to be compiled in, so it's not standard.

As far as Macbooks at work go, my impression is that the users are pretty much on their own on support, but they ask for them anyway. Shrug. I'm not an Apple guy; some things I observe without understanding.

I wouldn't mind a machine to play around with but the experience is riddled with change. The whole copy paste thing screws up my muscle memory (cmd + v instead of ctrl+v) takes some getting used to and when I'm working on something engrossing, details like that really slow me down. Good luck on your migration, I hope it's smooth.

Believe it or not, most major software vendors have licenses and policies in place (e.g., Microsoft) to allow sensitive institutions (governments, defense contractors, etc) access to their source code. The primary reason is actually the opposite of what you say. Customers such as the Indian government want to be able to see what's actually in the code before they agree to buy and install it on their own systems and network.

Yes, this explanation is valid and almost certainly the main reason why this happens. But the fact that any institution can then exploit any bugs they do find is hardly something that can be ignored.

Wow, so the Indian military works with major US vendors like Norton to spy on their own people (and I assume other countries people since it will be the same source????)

I assume they have the source code so they can insert extra bits and dispatch spyware the next time Norton auto-updates?

You get an auto-update, they get a spyware app into your PC. Is that it?
I don't think the scandal here is that the source code was stolen, it is a scandal that Norton cooperates will military spyware!!

Wow, +4 already? The tinfoils must be up and about today.

Believe it or not, most major software vendors have licenses and policies in place (e.g., Microsoft) to allow sensitive institutions (governments, defense contractors, etc) access to their source code. The primary reason is actually the opposite of what you say. Customers such as the Indian government want to be able to see what's actually in the code before they agree to buy and install it on their own systems and network.

Think of it as the 1% always getting to run open-source software because they have the clout to demand it (and under strict a NDA).

Occupy Microsoft!

And I have to say I'm really impressed with the game. The free model seems great too, especially considering that there has always been a huge market place towards Flight Simulator aircrafts, scenery etc. Maybe they will work out some deals with third party developers too. But as I'm under NDA I wont say too much, but you can sign up for beta here. I suggest you do!

I switched to X-Plane after FSX was released. Call me old-style but installing several gigs of accurate terrane beats having to buy add-ons from developers. The flight model and customization is great, too. Not that I'm bashing FS (or Flight), but I think MS has a way to go yet.

And there are no "secret agreements".

Maybe you've never heard of the "Microsoft Action Pack" (for example).

A company I work for uses this special 'partner program' to get tons of benefits. They pay Microsoft about $500/year and Microsoft dumps a metric shit-ton of software in their lap. We get Office Pro Plus, Windows 7 Pro, several editions of Windows 2008 Server, SQL Server, SharePoint, Small Business Server, and Exchange server.

The 'benefit' is that we get all this shit for free and are encouraged to develop 'solutions' based around this garbage. When a customer says 'Gee--that looks interesting, I want it', we get to send them a bill for several thousand dollars even though we did it all for free. We win because we get free shit. Microsoft wins because we didn't develop the same interesting solution using a free platform. The customer loses because they pay something like $8k/CPU for SQL server, $1,500 for Windows Server, and a few thousand more for Exchange (then you have to spend more for CALs for Exchange and Windows Server), and finally they get to pay for the interesting application.

It's all outlined here on the Microsoft site. The action pack is just the shitty little package. They have packages that give you even more for exponentially more money--like the MSDN packages.

And I have to say I'm really impressed with the game. The free model seems great too, especially considering that there has always been a huge market place towards Flight Simulator aircrafts, scenery etc. Maybe they will work out some deals with third party developers too. But as I'm under NDA I wont say too much, but you can sign up for beta here. I suggest you do!

Say what? IE9's javascript performance is quite good. It was better than Chrome 10's. Obviously, Chrome has improved a bit since then, but to say it's pathetic is way out there.

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/benchmarks/sunspider/default.html

DEP is nearly worthless without ASLR. (and vice-versa) See:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2010/12/08/on-the-effectiveness-of-dep-and-aslr.aspx

As for your "ASLR and DEP bypass", it's not bypassing ASLR. It's taking advantage of a vendor's product (Java) that doesn't opt in to ASLR. But you don't need to be at the mercy of your vendors. You can force DEP and ASLR to be on with EMET:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=1677

If you're still on XP, then you get none of that protection.