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Microsoft's New Mantra - It Just Works
bonch writes "Fortune has a story about Microsoft's new philosophy--'It just works.' Jim Allchin details various planned Longhorn features to meet this goal, such as auto-defragmenting in the background, the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously, and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows. Mentions are also made of the competition from Linux, OS X Tiger, and Google."
Wow. Cannot Microsoft even come up with their own mantras rather than copy others? Come on now guys, this is pathetic, but I guess nothing is new under the sun. Seriously though, even now, I still own a bit of stock in Microsoft and I've been to the campus a number of times, so from the annual reports I get, along with friends who work there, I know Microsoft can/should be able to do better than this. (Or can they?)
There are absolutely some capable folks there, so what is the problem? Why must you (almost) always use Apple as a source for inspiration? There is a reason that I moved my investments in Microsoft stock to Apple stock three years ago, and you are doing nothing to make me want to reinvest in Microsoft. Is marketing that out of control up there? Jim, come on now, I've met you and you are one smart guy. Finding the above link to Apple took me all of two seconds in Google and this statement from the article: "Jim Allchin, Microsoft's group vice president for platforms, looked at my Apple PowerBook and smugly pointed out that the number of copies of Windows sold this year will be more than all the Macintosh computers used worldwide." really worries me. It shows an arrogance that is not going to serve you or Microsoft well.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
If there was truth in advertising.
If you put in a DVD, the volume will automatically adjust and the video will just start playing full screen. "You shouldn't have to spend a lot of time struggling with things," Allchin said
How long will I have to struggle with it to figure out how to turn that off?
"It mostly kinda sorta works."
or
"Eventually, when Longhorn ships, it may actually work."
So yeah, don't buy anything else until then, cuz that wouldn't make sense!
such as auto-defragmenting in the background
Windows XP auto-defragment as well (if enabled).
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." - Albert Einstein
So, they're feeling pressure from MacOS X. Good. Very good.
Oops. I think someone had on Dvorak or something when typing "crashes".
From what I understand, the advertising campaign Microsoft is launching (it's quite large too) has absolutly nothing to do with Longhorn. They are simply addressing XP.
Foxed Design
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Finally, a windows eq to ln -sf!
'It works, just' - any others? :D
Or, It Already Works For Someone Else So We'll Pinch It:
auto-defragmenting in the background HFS+
ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously symlinks, Smart Folders
the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows Maybe that does indeed Just Work. No-one ever got fired for choosing a Microsoft (although there are places where that's beginning to change).
wow! microsoft discovered hard links! And I bet they'll market it as amazing new technology!
waitaminnit... isn't this apple's mantra??? apple = microsoft??? *gasp* bill gates = steve jobs??? OMG! the sky is falling! the sky is falling!!!
and if you can figure out what the h*ll it's done, then you're ahead of the game! If you can undo it, then you'll be ...a god.
--LWM
Reading this article, it does have its moments to consider: Allchin, a wiry-built 54-year-old who has been in charge of Windows for almost a decade, is admirably blunt about his own frustrations using the current operating system. It annoys him, for example, that the adjustments necessary to move a laptop from a work to a home network aren't obvious. Longhorn, he said, will make that process easy, along with many other common tasks. If you want a Longhorn machine to automatically configure itself so you can work in a coffee shop, it will. If you put in a DVD, the volume will automatically adjust and the video will just start playing full screen. "You shouldn't have to spend a lot of time struggling with things," Allchin said, adding that the number one design goal for Longhorn has been: "It just works."
Funny, my Powerbook G4 has been doing this for years. I guess Microsoft will be downplaying that a bit further down...
Much has been made in the computer press recently of the surprising similarities between Longhorn and Apple's upcoming new Macintosh operating system, Tiger. (See Peter Lewis's recent column, Apple's 'Tiger' to Stalk Rivals April 29.) The bottom line is that both will make finding items in our ever-increasing digital stores of information and entertainment much easier. Longhorn doesn't just show you an icon for a document, for example, but rather an itsy-bitsy picture of the first page. If you have a really good monitor--and eyesight--you could even read the numbers in that spreadsheet. You also will be able to put files simultaneously in different folders, and find the one you want with much more ease than you can today. Microsoft's research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items. "We're trying to go beyond search into what we call 'visualization and organization,'" said Allchin
Right. I got Panther to do this with a little tweaking, and from what I read, Tiger may be doing something similar. Talk about innovation...
For all the advances that Microsoft and other computer companies have made in recent years, and despite the fact that PCs are central to many of our lives, it's still hard to use them. So it was reassuring to hear the main guy responsible for making their software predict that the situation will improve soon. I hope that he's right when he says that future systems will "just work."
Great. Fantastic. *Applause* But I don't trust it. I've heard this before. Until I see some increased security before they attempt to make their UI as beautiful as Mac OS X, I'm not even going to bother giving them the time of day.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Or maybe:
I Just Works.
Barely.
...or if you prefer, it just crashes.
I've got too much experience with Windows to consider it for an enterprise environment.
Did anyone bother to ask the customers what they want?
...it just works the way Microsoft wants it to...
So far we have
Free as in costs money
Advantage as in same later
and open as in closed
We have a new entry
It just works as in windows.
Quite inkeeping with the rest of the publicity statments i belive
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
"It just works as designed." (you poor bastard)
No kidding. I hate automatic stuff. Don't move my frickin' icons, I put them there for a reason. Don't hide those menu commands, I like to know what my options are. Don't hide the programs that are running...
konqueror has done this for a while... I'm not terribly versed in GUI file managers for X, but I'd presume that other programs do it as well... I guess their new mantra is just a reincarnation of their old mantra "Steal other people's ideas and then charge for it!"
Rather than running just on computers that process 32 bits of data at a time, the new version will run on chips that process 64 bits.
To rephrase: "Windows will finally catch up to the rest of the world and be compatible with emerging technology, a practice that Microsoft is loathe to indulge in (see Internet Explorer)."
"If it's got arithmetic logic on it, then I think our software should be targeting it"
Another rephrasing: "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." - Jim Allchin, addressing my TI-86.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
... except when it doesn't. Or, 'it just works' when we come out with service pack 38 in a couple years.
First we hear that the Opera CEO is going to swim the ocean... and now that Microsoft will "just work." What's next?
Ok, there's more than one interpretation.
But I was really hoping that Longhorn would be the real revolution to how the graphic interaction is played out between the user and computer.
I was really hoping for a 3D desktop environment and draw option built into longhorn. I know there are 3rd party tools, but to build it right into the foundation for speed etc would be cool.
I'm just tired of staring at a 1D LCD environment... I was submersive damn it! and a flying car...
I can just see this blowing up in their face, just like Unbreakable Oracle. It should be fun to watch.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
You can see the contents of a file without opening it! I can right now, thanks to switching from windows to archlinux. Plus it was free, as opposed to the "free" upgrade to longhorn if I was still running windows.
Still, Kudos to the Microsoft Marketing team - it seems you CAN polish a turd!!! LOL ROFL etc
I'm getting a "long horn" for longhorn already!
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
...
Now, if Google were evil, they'd have patented the 'labels' feature of Gmail, and would sue Microsoft for copying that feature here.
More likely, although Google came out with it first, Microsoft will probably get a silly patent for this instead, in spite of the prior art of ln, Gmail labels, etc.
It Just Sucks.
>ln /foo/bar/say_it_aint_so ~/say_it_aint_so
Like OS X already does.
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Like the symbolic links every flavor of UNIX has had for about 30 years.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
For those who don't read beyond the end of TFA... a great quote (with attribution): First, from TFA a quote from Allchin re the current state of affairs in XP vs. what Longhorn "will" deliver: Allchin: Microsoft's research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items. Then, the comment from a reader: Rod Shuffler 04/22 10:55 An interesting article. Does that 20% non-productivity figure that Allchin quotes get factored into TCO arguments?
"the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously"
Is it just me.. or do all OSes do this? I have thousands of files, all in different places, all at the same time... right now.
-m
i can see all the spoofs with "it just doesn't work" with pcitures of bsod. My guess is we'll see SP12 with longhorn with all the fixes they'll need to put in it.
So they realized the just couldn't pull off the security thing, and have decided to move in another direction?
Jim Allchin details various planned Longhorn features to meet this goal, such as auto-defragmenting in the background
Here's something that works: implementing a file system that doesn't require constant defragmentation.
*raises hand*
Gates: "Yes. You there with your hand up."
Me: "Mr. Ballmer? Mr. Gates? What about spyware and virii on the Longhorn platform?"
Bill: "As our slogan says, 'It just works!'"
Me: "Oh."
Well, is a mantra, nirvana is not so far, paradise is close to it, and then we reach the final meaning of that phrase: "is a miracle if It Just Works"
how about having a filesystem that doesn't suffer from fragmentation in the first place so you don't have to waste processor cycles defragging it!!!!!!!
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
well, they all will not have to be modified much from Windows xyz to Longhorn..
They will "just work"..
If it will 'just work' in the future, we would see some of the 'just working' in Windows XP.
.NET password in here. Yeah, it has something to do with that "Windows Messenger" that keeps poping up in then system tray. Now click on 'Change my name", and then change your name.
But noo....
But sometime you need to scroll down a list, no... the other list. Yeah, that one. Select 'properties'-- what? No, right click on the icon, and select 'properties'. And then... no wait it's not here. Click 'cancel'. Ok, now click 'cancel' again. Now, hit the 'x' in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
Now go to "start: settings: Control Panel", click on "Users Accounts", click on "change account", click on your username. What? No, I don't know why they have a
Sometimes it just works.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
...only if it's working first. And we know the track record. Wasn't there a story the other day about Microsoft licensing beta software [and making that acceptable]?
.sig goes: "The day Microsoft makes something which doesn't suck is the day they make vacuum cleaners."
This is starting to sound like the MMORPG business. which have no qualms about putting a box on the store shelves and continuing to work, making "patches" (of several hundred MB) available when people start connecting.
And these bozos are raking money in, hand-over-fist. No one can begrudge someone success like Evercrack [sic], but when they're raking in the money, you'd think they'd put the boxes on the shelves for free. Just like drug dealers, the first one is free.
"Does it work?" has been the line of demarcation and "work" has a definition which changes every time the direction of the wind changes.
And as the old
Doesn't this imply that "it" doesn't yet work? That's the same thing as saying it's broken, right?
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
This is the "mantra" that drives me crazy...I don't want things to just work, Because my, Microsoft's, my neighbor's, and your opinion of working are all probably very different. Just working means I have to spend a lot of time "un-working" things.
I think he meant to say "the number of security patches"...
But seriously though, if M$ has done their homework then there is a possiblity that they could get a number of things right. They didn't get as big as they are by consistently putting out bad software. Eventually people would have caught on if all of it had been crap.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
Shit that just works? That's revolutionary in the computer industry, software in particular.
Honestly, I'm thinking the linux desktop is dead in the water ( remember folks, you heard it here first! ). We may have a decent linux desktop take over the world someday, but I doubt it's anytime soon.
If MS *CAN* just make it work, and keep it secure, then they'll be one step closer to having me as a backer.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Because stealing from Apple just works.
Come on Microsoft, make a filesystem that doesn't need defragmenting like *nix.
"File in more than one folder simultaneously"
Symlinks or hardlinks, finally. Welcome to the '80s.
Ad campaign
Well, luckily IBM has conducted a pro-Linux campaign, but, unlike Windows, Linux doesn't need an ad campaign to suceeed.
From just reading the register a few minutes ago, the slogan, "70 Percent Fewer Reboots" sounded pretty good to me.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Microsoft is a bad buy simply because they have little room left to grow. Buying Apple three years ago was a smart move much along the lines of buying Microsoft shares in the late-80s.
Until it blows up. Or your software contract expires. Or we decide it's time to 'upgrade'.
Then you are on your own.
didn't they do the same thing with 'Plug and Play' a few years back?
From TFA: "Which means, for example, Longhorn will automatically clean up, or "defragment," your hard drive, if it is required. You won't even know it's happening."
So you mean Longhorn is going to make the incessant ticking and whirring of my hard drive less annoying? I seriously doubt it.
Well I am hoping all the win 9x/2k/xp software I use now will work on longhorn. Like will IE 7.0 be compatible with all the spyware I have for IE 6?
to me is the fact that all these people have trouble finding files. I could understand once in a very long while needing to use a search to find something but these people who are spending 20% of their time finding stuff is crazy talk.
I think the OS *should* support hard linking though. If I really want to organise my files that way, so be it. Same way I'd rather windows defaulted to symbolic linking rather than shortcuts.
jh
the $%*$ article Just Doesn't. Can we say 'microsoft patsy'?
For Apple.
They have done more to market for Apple in the last few weeks than they realize (or maybe they do realized).
Every comparison of features is with something already released under the current OS X, or is a feature that will be in the next release of OS X (slated soon?).
I guess I don't get what Microsoft's strategy is for this campaign. Is this the Microsoft "Me Too" campaign?
I would love to see the sales numbers for the next OS X release. We could see some increase in sales due to Microsoft owners realizing that there is another OS in the market that works at least as well, if not better, than XP.
Maybe Gates owns a bunch of Apple stock and is hedging his bets.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
This is a good example of Microsoft making products for the lowest common denominator.
Frankly, it is a good thing in their home products. Many of my friends call me to ask how to do ridiculously simple things as make a DVD play full screen.
Where I take issue with this is in their professional products. When I buy XP home I expect handholding, but when I buy XP Professional I want the OS to assume I know what I'm doing and disable by default most (all?) of these annoying features.
In reality, as cute as it may be to point out the 'imitation' going on here, it might be better to look at the renewed (finally!) competition taking place. For years, Microsoft has been relatively reluctant to do any serious innovation in OS development, instead focusing on the issues that were generating the most complaints. Think about it, from Windows 95 through Windows XP, what major innovations have been introduced?
Now, however, that Mac OS has been making big strides and an ever increasing number of people have started to look at it as a viable alternative (even in my small-business workplace!), Microsoft has seemingly started to take the competition seriously. This is a Good Thing!
Competition always benefits the consumer, and prior to the last couple years, there *was no competition* in the desktop OS category.
"Fortune has a story about Microsoft's new philosophy--'It just works.'
My mantra... 'no it doesn't'
That's what I've been telling my programming instructors all these years.
"What does this function do?"
"eh, it just works, ok!"
on a side note:
In Soviet Russia you just work!
please don't kill me.
It's Just Querky
We're Really Not Jerks
No More Blue Screen Burps!
No, really, it doesnt. At all. Out of the Box, Vanilla install. Not in the slightest bit.
But only if you have downloaded all the current patches, gotten all the fixes, have spent over 1000 dollars in extra software -- MSOffice, Virus Prot, SpamKiller, whatever else -- and then summarily rebooted the system umpteen time during this process, does it actually "work"
Ubuntu installer - cost , 99cents for a CDR.
Once Installed, apt-get update
then, apt-get dist-upgrade
then, apt-get upgrade -- for good measure.
Nuff said, Ubuntu -- It Just Works.
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
"It just wanks."
Exactly. The difference between Microsoft and Apple's interface philosophy (I think):
1. Apple makes it easy for the user to do complicated things.
2. Microsoft tries to automatically do complicated things for the user.
Approach #1 might be somewhat restrictive but gives the user some credit.
Approach #2 is rife with problems, notably ActiveX, email attachments that run themselves, autoscanning HDDs, and myriad other annoyances/outright hazards.
I'll take approach #1. It just works.
microsoft announced today their new marketing campaign titled "switch back"
"It just works... Half the time"
Now M$ is encroaching on DisKeeper's Windows defragmenting lunch. Next will be Adobe. I am really worried. I am sure M$ will chip in some incompatibilities as it continues its past ways. Let's wait.
Apple is a far bigger offender for "it works.. the way they tell you it should".
You vill do it our vay, und you vill luff it!
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously.
You mean they discovered symbolic links, or figured out how to make copies?
No, it's "It's Just Works"!
Remember? MS Works? Nothing new, here. Move along...
There are so much to joke about in this, i'll have to focus on one thing at a time!
I think my nose is bleeding.
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
"Finding" things on the computer is what screws up most people that aren't "good with computers".
I don't see any way around it, because it's not a technical problem. People create things, they save them. But they rarely name them properly, and they have ABSOLUETLY NO IDEA where they save things. If it's not in "My Documents", it might as well be gone. And since they can't remember what they named it, and they don't know what kind of file it was, they can't search for it, even if they could find the "Search" button.
I appreciate that a lot of the current thinking in ease-of-use is leaning towards automatic file-organization and easily searchable filesystems, but it really isn't going to help. People are lazy and sloppy- there's no technical solution for that.
Just Reboot It
Speak for yourself.
Yes, yes, unix already does that: But that misses the point. What's important is to be able to look at a file and tell what folders it is simultaneously in!
/bin, all items in package xyzzy in /xyzzy. All items on the first harddrive should be in /dh0 (amiga background showing ;-) ) : and these sets can all overlap. I.e. Directories and Properties should be one and the same, and the onus is on the file system layer to make it work!
This way you don't impose arbitrary hierarchy on data that doesn't fit into that hierarchy. In Linux terms: all binaries should be in
Think "labels" in GMail, or Lotus Agenda Categories, or whatever.
Defaults to on, defaults to off... Who cares?
The point is that Microsoft has a long history of adding features to their operating system, and putting all the effort into the feature instead of putting some into the configuration of the feature.
I don't care if the feature is there, or what the default state is, as long as I don't have to go somewhere arcane that I'd never think of without hours of exploring to turn it off... Just like I hated having to figure out that the power settings for my hard drive were in "Display Settings" under screen saver.
Because, as we know "It Just Works" was invented by Apple.
You have to admit, it's better than the old one:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From TFA, Much has been made in the computer press recently of the surprising similarities between Longhorn and Apple's upcoming new Macintosh operating system, Tiger.
The sad thing about this is that Tiger is going to be out a nearly two years before Longhorn. Where will the Mac OS be by the time Longhorn is rolled out on enough machines to have a significant install base?
This has been changed from the current slogan "It just barely works"
"plug and play"
And that worked just fine, didn't it?
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
So does it "Just work" like IE "Conforms to CSS Spec"? Perhaps Lie will come out with a Acid3 test that shoves the cream pie into Billg's face like the earlier time it happened.
It Just Works(R)
______________
Microsoft End-User Unilateral Non-Negotiable License "Agreement:"
[ ... ]
92. Definition of Terms
[ ... ]
xxi. "Working" shall be defined as any software product or service that can reliably and repeatably produce Guaranteed Functionality.
[ ... ]
clxiv: "Guaranteed Functionality" shall be limited to the Blue Screen of Death or any other diagnostic output or display. All other software functionality shall be deemed Extensions or Enhancements and may or may not operate with any degree of reliability.
____________
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It just work's
You sound like one of Pavlov's dogs. The sound of Microsoft marketing statements gets you salivating.
It just works...
<zoom in on fine print...>
The "It just works" slogan is representative that Microsoft products will work for something. Microsoft guarantees that all hardware running Microsoft software will always "Just work" as:
Boat anchors
Target practice
Paper weights
Furniture, including bookends, footstools, and coffee tables
"It just works" may or may not apply to:
File storage
Application development
Application platform
Gaming
Multimedia
Use of the Internet
depending on the availability of service packs, updates, and copious bandwidth, as well as other factors (not exclusively including) ambient temperature, the phase of the moon, the average body mass index of Microsoft programmers, and the parity of your score when you reach the flagpole.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
So maybe they understand duh... -- K12LTSP.org
Six years of schoolboy Latin really makes "virii" grate on my ears.
Notwithstanding its -us ending in the nominative singular, "virus" (meaning "slime," "sludge," "poision," or even "stench") is a neuter noun of the second declension, so its plural (in both the nominative and accusative cases) should be 'vira'
Note that I say should be...because as far as I'm aware, there are no extant instances where "virus" was ever used in the plural.
"It just works" is what I always say to defend my choice for Mac OSX.
- Does it mean that, when someone unthinkingly plugs their new device into the USB port before they've installed the software, it won't require a registry rollback or hunting down cached .inf files to get Windows to work with said device?
- Does it mean that, when someone downloads the latest Microsoft patches for Internet Explorer, it will actually remember that Firefox is their default browser?
- Okay, I'll lob a softball here: Does it mean that people won't actually need to have a firewall running because there won't be any services listening to any ports, by default, unless they've explicitly enabled them?
#DeleteChrome
Why? For example, you can have all of your MP3s stuck somewhere, and then have links to them sorted into directories by different criteria. As long as confirmations for stuff like deletion prints the actual path, I don't see the problem.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Just like I hated having to figure out that the power settings for my hard drive were in "Display Settings" under screen saver.
As opposed to Power Options on the Control Panel? How long ago are we talking?
I wonder if this "It Just Works" campaign is coming about along with a series of tangible products that will culminate next year with Longhorn. What I mean by this is the StartSomethingPC site I'm sure everyone here is familiar with, and the strong rumor that this mystery product (set to be unveiled on Monday April 25, is the Athens PC they first showed at the May 2003 WinHEC. I doubt it's a coincidence.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Evidently, you don't understand hard links.
Plug your machine into the internet and...
Pray for a miracle that that your patch download from the bandwith-crippled MS server finishes faster than the 4 minute average windows virus gestation.
Hard links. No wait, that's two words...
You were probably being facetious, but my company's firewall blocks any incoming sarcasm.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
That's what I was thinking when I decided to get married - no when standing at the Gates of hell, I have my doubts on "It just works" slogan :D
at least xp doesn't blow away randomly like the Wx string of builds did.
oh, wait... there is the matter of the SMS pushes at least twice a week that reboot all the desktops right when maintenance window opens, and we are doing critical things with the switches. pushes that we can't stop, delay, or reschedule. pushes that require reboots, sometimes multiple reboots a night.
guess it DOESN'T just work... barely......
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Give it enough time and marketing and soon the average peep will start to believe these lies that their fundemetnaly flawed OS "just works." And why not, since Intel conviced a whole slew of ignoramus into believing that Centrino would allow them to browse anywheres and that it was the "only" way to do so.
As long as peeps willfully stay ignorant, MS will probably succeed with this pathetic attempt at stating their vaper-OS is somehow better then the OSs that they're blatantly copying it from, and that it is something new.
Penn & Teller should do a segment about Longhorn in their show "Bullshit!"
Apple: proudly failing to capitalize on good ideas since 1976
Feature set, Microsoft marketing style:
If you stretch our the word just, it makes sense.
It juuuusssst works.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
Read a little more, to the point where it talks about a 'repacker' in Reiser 4.1
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JustIsaDangerousWord
"We would like to tell you that it works"
"It should work... by Longhorn SP2"
"It Just Works... like shit"
"It works... don't install Firefox though, that fucks it up"
"IT WORKS! IT'S ALIVE!! (release date unspecified)"
"See.. it works... (Quick, Bill turn it off before ol' blue screen comes around)"
The much better solution would be to tag the MP3's with metadata that gets cached into a searchable database, and then completely ignore the folder hierarchy.
You know, kinda like iTunes does.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It shouldn't just print the actual path, it should display ALL affected paths.
liqbase
Does anyone else find it funny that the Fortune.com web site has a Netscape favicon installed? Did someone forget to change the default favicon.ico file from Netscape Enterprise Server 4.1?
as auto-defragmenting in the background
Defagging? That's so 1980s. Why not simply design a file system (WinFS?) that doesn't fragment?
... because you have to know that this slogan is going to be ridiculed. It probably took all of a few microseconds before the first parody of ``It Just Works'' was thought up. Here's mine:
Longhorn: It Barely Works
Longhorn: It Just Works In the Lab
Longhorn: It Almost Works
Longhorn: It Worked Just a Minute Ago!
I'll be referring to Longhorn using the first one I listed above. Seems like it'll be a useful slogan until about SP3 or SP4. (That's if it ever makes it to market.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
planned Longhorn features to meet this goal, such as auto-defragmenting in the background, the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
1. Auto-defragmenting files in the background.
Multitasking + crond.
2. he ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Finally symlinks for Windows.
Well based on this ...
"But Longhorn won't be released for another year and a half. In the meantime, Microsoft has to contend with Apple's Tiger as well as with Linux's open-source operating system." ...is "I'll just wait."
But I'm leaning towards "It's just Linux."
Turk: Let's play Steak. J.D.: What? Turk: Steak. The 1st person to finish their steak is the winner of Steak. -Scrubs
It just works! sounds like some sorry assed wizard telling you to ignore the slow cumbersome bug riddled software behind your desktop. The Wicked Witch would be proud.
I agree with you, but I wish Windows would automatically allow you to assign an "always on top" to every single application. That way I wouldn't have to resize my stinking windows in order to watch a dvd while doing something else without using WMP and shrinking it down to the tasktray.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
The common fallacy that people have about Microsoft is that there can be competition with Microsoft.
While Microsoft and the public believes that it has competitors, it really doens't have competitors in the segments that bring in the revenue: Applications and OS.
Will MS Office really be unseated? It's installed base is so massive that people still use Office 97. Will Windows be unseated? It's installed base is so massive that people still use Windows 95.
Most MS products installed today are perfectly adequate for their task: business computing. If Microsoft stopped developing new releases of Windows and Office, they'd still be pulling in billions of dollars a year in licensing.
The reason they pretend to compete is because it's the only way to keep their employees motivated. It's the only way to keep Wall Street satisfied. It's the only way to keep the press satisfied.
But from a customer point of view, w2k was a perfectly good OS. Office 97 was perfectly fine.
That's the disconnect that everyone has between Microsoft and the market. Google, Linux, and MacOS X don't really compete with Microsoft in any meaningful way. If Microsoft shut down for 3 years it would still have an overwhelming share of the largest markets.
But there's no story in that, really.
You might find junctions interesting. They're symlinks, and for directories only, though.
S
64-bit computers will be much faster. They should also be more secure.
Why would a computer with a 64 bit processor be more secure, exactly? I don't get it.
From the article: looked at my Apple PowerBook and smugly pointed out that the number of copies of Windows sold this year will be more than all the Macintosh computers used worldwide.
I don't know about other people, but I would rather have quality, not quantity. Especially if I'm the user of the machine.
With type as with philosophy, music and food,
it is better to have a little of the best
than to be swamped with the derivative, the careless, the routine.
-- Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
1. Catchy slogans ending in -ks strangely tend to already be in use by other people. And no, I'm not talking about Apple here. How about Autodesk?
2. Words ending in -ks can easily be altered on billboards. "It just sucks" is going to be just as easy as this one was...
Apparently Microsoft is suppressing its memory of these past events.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
In Soviet Russia (commonly called Redmond), computer works YOU
I am Spartacus
"It just works (with continued support and upgrades)"
-Valiss
Think about it. It's perfect marketing. Most people who would want this, that's exactly what they want to hear. "I want it to just work!". Most people who are self-confessed "non-computer people" act pretty much like, I need it done, I need it done on a computer, but for the most part want it done for me.
... who does it "Just work" for?
Let's bring up the old retired (retarded?) automotive analogy again. If I get in a car, and it auto-adjusts the seat, sets the environment just right, fastens my seatbelt, starts the engine and begins to drive to my destination... that's either really cool or really creepy, depending on the person. Remove a certain level of control and people will either love it or hate it.
One last point
Microsoft? There's some unspoken language there. As in "It just works, trust us. It works exactly the way we think it should." There's some blind faith involved there. Most people might misinterpret... whoa, it just works exactly the way I want it to. That "works" if what I want is what everyone else wants, or at the very least what Microsoft wants.
So, we'll see. Years from now we can look back. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. Maybe some Linux nerds will come up with silly mockeries of the slogan... "It's just worse" or something like that.
FLR
Apple is a hardware company that provides software to their own line of computers and other electronic devices exclusively, Microsoft is a software company that supplies software to everyone.
What does this mean?
Apple controls their hardware line. They don't have to worry about someone buying an off brand powerbook and having their software not work on it.
Microsoft has to support all different kinds of hardware, from ancient legacy systems to bleeding edge stuff. It is extremely unlikely that it will "just work," all the time.
They would have been better off stealing the Linux slogan, "Does it run Linux?" which seems to be applied to any random piece of hardware that comes out that might be capable of running an operating system.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The former CEO of Sega of america is the president of microsoft's marketing division.
Peter Moore is well known for fucking shit up, look at sega now, they dont really exist, they're essentially just Sammy now (hence the SegaSammy holdings thing) when shit started falling apart, moore jumped ship to microsoft, now look how shitty their marketing is.
Coincidence? I think not.
Not "fragment-resistant filesystems".
Just "background-defragmenting".
That's what MacOS X already does since 10.3
Linux doesn't. But as you say, with fragment-resistant filesystems, this isn't as much a need.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
auto-defragmenting in the background
Like Mac OSX gained in 10.3, a couple years ago.
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Like Mac OSX 10.4 has, just now.
and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows
Whoops. That's new. Apple only knows how to get people excited about iPods.
Mentions are also made of the competition from Linux, OS X Tiger, and Google
At least Linux has been upgraded from 'nuisence' to 'competition' in Microsoft's world.
Oddly enough, "It Just Works" is the #1 Reason to Switch to Mac.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
It Just Sucks.
That's assuming Microsoft stock will be valuable only on the basis of being a growth stock.
If they decided to release dividends periodically, it would still be a decent buy, because they make so much damn money.
Fox News "fair and balanced"
Microsoft Windows "It just works"
Mr. Bush "One Nation Under [a christian] God."
Wacky Wookie "I am the leader of a Penguin Army! Bow before my troops!."
auto-defragmenting in the background
Another annoying "I know you don't know what you're doing so I'll do it for you" "feature" to turn off.
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Hasn't Linux/Unix had that for years?
and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows
They did one of those when Windows 95 was released ("Start it up!")
Nothing new to see here, move along.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
"If it's got arithmetic logic on it, then I think our software should be targeting it"
So they'll start copying NetBSD now?
Wow! Just think about it: Longhorn on VAX!
Windows introduces... new stuff that's been existing for ages. Like background defrag (come on, every third-party defragmentation tool has been able to do that for years, including the famous Diskeeper), files that can exist in more than one folder? So, links! Like we haven't had this for decades in Un*x-like OSs... Oh, and I'm sure this very feature won't confuse the hell out of most users. (Can you feel the irony?) All that's really new is a pretty UI. Yeah.
I suspect they were shooting for definition 6 (under adverb):
But doesn't definition 3 seem a better fit?So, you need every file format in the collection to support the same sort of metadata, and then you need to use a special client to display this metadata. Of course, the OS could embed the metadata and hide it from programs reading the files. I suppose you could also build the metadata viewer into the normal filesystem navigation program. Of course, by the time we get to that point, its pretty much hard linking anyway.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Luckily for Microsoft, Jim's Magic 8-Ball is never wrong.
Uh, that used to be Steve Job's almost-trademark comment about how things worked in NextStep back in the 1990s. He mentioned it at some point in practically every demo, usually after showing something that was easy in NextStep, but hard in other contemporary systems.
:-)
I guess he should have made it into an actual trademark
When iTunes first came out, WinAmp users were still organizing MP3 files in directories, saving dozens of playlists, and spending hours on tag management and file name synching.
Real had some media management, so did Musicmatch, but they were both messy, confusing, cramped, and slow to search.
Right from the beginning, iTunes changed music from a wild collection of files on the hard-drive that had to be periodically coralled to a single library entity, searchable, playable, with built-in tag editing that put everything else to shame.
It took the effort out of having a music library. A lot of geeks are still frustrated with it because they got all their file directory skills for MP3s down pat and the new way doesn't fit them, but can you honestly see twelve year old girls organizing thousands of songs the old way?
It brought MP3 truly to the masses, not just the college crowd.
just
I can't explain the bluescreen now. It just worked.
God spoke to me.
Better how? Filenames are nothing if not searchable metadata. As a bonus they're also hierarchal.
Windows "just" works; just BARELY works....
Finally truth in advertising!
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I hope the OS doesn't try to do all this background management automatically while on battery power or while charging the battery.
It's just busted.
Windows and it just works in the same breath is going to take the pole position in the race for the prime example of oxymoron in the newest edition of the dictionary. This is priceless. I wonder if the BSOD is going to be replaced with something else. Will it say "It just works. You're the problem."
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
sorry but my reiserfs4 doesn't need any defragmenter running in the background, linking files across various directories, running different windows managers etc. has been around for years. in many respects linux is simply years ahead of windows.
I did notice that the Explorer (not the Internet Explorer, the Finder-equivelent) didn't know how to cope, though; it would only update one window's list to show the changes to the file.
That was a few service packs ago, and I've not tried it on NT 5.1 (errr, XP).
Oh and please make outlook not pop up a modal login window. In fact get rid of modal windows in general.
evil is as evil does
Actually, if you let it, iTunes organizes the MP3s in the file hierarchy as well. Artist -> Album -> Song. There's a slightly different system for compilations.
But when you have a data structure that's not very hierarchial, binding to a hierarchy doesn't make sense.
With iTunes, I can browse by album, OR by artist, OR by genre, OR by keyword. Not possible with a hierarchial structure.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yep, kinda like the windows that pops up in Windows XP when you insert a CD, that says 'What do you what me to do ?'.
There is no answer that says 'Pop this window up and ask what you want to do!'
This is ironic, since no matter what I select, this is the only action that my machine ever takes !!
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
I bought a mac mini today and I already ordered the Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) upgrade.
This is my first Mac ever. This better be good.
Christian
--- Eat my sig.
If they can do all that, offer it for free and only charge for support will they have me as a backer.
No, what will win me over would be if MS stopped playing stupid little closed protocol/patent games.
I don't mind dropping a few hundred on something that "just works".
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Curious. Curious indeed. You see Mr. Potter your Windows has the tailfeather of a Phoenix. That Phoenix gave only 1 other tailfeather. To the Windows that 'he-who-must-not-be-named' uses. He did many great things using Windows. TERRIBLE things...but great.
Gee, I hope I don't get sued by that Rowlings b!t(h.
They Live, We Sleep
They say, "It just works".
I sit with skepticism.
Microsoft go home.
In fact get rid of modal windows in general
If that's not the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. Modal dialogs and windows are an important tool.
They may appear to work, but only for programs linked to the cygwin libraries. Open them with any other program and you get some cryptic garbage with the link target in it.
Google is a competitor?
I don't see any google OS on the market. If there was one, I'd prolly use it tho
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
so it will decide to start defraging while i am playing Doom 4 or Duke nukem fornever, ah?
and I won't even know its happening, right?
yes, the significant FPS drop will not ring any bells, no doubt.
Also, I wonder how introducing something such as symlinks to an OS with millions of programs written, most which assume files do not exist in more than one directory will help the "It just works" mantra.
imagine a circular dependency of directories, (or even simpler a directory that has a link to itself), and a poor unaware program trying to scan on of recursivly.
A classic "It just crashes" scenario.
Omry.
I seem to recall that Ballmer had used that exact line ("It Just Works") to describe Windows ME. I can't find the exact reference, but this one might be close.
I remember this because at the time, one of my colleagues kept mocking Ballmer by deliberately misquoting it as "It just broke." To which I usually responded, "...again."
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I'm so excited, I'm having nightmares!
When I'm writing things (as rarely as it is), I often resort to hacking things in a "less than optimal" way. This is often with a comment that says something along the lines of // Come back to this and do it right.
Now, this hack, albeit ugly, inefficient, a hog, or anything else...it still "just works." The article says:
the number one design goal for Longhorn has been: "It just works."
which leads me to think that's what the developers are being told. Quality being job #1? Screw that, just make it work and lets get it out the door by Q4, 2006.
I may be naive, but that's my impression from this.
Wow, files can be in more than one folder. Kind of like, uh, symbolic links? And now I don't have to defrag. Great. I hate all that time I have to spend defragging my linux and solaris disks. Oh, wait...
Before: "It just works."
After: "So why fix it?"
"It just works just like Unix!"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Oh no it doesn't"
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Geez, thanks Ballmer and Gates. Most of the "features" that I read will only cause annoyance to many.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And do you want to bet that background defragmenting will be just as annoying as background indexing? I hate it when my hard drive spins up "for no reason".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Depending on the idiom of "just", I think Microsoft is on the right track here.
Consider:
"You get a just a D in this class"
"You earn just $10 of allowance this week"
"There are just 50mg of sodium in diet coke"
Longhorn - It Just Works!
Does it work well? I'm not saying!
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
The fuck I won't. When my hard drive starts rattling for no apparent reason and any app that needs to page in some memory slows to a crawl, I'll know for sure a defrag is happening.
If you put in a DVD, the volume will automatically adjust and the video will just start playing full screen.
Unless I don't happen to want it to play fullscreen. At least if it starts in a window there's an obvious "maximize" button to change that. How is it supposed to simplify things to remove all visible controls?
You also will be able to put files simultaneously in different folders, and find the one you want with much more ease than you can today.
Yeah, great. This isn't a symlink because that's what they call an "alias". Is it a cross-linked directory entry? What happens when you delete one of the "copies" in an environment where every legacy user in the world is used to see two real copies if they see the same file in two places?
Longhorn doesn't just show you an icon for a document, for example, but rather an itsy-bitsy picture of the first page.
OK, can someone please explain to me why I'd want this? It'll be too small to read, so unless you put the title up in big bold letters at the top you won'd be able to see anything helpful in text documents. My wife is a professional writer: they don't use things like that when preparing a manuscript for submission. Even then you won't have anything you couldn't have gotten from the filename. You know, that label on the file that's supposed to tell you what's in it? And how will it make things easier to find in a directory with 100 or so files in it without inducing eyestrain?
Windows is only getting started, as far as Allchin is concerned.
Windows 1.0 was released in 1985. Sorry Allchin, but 20 years is a long time to still be "only getting started" even for a defense contractor. Why have you taken so much time and still not gotten it right?
And the brethren went away edified.
"Plug and play" used to be a phrase used by Mac users to describe the installation of new hardware.
With Windows 95, Microsoft created a "standard" called Plug And Play. Of course, the Microsoft version involved the Add Hardware Wizard, which, in the opinion of many Macintosh users then and now, is entirely contrary to the idea of plug and play. (To be fair, the classic Mac OS wasn't always literally plug and play, either, but OS X almost always is.)
I can only wonder what the It Just Works philosophy will give us.
Of course we all know, no matter what the slogan, it won't.
Yup...I've had some things I had to go into the registry to change, no other way to do it.
Hope they do away with THAT clusterfsck of a nightmare...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Or even soft linking! Every try to do something with "c:\shortcut_to_dir\bla.doc"? "c:\shortcut_to_dir.lnk\bla.doc" fails too.
here is the right one:
It just works. Sometimes.
You can't handle the truth.
Right. Like Tiger does it. We'll see the state of the art next Friday. Too bad Microsoft only has a year to try and hack together something that's buzzword-compliant.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Sez who? I use my mac all the time without modal dialog boxes and windows.
evil is as evil does
Who want's to shoot that fucking dog that comes up when you try to search for a file? They finally took away clippy and now we get that bastard. I hate the new search dialogs in XP. Didn't they learn their lesson?
When you click whatever makes it go away, you have to wait and watch a stupid animation of it walking away too, I think if I've decided I don't want to see the stupid thing it shoud poof away in a split second, not stroll off the screen at it's own leisure. Get out of the way and let me do my damn search (for spyware elements usually).
grep -iw skynet
Microsoft: "It just works!!!!!!"
Customer: "Cool!! Can i test it?"
Microsoft: "erm..." - eyes the calendar
diegoT
... it's running Ubuntu.
Flawless installation:
Sound
3d graphics
usb camera
usb scanner
usb mouse
802.11 wireless (only had to enter encryption key)
usb printer
All of them worked the first time with no drivers to install. My experience with XP was somewhat lacking in comparison.
From the Article.... "You shouldn't have to spend a lot of time struggling with things," Allchin said, adding that the number one design goal for Longhorn has been: "It just works."
:)
This looks like it is being taken out of context. Notice they split his sentence into two parts. I don't see MS using this term anywhere else in the article or stumping on the "It just works" slogan.
I am a Linux and Mac fan. I also think LongHorn is playing catch up to apple as far as UI goes. However, this article is a little unfair. Definitely anti-MS propoganda. Which is good
Yeah, iTunes does like to re-organize the files. Thing is, I don't care. I haven't given a lick of thought to the file hierarchy since I figured out what was up with the database.
At first, I was seriously annoyed that it whacked my file structure. Then, I understood what it was doing, and the file structure was irrelevant.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
But windows already only just works!? Im sticking with 2000...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It looks like you want an operating system that just works. Would you like to:
/.) do it for them. And if Allchin is talking about how Windows is going to "just work," it looks like he's a little late.
1. Hunt through a bunch of dialog boxes to turn on/off a specific setting?
2. Clean off a bunch of spyware?
3. Spend hours downloading and installing security patches?
4. Spend days reinstalling Windows because one feature you need on one application doesn't work right?
5. Figure out how to get rid of Clippy
Seriously, Apple doesn't have to say their operating system "just works." Mac users (including those of us on
I am so smart!
I am so smart!
S-M-R-T!
I mean S-M-A-R-T!
It just sucks.. Yeah baby, it does. :) now give me all your money please :)
bwahaha
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Hmm, seems like I read about this recently...
1 4&tid=149
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/21/19532
There is no answer that says 'Pop this window up and ask what you want to do!'
I hate that dialog. Even if you choose "don't ask me again for this type of disk", next time you insert another disk (of the same type), pop comes the dialog.
Turning off autoplay is the only way to get rid of that, it seems.
No sig
When a file is opened on an HFS+ volume, the following conditions are tested:
If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the file is relocated -- it is defragmented on-the-fly.
English is easier said than done.
Usually this alias is used to help DOS users migrate to Linux/Unix more gracefully.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Yeah, but "just works" has been built in to mac for over 20 years. It's a new idea for MS :)
hawk
Mac OS X:
To turn on sharing, open up System Preferences > Sharing > Turn On File Sharing. Done. If anyone connects to the shared computer, they have to either login with the user name and pass, or access it as a Guest. Guest's only have access to each user's Public folder (which also has a dropbox inside).
Windows:
Right-click a folder > Sharing Tab > Share this folder. Now by default anyone can access this folder. To moderate access you have to open up Windows Explorer > Tools Menu > Folder Options > *View* (wtf??) > scroll down and check a box that says something along the lines of: Then you've got to go back and right click the shared folder, go the sharing tab, and configure the new confusing options. The options make you manually type in the name of the users (or groups) that are allowed to have access to the folder. Finally, you're done setting up sharing on Windows.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
unenlightened windows user: I JUST WANT IT TO FUCKING WORK!
MS marketing jim: "hmm, well, bob, it seems they want something that 'just works'. try put that in the commercials and see if they buy it."
MS marketing bob: "come on, bob. these fucking idiots always end up buying it."
MS marketing jim: "that's true. it's miller time. let's roam the neighborhood and shoot people's pets!"
MS marketing bob: "HELL YEAH!"
who is she? leave a comment!
Just horribly misused in multiple document interfaces. If you have a dailog open in Outlook, and use Word as your email editor, you can't edit any word document until it's closed? Who thought *that* was a good idea?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
instead of 'It just works!'
- Sh!t
Even better would be
Windows, no longer a pain!
I have to disagree. I, too, own a Powerbook, as well as a dual 2Ghz G5 tower, a Mac Mini, and an Athlon 64 based PC tower. I use PCs and Windows every day for work, so I'm not one of these stereotypical "graphics arts" Mac using guys or anything....
... so maybe porting to OS X will become easier than porting to Windows in the future?
Microsoft loves to tout "the numbers" because that's really all they have going for them. Quantity does not equate to quality, however. There's something to be said for any company that strives to produce a top-tier product, even when that means not being capable of producing large numbers of it to "dominate the marketplace".
Many of the best musical instruments aren't cranked out by the millions by a manufacturer. Rather, they're painstakingly assembled by hand, in small numbers. If they weren't "niche" products, they wouldn't be worthwhile products at all.
The gaming market, right now, is all about quantity too - so it goes without saying that they're all over the Windows platform. Still, one can argue that many of the best/most entertaining games are only available for game consoles - not for Mac *or* PC. And it's beginning to look like this trend is only going to gain more momentum. (Again, when you're shooting for maximum sales numbers above all else, you start thinking in terms of "Why not write this for one specific hardware configuration we KNOW is in a given console, rather than trying to support all these potential PC software conflicts and gaming peripherals, etc.?")
Meanwhile, game consoles seem to be headed towards using the same processor that's in the Mac, not the PC
I use my PC pretty much only for gaming these days, and my Mac for everything else. If I invest a couple hundred bucks or so in a new generation console (XBox 2 or something), I could probably ditch the Windows PC completely and not really miss it.
Their products have never "just worked" in twenty years, what makes anyone believe they can, or even should, do it now?
DOS: half-ass command-line tools like MORE and screwed over batch programming, memory juggling with QEMM, Memmaker, etc, video and LAN technology, driver, and hardware fiascos, etc.
Windows pre-XP: an OS in a Clown Suit. need I really say more?
There was never a reason: The Unix history of doing things, *complete with source code*, has always been there, to be mimiced at the very least.
Dumb people buy anything, and I watched as a young, unempowered noob while the uninformed made MS rich.
If you have a hard linking filesystem, you CAN browse in any way the file is sorted. As a plus, doing on the filesystem level allows you to organize a variety of types of file and have them opened by your prefered application. The idea is, if you can give a file multiple paths via linking, you don't need metadata, and you don't need a specialized program for viewing the structure.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
More like, "It Works, Just" as in if it were an iota worse we would all throw up our hands and clamor to Apple.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
they've taken some of their competitors highly successful ideas and are implementing them into their own product. as 'freelock' comments in said article - "Windows isn't ready for the desktop yet. Maybe with Longhorn..."
But something has to create that multiple paths linking. It doesn't just automagically happen. And you sure DO need a "specialized program"...you need a file browser that understands that hard linking file system.
Don't worry. Apple's got this stuff figured out. Microsoft will be able to ride their coattails to almost-usability sometime in 2011.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
For those who are forced to use Windows: It's Just Work
It Just Borks
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Linux falls under a couple of categories dealing with this:
1. Its Supported, it just works.
2. Its not supported, it still works.
3. Its not supported, it doesn't work because the hardware manufacturer dilberatly made it so it wouldn't work.
4. It does work, you just don't know how to use it.
Like Tiger does it? Unix has been doing this for what... 30 years now?
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Wonder how much RAM we will need to find out just how good it works?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
A reboot, and it just works.
Sure, sure, but Windows won't do that. You'll be idleing at your PC when suddenly the disk will go to 100% usage for a few seconds, just long enough to wonder WTF, but not long enough to get to the bottom of it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Jim Allchin, Microsoft's group vice president for platforms, looked at my Apple PowerBook and smugly pointed out that the number of copies of Windows sold this year will be more than all the Macintosh computers used worldwide."
Kind of like Green Day trumpeting a platinum record in front of Itzak Perlman, as if they're the real artists.
Making Windows "Just work" by automating tasks has nothing to do with how Apple has been successful making their Operating System "Just Work".
The reason this phrase is synonimous with Apple is because, since the beginning, when you sat down in front of your Mac and *you* the USER tried to do something, you just did it. Yourself.
That's what "It Just works" means... it's the user coming back and telling their friend,
"Hey I just plugged in my video camera and made a movie in like 5 minutes. I don't really know how I did it, but I did, IT JUST WORKED!"
Apple can accomplish this because of it's control on hardware and OS integration. It works because the software is designed to take care of the basics behind the scenes and let the User take control of the situation.
"It Just Works" does not equal more Wizards that delay and annoy you or "helpful" messages like, "You have unused items on your Desktop, please let me delete them!"
It Just Works means the computer facilitates the process so that the User feels as though they are empowered and able to accomplish a task.
Why? For example, I like my LaTeX dirs sharing certain files (.bib, headers, etc.), which I achieve via softlinks. I'm sure I could have put them on the global LaTeX path somewhere, but why bother to find out how?
ln -s is good enough for me.
Incidentally, a good reason to use softlinks over hardlinks is that e.g. emacs apparently tends to save the _old_ version (filename~) under the old inode, creating a new inode for the edited version (filename). Thus suddenly the other hardlinks point to the old version - not good. Using softlinks eliminates this problem.
Why "much better"? Why not have both, to each his favorite? Incidentally, does iTunes support a hierarchical structure, tree-like, kinda like a directory tree? Or just top-level labels, kinda like a RDBMS table? I happen to like the former.
Them stealing 'It just works' from Apple kinda makes me giggle -- but what worries me sick is the possibility that they've now patented hard links (and/or symlinks that actually work)
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
What do you think happens when you delete one? Same thing as on unix (hard links). One disappears, the other still exists.
Why make up stuff to bitch about? MS has enough real problems that you don't need to invent any.
Also, the defragging is likely to be "on-the-fly". That is, it doesn't explictly defrag ever. So you may be wrong there too. Basically, "on-the-fly" defragging works by just ensuring files are contiguous when they are written.
It's entirely possible that I'm ignorant on the subject, but no, I'm not aware of any remotely usable tool for browsing file metadata on UNIX. I'm sure there's some command line thing that Eric Raymond chipped out of a piece of flint, that has a MAN page measured in megabytes.
But I'm talking about things that are actually useful to people who don't have serial ports in the backs of their skulls.
Don't get me wrong! I'm GLAD there are people with serial ports in the backs of their skulls working on computers. I just don't want to be one.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
One of the definitions of 'just' is 'by a narrow margin; barely'.
Perhaps that is the meaning they intend.
to this "It just works" uses Apple's Steve Jobs haiku for their own gain. It's akin to having Apple carry MS's water for them.
If MS is able to pull this heist-off, their monopoly is an all consuming field that simply absorbs any penetration at the fringes and morphs it back into the field again. McLuhan through and through.
Really, if the filesystem supports linking on a basic level, any file browser will work. A link is simply another path, and works transparently, just like you can refer to a file using a relative path. If the browser displays file info (in the manner of ls -l), you might need to handle a new attribute type, but that's all.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Ha!
If it's being implemented as in Tiger, they really aren't in 2 directories. M$ calls them virtual directories... I forget what it's called in OS X.
Basically, you create search criteria to find a group of files spread across the file system. When you save it, it creates what looks like a directory, but it's really saved search criteria. When you open the "directory" it just reruns the search and presents the files that matched.
So it's really kinda like an SQL view in a way and the contents will change dynamically as files in their real directories come and go.
I think it's pretty cool and even cooler that I get to take advantage of it in 7days with Tiger rather than 17mos with Longhorn.
It should be noted that these are a few of the synonyms for "just" in the Microsoft Word Thesaurus. Barely Hardly Scarcely Slightly
This is the philosophy that makes Windows such a challenge to use in situations not thought up by Microsoft programmers.
Microsoft software doesn't make it easy for you to accomplish tasks. Microsoft engineers design software that makes it easy to do what they think you want to do in the way that they think you want to do it.
This approach to usability can create a lot of problems. Some of these are as follows:
This approach not only shows up in the user interface, but also in the software architecture. Internet Explorer just assumes things about page layout that may or may not be true. All sorts of interesting CSS hacks are needed in order to get pages to display more or less correctly in Internet Explorer. Most of these issues are probably not bugs, but Microsoft engineers trying to protect people (web authors) from mistakes.
Protecting people from mistakes may be laudable, but this level of protection actually discourages someone from intelligently using a computer.
I think this in loco parentis attitude encourages the Joe Sixpack and clueless newbie users.
I don't know how Microsoft helps change this culture that they've played a major part in creating. Changing this would be a fundamental philosophical shift for Microsoft.
Shouldn't there stuff have worked a long time ago? Let's see.... Windows NT 3.51 (1995 or so), Windows NT 4, ... Windows 2000.
Crash Crash Crash.
And now, supposedly, it works. I have spent so many of my years as a professional dealing with MS-Bugs that I just can't believe it. Maybe this is MS-Bugs 2.0.
When I say "much better", I'm expressing my opinion. Since I don't have either the power, or the inclination, to deny you your choices, I am free to express my opinion, and you are free to disregard it.
iTunes organizes files into Artist/Album/Track.mp3 file structure, but I never pay any attention to that. I build a playlist by saying "bring me the 500 most recently added tracks that are not yet rated, and are in the Electronic or Ambient genres".
I'm not a database guy, so I don't know how to answer your second question. Fortunately, iTunes is designed so that it's easy for not database guys to drive the program in a very flexible way.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Same rotation angle, as well...
Gee, my Powerbook circa 2001 could do this.
And lo and behold, what's that in the System Preferences?
Why it's a optical disc icon that says
CDs & DVDs
And when I click on that there's a selection (mind you it's in plain english, of course, and not in engineer speak) that says:
When you insert a video DVD: [select drop down choice]
boggles the mind...
Revised EULA text follows:
16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties or similar obligations (if any) created by any advertising, documentation, packaging, or other communications. Specifically, marketing materials containing the phrase "It Just Works" specifically define "works" as the standard operation of the software, information and related content AS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and does not warrant that the behavior of the software will meet expectations of function or operation. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Software, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Software or otherwise arising out of the use of the Software. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
I've been a big whiner over the years about how linux is not ready for the desktop (and I still maintain this) - and while Microsoft SOME things are a little simpler - to claim "it just works" is the biggest load of hogwash I've heard in a LONG time.......
but no one cares - it's all marketing and lies anyhow.
> Allchin: Microsoft's research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items.
I don't understand this. A few years back we had a Microsoft Droid in our company trying to persuade us to upgrade because window XP would save us 14 minutes per day per employee because all its auto-hiding crap would make it easier to find stuff. Now we discover that XP was really a load of poo and we should upgrade to Longhorn. Thank the lord we are still on Windows 2000.
But what creates these paths? There's not a path fairy. Someone or something has to create those paths, and "any file browser" does not have the capabilities of doing that. Explorer gets confused when it traverses a shortcut.
Somebody has to create the links. Me, I'm not at all interested in the mechanism of the links. I'm interested in being able to generate a playlist (or a slide show or whatever) according to real-world criteria, not some silly hierarchy some programmer thought made sense to him.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It just works... But to be on the safe side, please upgrade to Intel Pentium Extreme2 7ghz
Sez who? I use my mac all the time without modal dialog boxes and windows.
OSX supports 3 types of dialogs and 2 of them are modal - document modal, and application modal.
Those types are good ideas. System modal is generally a bad idea, except for things like logging into the system. (Logging in to something, like a remote server, should be application modal, or perhaps even document modal, depending on the application and GUI).
I missed the Apple II compatible version of DOS I guess.
Wasn't their old mantra "It Works"?
Now they're using "It Just Works"
What's next? "It Barely Works"?
Longhorn: Insanely Great
Yeah I'd agree windows just (bearly) works too.
Upgrade to linux... it just works better...
It Just (Barely) Works
Sorry, but I couldn't resist. Obligatory bashing, and all that.
They're using XSP methodology. eXtremely Sneaky Programming.
What made you choose the ./ username "yagu"?
Just curious.
I think what people are missing in all this is that when you SAY it, it sounds like this... It "just" works ...
As in 'barely'.
Plug and play wasn't thought up by MS Marketing, it was from their Japanese HW research lab. Only, the engineer describing it was trying to say "Plug and Pray".
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Run regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll to turn off video preview. Works beautifully. XP was designed when most people had little digicam clips of a few megs on their machines, so MS thought that parsing them wasn't a bad idea. BTW, it doesn't just thumbnail the clip, it gets the total playtime and resolution as well, which is what is slowing down your system.
Microsoft hasnt actually decided on the final slogan
the choices are:
Microsoft - It Just Barely Works
Microsoft - It Almost Never Works
Microsoft - At Least We Aren't SCO
Isn't this going to be the version with DRM and all the other copy "protection" crap.
I'm sure it won't work like linux, eg you can copy it, maniuplate it, move it arround from pc to pc, store it on your local servers for quick downloads and access, without a license, with out a phonecall to microsoft.
Linux will work wether I have a CD, DVD, USB, network access, or even bootstrap floppy without much effort.
Linux will work as a terminal or a server right out of the box.
Linux will work on 32mb ram with a 400 mb disk and
a tty text console.
Linux will work on a 2048 node supercomputer parallel cluster.
Linux will work on x86, x86-64, dec, sparc, mips, power-pc, and even ARM.
GNU/Linux will work for editing, spread sheets, graphics, office productivity, mail servers, database servers, web servers, dns servers, smb servers, and development in over 10 different languages right out if the box.
So how is microsift claming "it just works" again?
As if Windows didn't thrash the disk enough during regular use! Windows multitasking is so bad though, I don't know if they will be able to pull it off.
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Like... umm.... errr. hardlinks in unix? How innovative of them. :-P They never really did figure out how to make symlinks (shortcuts?) work the way they are supposed to. I wonder if they will get this link type right. Now tracking down and removing Windows filesystem cruft is going to be more fun than ever.
and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows.
Microsoft: Innovations in Marketing
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I think the phrasing would be less ambiguous if they said "It just barely works."
"I know Microsoft can/should be able to do better than this."
I still remember the XP commercials with people flying to some Madonna song. I'm not sure they can do better. They spent all of the PR money fighting OSS.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
ust like I hated having to figure out that the power settings for my hard drive were in "Display Settings" under screen saver.
Too bad that's a blatant lie.
Windows very nicely keeps all power settings under the POWER OPTIONS control panel. Go figure!
Up in Ottawa and down in Texas, they're fond of saying "all hat and no cattle."
Our British cousins are fond of saying "all mouth and no trousers."
Of Microsoft's group vice president for platforms, I'm fond of saying "Allchin and no dick."
Smug, annoying and delusional - he's the archetypal marketmonkey.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Pfft, Tigger sucks. Wait for Pooh to become available.
So you assume the worst and rail against it. Your complaints are just about your own assumptions. They're pointless.
In defragging, you say it will slow down your apps that need to swap? Who do you believe they won't stop defragging when performing other operations? Because you didn't think of it MS didn't either?
All these complaints just show your anger towards MS and nothing else.
Modal dialogs and windows are an important tool.
With little exception, I believe modals are a crutch for lazy programmers who don't want to worry about addressing multiple contexts.
Ok, give me a good reason why I can't highlight text for cut&paste in Firefox while its Preferences window is open. Suppose I wanted to set my Home Page to something I am reading on a page.
Except for situations where the application is really entirely blocked, perhaps like "out of memory, should I crash?", modals have no place.
it doesn't work.
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
This isn't even new for Microsoft. They were chanting this just before they rolled out XP.
I'll run an x86 version of OSX if you pay me 500$. I won't use it, but I'll leave it on in the corner.
I thought April 22 was Earth Day, not April Fool's Day. This sounds like something that would be posted on April 1. "It Just Works", What works? Redmond's photocopiers?
ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Isn't that the same as?
ln -s
Is been in unix/linux for decades now...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Amarok (and i guess iTunes etc) can sort MP3's based on the tags by Album, Genre, Year, Artist in any order you want. That is 24 combinations. To emulate that in a filesystem seems cumbersome. And not easy to keep consistent unless the filesystem is based on a database, which I believe will not be the case in Longhorn after all.
So, it took them smth like 8 years to write a functionality around that kernel call... OK.
VKh
It just works. Barely.
They mis-spelled S-U-C-K-S... I'll admit, they both end in "ks", but the reality is completely different than what they're spinning here...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Unless TFA is randomly missing links to articles, I'm lacking a link or other method of information as to how you know this. The article does not detail how it'll defragment on the fly, nor does it say that it'll max out the disk usage.
Really, who's to say that on the install of longhorn, how do you know that it won't benchmark your hard disk for sesquential/random read/write limits, and take those into account? (And, if you replace the hard drive, wait for user activity to stop for 30 minutes, CPU usage to bottom out, and then benchmark the disk?)
"Random moments" of 100% disk activity can be nothing more than sloppy design (hence why ext3 can simply burn).
I thought Microsoft's Motto was "It Compiles".
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Since the installation process for anything on a Mac has always been "You plug it in and it works."
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Another M$ innovation ...
link -s file
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
All Your Slogans Are Belong To Us
You game on linux. Instead of OS X? Because? OS X has 10 times the number of gaming offerings that linux does. You really sound like a troll, but maybe you are just misguided. Here at work I use a powerbook, as does about half the company. We write software to run on the really expensive special purpose servers we sell. What exactly is it that you do on x86 hardware that you can't do from your mac? Umm, there are a lot more games for x86 architechture than for Macs. And alot of games that can run on Macs can run just fine on Linux; take UT2004, for example. And . . . umm, you're accusing grandparent of trolling? He said "I have to game on windows or linux." . . . it's quite understandable if the games he wants to play only run on Windows or Linux; you're the one doing troll-like things, like ignoring part of his statement and pretending he was setting up a dichotomy between Linux and OSX, when in reality he was talking about Windows and Linux, which can of course work in concert, installed even on the same computer. You, dear sir, appear to be the misguided one.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
"It Just Works."
Apple used this phrase against Microsoft. Nobody things that Windows "Just works."
* Files in multiple folders simultaneously
OMG. They have reinvented hard links and symbolic links!
* Autodefragmentation
When was the last time you defragmented an EXT2 or ReiserFS partition?
Besides didn't we hear that this feature was planned for NT4?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Do not forget the shortlived Apple Newton eMate and the shortlived eWorld e-mail system that predate the iMac. :-)
eMate = 1997
eWorld = 1994
iMac = 1998
About each product...:0 0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton#eMate_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emate#eMate_300
"the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously"
They've re-invented hard links! The daring! The innovation!
No sig.
Look at that, only 15-20 years and they've just gotten it working.
Of course, in practice different .mp3 files will use slightly different spelling or punctuation for artist, album, or title, so the fully automatic way doesn't give very nice results. This is where iTunes fails, too.
Under Linux (and I suppose all Unix, including Darwin?), all "normal" directory entries are (hard) links. (I know Windows "shortcuts" are screwed up bigtime though.)Look, I don't really mean to dis' Apple. Organizing mp3's by their ID3 tags is a natural (in fact downright commonsense) thing to do, and most users probably do prefer it.
I just think people sometimes don't appreciate that filenames are an example of this gee-whizzy "metadata" stuff, and that this particular example of metadata is quite flexible and extremely well supported.
"The VP of marketing at Ford looked at me smugly: 'Well,' he said, 'just compare the number of Ford Focueses on the market to the number of BMWs, and it's clear that we're in the lead'."
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
Given that this will undoubtedly annoy more then it helps. I would like a feature that you could turn on and off(deafult to off) for letting it do this.
It would be kinda neat to just pop in the DVD and have it play when on my tvlinked pc, since I never really put a DVD in it for other reasons then watching it.
Another thing I like in videoplayers is hiding ALL the options... (default to off ofcause).
using xine on Linux really got me loving the idea of running without that irritating floating positionbar, and just having all the options in a righclickmenu on the playing movie.
Then it just needs to run without the titelbar and you have a practical way of watching something in small window without it using up 2/3 of the screen.
Okay, mshaft (lower-casing/deprecation of mshaft's name intentional/perpetual with me...), here we go...
I've got something for you to do: Put one thumb in your mouth, and put the other up your ass. Now, when I say, 'SWITCH!'...
That probably will work for mscarf, too.
Now, we need a new Linux mantra, too.
"Ours works as well, if not better. Ours works because it's open; you have access. We dont' SCREW you with encrypted code; obfuscated code, security dependent upon obscurity. Our's works because you're not locked in.
If you're un-American, or just non-'Merkun, a foreign government, an enemy of the US-state, well, Linux, F/LOSS, and GPL just werk! You're not at the mercy of code going to the NSA, unless you voluntarily build and optimize code on secure Linux ports.
Ours works because it's based on the LIBRE principles and ideas. You can modify it as you need and have few onerous restrictions in the rebranding and commercial exchange department, but overall, when apps become more windoze-like, well, ms you'd BETTER just "get to work" rather than proclaim a la stolen Apple Mantra "It Just Works"...
On second thought: OURS WERKS BETTER."
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Not quite automatically, but if the ID3 info is already in the .mp3 files, the hard work is already done. Just put each file in a directory, "$artist/$album/$title" - or whatever you want, though this particular heirarchy seems very natural to me. But you could additionally (or instead) make another heirarchy grouping things by genre, or whatever."
Sounds like about four days' worth of work. iTunes did it, by itself, for a 30gb music collection, in an hour or two.
Spotlight is going to do the same thing for every other document on my hard drive. Let me be the first to say "Boo yah."
"I just think people sometimes don't appreciate that filenames are an example of this gee-whizzy "metadata" stuff, and that this particular example of metadata is quite flexible and extremely well supported."
I don't care about gee-whizzy. I care about USEFUL. Apple is the company that has brought good file metadata management to the desktop. You might say "Eh, it's not interesting because it's a logical extension of the filename metadata". I say "It's interesting because they've taken a simple idea and made it extremely powerful."
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Longhorn: It Works, Just
qntm.org
True, they're not *trying* to be original or innovative, but your last sentence missed the mark: it's very important that they use exactly the phrase "It Just Works".
This PR stunt has exactly one goal: to neutralize the phrase "It Just Works".
Right now, everybody who's used a Mac in the past 5 years is telling all their Windows friends and family "You should get a Mac; it just works". (Having a product that turns consumers into willing advertisers is every PR employee's wet dream. Most companies would kill for this.)
Once Microsoft starts advertising Windows as "It Just Works", all their Windows users will start to think that "IJW" is a completely meaningless phrase.
This isn't a new strategy for them.
- You don't hear Linux advocates saying Linux is "stable" these days, not because it isn't, but because Microsoft said that Windows NT 4 was also "stable". Once they had PR people saying this, the word "stable" was no longer a competitive advantage for Linux. As long as you've got Microsoft PR chanting "NT 4 is stable", calling Linux "stable" no longer works.
- Bill Gates once observed that the way to make software user-friendly was to make a rubber stamp and stamp each box with the words "USER FRIENDLY". Remember when Apple software was "user-friendly"? They can't say that any more, because even the worst piece-of-shit shareware Windows app that crashes every 2 seconds is advertised as "user-friendly" these days.
- Remember when they made up a fake "switcher"? They weren't trying to convince Apple users to switch to PCs (a nearly impossible task) -- they were trying to convince PC users that PCs weren't really worse than Macs. If any Mac user says "Look at all the people switching to Mac", the PC user can say "Hmm, true, but there are also people switching from Mac to PC...".
Just as Microsoft R&D often consists of looking at what Apple has done and trying to copy it, Microsoft PR consists of looking at how Apple PR is doing their jobs and looking for a way to neutralize it.
I don't know what Apple's next big marketing ploy is going to be, but I'm positive that Microsoft is going to copy it exactly, just to plug the leak. The only question left is: when will this dam break?
From the article:
Longhorn doesn't just show you an icon for a document, for example, but rather an itsy-bitsy picture of the first page.
Um, excuse me, but isn't this what KDE has been doing for quite some time now? Why do Windows users have to wait for features I'm already using in Linux?
I don't know whether Linux is just coming of age or if Microsoft is starting to slip behind the times, but it seems like more and more features are showing up in Linux before Windows:
Okay, so I haven't seen a Mac in a while, so the whole file preview thing might not have originated with KDE. But from this, it looks as if Microsoft is starting to lose some momentum.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
There's a word missing from that slogan:
"It *should* just work".
The word Windows and "it just works" in the same sentence!!!
Bwahahahahahaha!!!!
Oh, stop it, it hurts...!!!
Bwahahahahahaha!!!
Here it comes again!!
Bwahahahahahahah!!!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Was this leftover from April 1?
--
"You've only got one finger left,
and it's pointing at the door."
It maybe cumbersome, but that is exactly what Spotlight is going to solve. You will be able to do a live search (get results as you type) on metadata such as keywords, file names, file extensions, etc.. And to extend the idea further, you get to have Smart Folders which is analoguous to Smart Playlist in iTunes.
Files in more than one folder??? You mean.. 20+ years after Unix, they've come up with the idea of... a link? Wow!!! Innovation!
Windows! It's just not!
Actually I've come to the conclusion that the best motto for Linux is still:
Windows sucks...
Maybe we could spruce it up a little:
Windows - You pay for it to suck...
Or like the one on the picture of Tux sucking Windows up through a straw from one of those juice boxes:
Windows - We suck more!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Shortcuts are the evolution of PIF files. They often contain information about how an application should start (maximization, default path, memory size, compatability modes etc). They are not designed to be used like symlinks.
I actually like shortcuts, they're nicer than KDE's start menu system which doesn't use shortcut files but a config file instead.
auto-defragmenting in the background
get diskeeper.
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Get unix (links)
Was to bring the features that Unix users have been using for years to the 20 Mac dupes, er, users worldwide!
It works, just.
> It Just Works
No Microsoft operating system has ever been able to allow the user to reliably rename or delete a file.
Microsoft allows processes to hold an open file "hostage", preventing renaming or deleting. This is why many installers require a re-boot -- this is the only way they can delete certain files.
If Microsoft was serious about saying that "it just works", then they would make sure that I can always click on a file in the explorer and delete it or rename it.
Deleting and renaming files are among the very most basic, fundamental features that an operating system provides. Microsoft just can't seem to make it work, can they?
iTunes allows you to tell it how you would like it to organize the files in directories, but it's quite limited. Basically, your choices are: ...and filenames forced to be unique... or:
1 - everything dumped into a single directory
2 - in directories by artist
3 - in directories by album inside directories by artist
4 - leave it alone, dammit!
But every file you add to the Library (the main database/playlist) gets all its tag info thrown into an XML database for searching, no matter which file organization option you choose. New playlists are treated as subsets of the main Library playlist. Basically, it's a single table, and playlists are just queries against it.
Whats the point....
All they want is yes people, they know X bugs exist and can sometimes be fixed fast, but wont because the product manager says NO. They have no concept of 'create the best' , but create the just good enough.
90% of code problems and ideas dont need wierd puzzle solvers, try solving real world problems, not some useless puzzles.
Gee, mr wiz kid, why isit when windows copies a folder of 10000 files, and file #3 cant copy because its busy, it bails and stops, and doesnt ASK, continue, and try locked files at the end.
Yes I know they want to keep it darn simple so grandma can use it, but then you miss out on some real neat stuff.
How this for an entry test.
Drink 12 cans of beer, and then see if you can solve stupid puzzles, if you cant hack it under pressure, your useless.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
FWIW, Enlightenment 17 + X11 looks like more of what I want out of a modern GUI than either Longhorn or OSX.
I just don't get Enlightenment.
It's a really complex window manager that does about the same as any other window manager except you can make the edges of windows look like a Giger painting.
And don't come back with Mac OS X and Expose and the lickable interface. Enlightenment doesn't do ANYTHING to let application partake of the cool window border action, and it doesn't give you window transparency, and it doesn't give you really nice consistent text input widgets and Services and contextual menu plugins... because it's not a toolkit or framework, it's just a window manager.
It just lets you do cool shit to the edges of windows.
Why is that so damn enticing? I honestly don't get it.
In fact get rid of modal windows in general
If that's not the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. Modal dialogs and windows are an important tool.
Here's something more ignorant: I actually have no idea what the hell you two are talking about : (
You can't take the sky from me...
I might be completly wrong here (and please *do* correct me if I am), but I think junctions only allow you to link a "folder" to a logical drive. So, if I created a folder named "example" in the root of C:, I could then convert it to a "junction" to link it to my D: partition, thus C:\example\file.txt and D:\file.txt would point to the same file.
[wearing humble-hat], ahem, I have now read your sysinternals link and I'm mistaken!
I never understand why MS doesn't provide any access to some Windows features!!
> Okay, mshaft (lower-casing/deprecation of mshaft's name intentional/perpetual with me...
Oh gosh you're so clever. No one's ever thought of mangling Microsoft's name before. Your argument just glows with erudition from this clever twist alone.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
A M$ employee was scribbling around on his paper to come up with a new slogan... A night after without any sleep, he finally came up with a new slogan and decides to write the slogan on M$ Word: "It just works like Mac OSX" The following day the employee was presenting his slogan and M$ word recovered only up to "It just works"
buffering...
The difference between Microsoft and Apple's interface philosophy (I think):
1. Apple makes it easy for the user to do complicated things.
2. Microsoft tries to automatically do complicated things for the user.
Apple's people work hard so you won't have to.
Microsoft makes you work hard where you shouldn't have to.
Question: In XP, how do you get rid of the huge blue (or file tree) "links" section of all of their windows?
I was trying to view all of my pictures' icons for a university project in one window so I could know their exotic names when importing them, and it WOULD have fitted all in one handy window, if a whole third of it hadn't been wasted by their blue bar.
When I came home, it took me 2 seconds to learn to do the same in my OSX finder windows. Whereas me, the people at the stations around me, and 2 successive computer lab technicians never did find out how to do this simple thing in winXP.
You can't take the sky from me...
...it's the mantra of win32 virus and spyware authors :-)
It Really Just Works
You're wrong (-:
Read the link.
I understand why you think the way you do, though: MS' built-in Disk Management Util allows you to link logical volumes to directories (I suspect through junctions).
This utility allows the linking of one directory to another (like a symlinked directory).
S
Well, you could have a script put all the files in the appropriate directory from the ID3 tags. Although at that point you're just making a duplicate copy of the metadata in the tags; I don't really see the point.
Revised Edition
"It just works, mostly"
Actually, the NT kernel has had links for a long time. You can link files, folders and entire partitions into the middle of other filesystems.
/. want a fact to get int he way of the zealotry?
The "multiple folders" reference is in respect to the Metadata tagging that allows files to show up in virtual folders as the result of live real time searches.
Make a folder for a project and any file ont he systme you tag as being part fo that project will show up there, and in any other live folder (Stack) that it applies to.
It kicks ass. But then, why woudl anyone on
--> Fight tyranny and repression.... read
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I figure you'd use a 'make link' command. Ever use ln under *NIX? What adds metadata to your files? The metadata fairy? I think not ...
In any case, the great thing about links is that the criteria AREN'T arbitrary. You aren'y limited to labelling files with a given set of fields; you can create a grouping (by creating a directory and filling it with links) by any criteria.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Microsoft cannot succeed with a strategy built around the idea of "it just works" because, fundamentally, Microsoft doesn't know what it means for something to "just work." Microsoft has, time and again, failed to produce highly usuable software for the same reason: it doesn't understand how the system should behave*.
To make up for this lack of understanding (I doubt MS even realizes it doesn't understand how systems should behave) the company builds scripted interactions (unlovingly known to all of us as those irritating "wizards" that keep you from successfully creating the graph you want in Excel, etc...). In short, MS papers over bad behavior with bad interfaces that obstruct, obfuscate, and harass the poor souls who have to suffer through them. Microsoft has even named this philosophy: recall "Task Based Interfaces."
And may the Lord have mercy if you don't want to perform a task Microsoft hasn't already thought up.
Apple, on the other hand, approaches the problem differently. Rather than asking "how can we make it easy for someone to do XYZ," Apple asks "what should the tool XYZ do," and then if necessary builds an interface that allows people to modify that behavior through understandable, easy-to-find, commands/menus/buttons, etc.**
Apple's strategy, starkly 180 degrees from Microsoft's "task based" strategy, is a human based system. Apple doesn't guess what you're trying to do, but instead makes tools that do what you expect. Thus people, not magical condescending wizards, can apply the tools to whatever variety of tasks may be at hand. So things "just work" because the tools do what we expect from them. Then the computer becomes transparent to the task, rather than the focus of the task itself.
You probably won't encounter a single "wizard" included by Apple in OS X, aside from the intial setup assistant that isn't so much a "wizard" -- there's nothing "guiding" you through the setup screens -- as just a few screens full of fields of information the computer collects to get OS X configured appropriately.
As long as Microsoft doesn't understand that for something to "just work," a tool needs to do what people expect, and that people should be able to directly interact with the tool's interface in a manner that allows even a relatively uninformed person to make the tool do what they want, then Microsoft won't succeed in building highly usable human interfaces.
Since I'm confident that Microsoft hasn't turned a new leaf in this respect, I'm also confident the "it just works" campaign will amount to nothing more than saturation marketing and a lot of grumbling*** about cute animated puppy dogs pissing on our files.
--
* You could probably make a pretty good case for this problem being a fundamental problem in other aspects of Microsoft's design philosophy: bloat, poor security, inconsistency, and generally quirky, hard to predict behavior, could all spring from the same fertile root.
** This is a recursive strategy. It's not enough to make aprogram that does what a person expects, but every sub-piece of that program also needs to also do what a functionally experienced, but non-expert, user interacting with the tool for the first time might think it should do. Each button should be intuitively named. Menu items should be logically organized. The interface should be sufficiently uncluttered that interface elements are readily seen. It's OK for a system to have an unfamiliar way of interacting with the user (for example, drag-and-drop) if that method of interaction is widely applicable across the entire system so that once someone is familiar with the technique they can use it elsewhere. And so on.
*** Here's an amusing, and very telling, anecdote about MS human interfaces: I was once talking to a Microsoft programmer about user interface issues, and brought up Clippy as one of the most glaring examples of Microsoft's human interface failures...but the programmer refused to believe me that most people actual
I don't know about YOU, when my files are in 30billion places at once that is NOT a good thing.
All you nutjobs with your illegal and pay-for-crap stuff might like this, but my collection is based on the physical media I own. Yes, hundreds of CDs ripped to a TB FW tower. I want directories. I want to organize the way I want. I want the stuff WITHOUT tags to be searchable. I don't have the time to go through and edit every freakin file to get the tags right. Drag folder to Nero. Burn CD. Destroy CD though carelessness. Repeat.
And don't get me stared on my AudioBooks on CD. What a fucking mess. I still say if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.
And, yes, I owned an iPod. I returned it, in part, becuase iTunes was as bad a windows about doing its "own" think rather than what I wanted.
I agree, iTunes is probably good for 12 year old girls. I have a longer attention span and a far larger need for organization.
(sorry for the rant...I've had a bad day)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
> How long will I have to struggle with it to figure out how to turn that off?
About as long as it takes you to download TweakUI and turn off autoplay on the paranoia tab.
To be fair, i think this feature means that the multiple copies/links will be created automatically, somehow.
ie, if you save a file, it'll automatically appear in the various desired locations. You won't have to make the shortcuts or links manually.
I suppose that could be useful, if they manage to get the UI right.
such as auto-defragmenting in the background, - I think that was HPFS (OS/2)
the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously, - Ah, a feature from Unix (hard links)
and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows. - Yes. This is why I use a computer. Not because of Word Processor X, or Graphic Program Y. Its because my freaking OS tells me its sorry it crashed, and will, at my click, send a bug report to the authors. Yes. That is why I use a computer. When will people realize that its not really the OS that makes a computer appealing to someone - its what they can do with it. And making pretty borders around your windows is not productive. I've yet to see a "tricked out" Windows XP system at ANY company. Users just don't bother with that crap. Its a waste of disk space, a waste of IO, and a waste of user time.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Too bad erudition doesn't always lead to employment. Hence, I am in the process of building a screenplay/manuscript tracking application which I hope to release under dual-licensing conditions.
I'd **prefer** it release to F/LOSS users, but since I'm building it (either as a deployable app or as a prototype by which SO/OO.o developers can try to mimic to help give Linux/Open Source users an addition "flagship product") in Lotus Approach (IANAD (I am NOT a developer)), I have to get my timing right. I also have to copyright it officially, initiate an expensive patent pending process (not to obstruct others from what I am doing, but to prevent the microsofts of the screenplay software industry from trying to pinch off pieces and ideas and then patent them themselves... this way, my ideas are open to all, or to none, but not to just a few greedsters or opportunists...) and STILL try to get the attention of the F/LOSS/Open Source database and GUI tools creators.
Far too many Linux-based apps out there have a "geek edge" (I am not necessarily any better, just frustrated...). It's not apparent to me that there is a mogul or philanthropist or IBM of sorts out there acting as a "best runner-up clearinghouse" for deserving OpenSource/FLOSS apps that are whiled away out of passion but sequestered to privacy out of fear of being exploited by others and to the economic exclusion of the inventor.
I hope to release this thing in the next 3 months and then get feedback on it. I tend to think of myself as an "end-user-oriented" database too developer, but being not a programmer, my focus is on "cool", "neat" and "functional". Hence I stick with Lotus Approach, Lotus WordPro, and other parts of Lotus SmartSuite. I am sorely upset that IBM and Lotus aren't allowing the OpenSource community to have pieces of SmartSuite as a challenge to improve the languishing suite. It ought to be criminal that a suite as nice as SmartSuite is sequestered only to windoze land.
For IBM to port or allow external adaptation of SmartSuite for Open Source users would be, simply/simplistically, along these lines:
1. Target skilled, available, passionate developers who know windoze land and its strengths and weaknesses from a non-zealot perspective compared to Linux/F/LOSS and who are passionate about getting more robust and polished apps to Linux users and corporations
2. Set up and deliver some 25 to 50 laptops preloaded with Wine/Linux and Lotus SmartSuite (alternatively, windoze 98 in Mandrake or Fedora or Debian set up with Win4Lin...)-- these laptops would have to be stripped of data-passing ports or interfaces, electromagnetically sealed, data/key-stroked, and running the minimum of apps, excluding ANY development tools.
3. Insist the developers who opt into the program are to use the laptops for up to 5 hours per day or about 20 hours per week, randomly, but log in to the Internet accounts they have, surf, and correspond via documents created in Lotus WordPro, calculate things in Lotus 1-2-3, and develop ad-hoc database apps based on pre-canned activities by IBM and Lotus to ensure the user/dev/tester is forced to develop and think like a hybrid user/developer within the limitations of SmartSuite (eschewing SO/OO.o... Corel and ms orifice...). The MAIN goal here is that the developers get a feel for the capabilities and limitations of Lotus SmartSuite as compared to OO.o/SO, Corel's suite, and ms orifice.
4. As the users wrap up their 2-3 week testing period, the laptops are returned to IBM, inspected for tampering (you KNOW geeks WILL try to crack or nose around the box...), and the level of individual ingenuity and collaborative work integration is evaluated, IBM then selects some 25 engineer candidates to be whittled down to 15 developers who agree to be flown out to an IBM-sanitized/cleanroom site, with minimal to non-existent facilities for outside visitors. (This is to reduce or eliminate the risk of "external contamination".)
5. IBM/Lotus bring from their own or from a cons
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
god help you if it doesn't. :-)
..don't panic
Then what? Mac OS Donkey? Mac OS Eeyore? Mac OS Piglet?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
That must be a pretty small value of "all the time" if you've never seen a modal dialog box in OS X...
Or I could use iTunes.
Why would I not do that?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Sounds like fun. Not. Sounds user friendly. Not.
Look, it works for you, and I think that's great. It doesn't work for me, which is why I'm glad that there are smart engineers working on simplifying it.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Not to mention incredibly abused.
Although I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where a modal window is justified...
Im glad the fine people at microsoft have decided to change their long standing policy and start making stuff that works. What a 180... i wonder if they are gonna remove their copyright on:
"Windows, it just doesnt work"
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
but I would check out this Channel9 video to give an idea of what Microsoft is doing in the future. Microsoft is opening up a lot on ideas behind Avalon, and it's much more powerful than the cookie-cutter OS X. I don't care what Apple's latest skin looks like, Avalon (and XAML) will combine the ease of C#.NET programming with DirectX/OpenGL power/ease of use for any programmer to bring into Windows. Now that it was backported (with Indigo) to Windows XP/2003 Server, you have a much larger market. Few rarely mention Avalon (and any details) even though two CTP editions have been released to the community and customer feedback is strongly encouraged! So, continue with the rants and I'll take another look at Avalon...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
While we're nitpicking other's posts...
:-) Don't take it up with me though; take it up with your bewildered English professor.
One can demonstrate a misuse of the English language and "they [can bong] you for misusage of" an English word. These are subtly different.
Additionally, you've misused the dash and colon. I warned you I was going to be pedantic.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
UNIX has had the ln command for years
I dont get why microsoft implemented the crap known as "shortcuts" instead of proper Symbolic Links like on UNIX (there are good reasons why hard links wouldnt work, especially on the FAT filesystem) or like aliases on MacOS.
Wow, files in more than one place? Wow! *nix has only had that capability since, what? 1969?
I'm with you on this ... I don't see any reason why I (or something at the application level) should be making lots of extra inodes just to store alternate 'groupings' (why call those groupings metadata? if you have to assign the metadata, why not attach it to the file as the fs level, rather than indirectly with an inode?).
I think it's a much more elegant solution to just store a query rather than create a new directory on disk, and fill it with additional inodes. (I guess there are millisecond performance differences to be had, but I'm not interested in that debate.)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
...ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously
Symlinks?
nt
Jim, I'm not going to be one of those people, ever again. I don't care if you're smug. I'm happy using a computer (my powerbook), with an OS that is fantastic, and makes it easy to do things that were difficult, and possible to do things that I thought I'd never be able to do.
Jim, since I know you're reading this - it really is too late. Ever since I went Apple, I can't believe I suffered through your excuse for an OS, and I never miss a chance to show other poor savages what they're missing.
So good luck. I'm actually starting to think you're going to need it.
3. Linux makes easy things extremely difficult. ...a gentoo fanboy
Common, if an application cannot decode a shortcut .lnk file, then the coders are uber weenie fuckers.
Its only one damn func() call to decode it, get a damn clue to all coders who can do a if string.Find( ".lnk") >0 ok
And if you do not want to use win32 calls, then damn well decode it ur self, its not 40 hrs work, no more than 30mins.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"It Just Barely Works" (and only now and then, at that) (Note: I'm mad at Microsoft right now. Explorer keeps dying without notice in XP Home when I'm using My Computer or Explorer.)
Classic search is one regedit away: http://www.tweakxp.com/article139698.aspx
Note that it was never claimed that Longhorn will/does "just work." It was said that that is their design GOAL.
Unfortunately, many goals are unattainable. Like my goal of a future marriage to a supermodel/physicist/jazz musician.
However, file names are of limited length and limited character composition. No one would want to, or even be able to, encode everything they wanted to in each files path, so given that you have to have tags or an external database to do it well, why bother with involved directory trees and filenames at all?
I want it to ASK me first... Seriously, pretty much every piece of software these days goes up on the net every five minutes to "call home" and check for updates. In some cases it's a bitch to turn it off.
So, when I was playing world of warcraft and it started lagging I found out I had forgotten to change the time of the weekly full virusscan to a time besides the default on, at whitch I am always playing.
later I turned of java updates, because it got my latency past the triple digits. Then windows automatic updates decided to download some hugeass file, and the game sputtered and died.
These are all examples of stuff thats still _relatively_ easy to turn off. I just forgot, what with the new installation and all.
and apparently the next time I play on longhorn, the defrag will start running. Hoo fing ray. Seriously... automation is fine, but I need my bandwidth and processor power to be under my control when I play games. Anything else is unacceptable.
Wouldnt it be better if it worked. 'Just' working isnt quite enough imho. Something on the brink of not working.. well.. erm.. no thanks. Mind you, very descriptive of their products.
This is exactly what we've been doing in BeOS for YEARS.
Just the database is the filesystem itself, so you can query for them from the file manager and the shell even.
I heard Piglet was a codename Apple used somewhere, I forget what for.
Yep. And now more than four people will get to use it, which is a Good Thing.
I wouldn't argue that Apple invented the idea. They did refine it, and they're certainly going to deploy it broadly.
BeOS was technically nifty. Maybe if Gassee hadn't asked for so much cash for an OS that couldn't print, he'd be doing Steve's Job.
Wonder if he'd have been as effective.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It is true that the shell namespace has hardlinks in it. It also has virtual folders like the Control Panel or enhanced folders like the Desktop or Fonts.
The problem is that none of this is present in the filesystem which still uses those lovely drive letters. If you want to iterate the filesystem, you can use simple, tried-and-true APIs. If you want to iterate the shell namespace, you have to deal with the most convoluted system ever devised and handle numerous design flaws yourself (example: when retrieving the name of a shell item, it can be returned in one of three ways, each of which you have to handle).
This is in fact the reason why there are so many Windows applications out there that ignore the shell namespace and only give you drive letters. It is a pain in the ass to do it properly.
This means that if you want to access your desktop, your home dir or your documents in such an application, you have to go to the relevant filesystem folder. Confusion and anger follows.
This shows another idea that Microsoft doesn't get: making Windows development easy and intuitive for programmers.
It's just Microsoft you know!
Why yes, no dialog window ever took focus away from what I was typing. Strange huh? I mean the idea that I should continue to type my document despite the fact that some background process wants me to click OK.
evil is as evil does
First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. We are officials representing the Ubanthu government...
The function CreateHardLink has existed since Windows 2000, and works only on NTFS drives. Unfortunately there is no way to access it via explorer, you would have to create an application to do it manually.
According to MSDN: "The CreateHardLink function establishes a hard link between an existing file and a new file. Currently, this function is only supported on NTFS."
Only directories can be linked across physical disks, and network drives are not supported.
It just works, but exists in a quantum state in which it is always both non-working and working, and doesn't choose a state until it's observed. So depending on when you want it to work, it'll either work or not work, when in reality it's always both.
You gotta love marketing, seriously.
it just MIGHT work.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
Jerry Pournelle has used this subject phrase for many years as his accolade for products of which he thinks highly.
I have no idea of when he started using the phrase nor any idea of when Apple introduced it.
Does anyone else no who was the actual originator of phrase>
Now THAT was a funny parent post. He compared things that were completely different, and hailed non-existent things like WinFS.
WinFS is nowhere near being finished. And it probably will be nowhere near as advanced as most other FS's out there. The only advantage it will have, is proprietary secrecy, which will allow them to do things that dont benefit their users, secretly. Thats not what I call a strong selling point.
I dont even know why they bother, when they could just liscence Reiserfs (or ext3 ??) instead. It would save them effort and probably be a reasonable price. In fact, if the next windows doesnt have native Reiserfs/ext3 _support_, they'd be basically admitting obstenance and stupidity.
ALong with lacking filesystem support, Longhorn will also NOT support the following "properly":
-multicore processors
-64 bit => slow 32 bit compatability layers dont count (although much of this is the manufacturers fault)
-non-intel architectures (as if they even have a chance to develop now)
So, what this means is, Longhorn is designed to work comfortably on much faster computers than will exist in the future, now that we hit that roadblock; and it wont support faster archetectures. So, essentially, Longhorn will be flashy and fun like MacOS, except slow and painful like Windows NT. It will truly be a mediocre operating system, one we can all say "meh" about, when it comes out.
from this page we know that, a MacMini "It Just Works", too.. (second headline from the top)
I don't want to wait one and a half year for Longhorn, I think I'll just get the thing that works, now..
Why not just write a filesystem that does not need defragmenting to begin with?
Oh yeah, and security. M$ finally starts to solve the problems they created. Or do they? They' ve been claiming better security for ages. Why we still see new Windows targeted malware every week is really beyond me.
M$, you've still got to copy a couple more features from other OSes until Windows is on par. "We'll put massive emphasis on this in terms of marketing and dollars". This is what you're good at.
To speak with the town of Munich's mayor Christian Ude: "What else can you offer?"
But for the typical "Fortune" reader this may be sufficient. Others will have to take the rap for half-witted managers buying this crap.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
You are a funny guy.
Yes, they make "so much damn money", they have sold even more damn stock.
MS has a capitalization of about 300 Billion and they make a profit of about 10 Billion /year or about 3%.
That means, even if they shell out ALL their profit as dividends, you merely get 3%/year of your investment, which doesn't make it a decent buy at all.
...is based on their old development philosophy of "it just compiles"...
Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
I think you're absolutely right on the different philosophies of sales. But as I've thought more about Apple and the on-going debate about licensing their OS - I tend to side with Apple's current stance.
I think if Mac OS X was licensed to OEM's, what you'd see is a big initial increase in the popularity and usage of OS X, but it would also be the end of Apple as a hardware company. Right now, Apple's "1, 2 punch" of providing quality hardware PLUS the fact that it has the unique ability to run OS X makes it attractive to a percentage of buyers. If the ONLY selling point was the quality/looks of the hardware, but it no longer ran an OS that was unique to the machine - it'd lose too much appeal to remain viable.
Meanwhile, you'd see some reliability and compatibility inside OS X breaking, as OEMs cut corners on their versions of machines that could run the OS.... Just like Windows, users would tolerate it and keep buying it anyway, but it would mark a relative decline in the "respectability" of the OS.
Drop the attitude please.
Look, you're obviously bitter about something, but please don't take it out on me.
I'm not even sure why you bothered posting. You didn't say anything which wasn't already said in another post, and you had to be an asshole about it.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
About what I thought. Now what would be really cool is having a directory tree of categories and vague groupings, like Dance>80s>Disco>BandName, with the same genres/albums occurring in different folders thanks to hard links, _and_ having the whole thing indexed by tag content as well, with a soft player that understands both. Is that perhaps already possible with Spotlight BTW?
I recall this "it just works" from the NeXT era and something Steve Jobs used to reiterate during NeXT events. I probably heard it being used over and over during the NEXTWORLD 1994 Expo.
It was being used by NeXT to describe their idea of what the user should experience and it led to things like "services" and stuff. Select any word, click Cmd-= and the dictionary application would start up and give you a definition. Nice cooperation between applications.
The phrase probably was brought to Apple when NeXT invaded Apple, er, Apple bought NeXT.
Given the sorry state of "it just works" in the average Windows home system (friends wasting days to get their camera/DVD-burn system going, things like that) it has been a good phrase for Apple and it is definitely something Microsoft would like to be (like secure, another thing they would like to be)
...I've been saying that for years. Hmm.... Guess I'll have to come up with something else, as that evidently doesn't mean what I think it means anymore. -bmath
I'm not used to reading Microsoft dialect, but when they say "the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously" does that mean symlinks / hardlinks ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Christopher Robin is all grwon up now.
He's moved out of the 1000 acre wood, and lives in Chicago where he is pursuing his masters. During the day he builds and supports trade support systems for The Merch.
His shop's platform of choice for workstations?
WinXP pro.
Meanwhile, back in the woods, Eeyore finally lost his tail, during a colonoscopy, and passed on during the reconstructive surgery. Sad.
Tiger and Pooh moved to Conneticut just last week, they were expecting that when Governor Reill signed the 'gay marriage bill' they'd finally be able to hook up. No such luck.
The Rabbit (what's his name) got busted in Newark 2 years ago, and is doing time down in Rahway (the big house) on multiple felony drug convictions.
Piglet is the only one left in the 1000 acre woods. He now has a cane, and walks with a slight limp. Much like a little pink Yoda. Unlike Yoda however, he has no greatness behind him, and no important tasks in his future. He can only walk around in the bog, knowing that when his end finally does come he won't 'fade out'; not that anyone will be there to notice the difference.
Don't know why I wrote this.... guess I'm trying to wake up a bit before I start figuring out how to spec out the hardware and san space for my next system........
Huh?
Well,
After I made the post, I remmembered how when I delete the file or rename it, all the links are broken. It would be cool to get it to automatically update all the links. Maybe there is something out there that does that...
I don't care if the feature is there, or what the default state is, as long as I don't have to go somewhere arcane that I'd never think of without hours of exploring to turn it off...
Since Windows is the user friendly and easy to use OS, I'm sure it will be no harder than edit the registry, find the key 'kjbaskjfqifljfri812u1279812u712hqfiufyq', if it's value is 'jfgr12*&%&^%', change it to 'wdiiyg*&%*&HJG', b ut if it's 'jkhbuygiu&^%' change it to 'JHkjhg&(*&'. If it's 'hgjhgwdw*&^(' and you have installed SP-264-double-dog, you're just instal SP265-for-real-this-time. Remember, one little goof and it'll format all your drives.
Now, aren't you glad you didn't have to use that icky 'vi' and add 'DVDfullfcreen=no" to /etc/annoyingDVDplayer.conf?
That's not what a modal dialogue is (and, yes, it does happen sometimes under OS X).
A modal dialog is one that changes the "mode" of whatever it is you're using. For example, in OS X the Open/Save dialogs and the "Do you want to save" sheet are modal because when they're active, you cannot access the window they are children of.
I mean the idea that I should continue to type my document despite the fact that some background process wants me to click OK.
Windows doesn't stop you doing this.
"Windows doesn't stop you doing this."
You don't actually use windows do you?
evil is as evil does
You're right of course that I lack any evidence beyond my deep faith and long experience that Microsoft will find a way to make it suck. :) "Random moments of 100% disk activity" are the hallmark of the current indexing system. Every geek I know hates this, but Microsoft didn't get rich catering to geeks.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.