Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista Build 5231 Review
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has just released a new build for Windows Vista and it looks like Microsoft has made quite a few graphical changes. "This is possibly the only application with more anticipation surrounding it than Internet Explorer 7, if not Vista itself. We wonder if Microsoft would bundle Windows Media Player 11 with Vista exclusively or would it be available for download separately for Windows XP as well. It most certainly will end up looking a lot better (graphically) than most music players out there, iTunes included. Although it appears to look pretty straightforward, the interface has changed drastically, which makes it far more attractive than Windows Media Player 10 as well as competing applications."
Link /.'d already??
I get timeout errors.
How much do you need your media player to do beyond playing media?
If i wouldn't have gotten a mac I don't know if I would have ever gone past winamp 2.x
Phantom Menace had pretty graphics too...
I can't even read TFA if I wanted to!
..but so does a gold plated turd.
/.'ed)
More screenies here (if
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Who the hell wants one of those? I use VLC and Foobar2000 to get away from that crap!
There's nothing more pathetic than apps trying to emulate the look of physical appliances, like all DVD-players do for instance. It's like some idiotic idea that just won't go away, no matter how truly stupid and fugly it is.
Give me media player classic any day.
Appears to be /.ed with zero comments.
But from the summary, I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything -- just an overview of a new skin for Windows and Windows Media Player. Maybe some changes to the UI,too, that go past skin-depth.
What I really want to know about the next build of Vista is whether or not it's even close to what the final build will be. Well, not the final build (which won't exist until they stop supporting it and releasing patches), but the build at release.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I typed build 5231 into google ... heck out the sreenshots from winsupersite:1 _gallery_02.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_523
Mirrors
More
Microsoft again proves it knows how to sell a product. Not that graphical changes/updates are a bad thing - far from it, I like my eye-candy as do most. The most important thing about it, however, is that looks sell.
Now maybe since the thing looks prettier, they'll start working on adding some revolutionary functionality. I think that consumers valuing function over appearance are the minority of those who will be spending money, however.
You can fault Microsoft for not being much of a software company if you wish, but their business/marketing/money-making talent is second to none.
...a software company releases unstable development-stage software that looks different than the previous version, and may continue to change as the code progresses! News at eleven.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
If I wanted to know how Vista was doing...
Dude, these stories don't get posted here for information value - it's so we can reduce their pitiful Windows servers to a heap of smoking rubble. Which we're very successful at doing, thankyewverymuch.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Does the same apply to the latest weekly Ubuntu release or Mac speed bump, or do you have sliding standards for different products?
Windows media player and Realmagic player both suffer from the same dilusional management. Someone believes the player is more important than the media. If I want to watch a DVD or listen to an MP3 all I want is an easy way to find my media, and then to see/view the media itself.
This obsession with skins and enormous toolbars and wasted screen real estate drives me nuts. Winamp was good because there was virtually nothing wasted in the display. iTunes also realizes the media is more important than the player. When will Microsoft and Real catch up?
Quote:
We have never seen any WMP run this smooth especially on a beta release. While this might not mean much to anybody, it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Only thing we need to check now is how smoothly it runs while running a plethora of other applications in the end.
One thing we would like to mention is that our library had 1000+ songs, but there were no hiccups while scrolling through the list. It was almost like scrolling down Google's search results, which is very smooth and hassle-free. This could be due to implementation of Microsoft's new graphics technologies, namely XAML and WGF 2.0. Needless to say, this is definitely something to get excited about, since we can clearly remember the times when we launched WMP 10 and it would get stuck at the guide page, thereby making the user experience terrible.
Are they running their webserver on it?
Anyone willing to say that wmp is better than itunes is looking for a tongue lashing from the mac crew.
Also the fact that he didn't even slightly deride windows vista (aka windows longdelayed) would mean that he would be in for a grilling.
After all who cares what a buggy, security hole ridden heap it is as long as we have some nice transparency effects!
(needed) manages your albums
(pretty) gets album cover to display so you can visualize
(good) manages your preferences/statistics (you can see what you are listening to)
(pretty) presents those informations in an aesthetic way
(good) or just gets minimized to the systray
(good) all operations are two to three clicks away.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
what's with all the dead space around toolbars, blocks of text, etc?
...and that's all there is to it.
Linux Apache/1.3.33 Unix mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 PHP/4.3.10 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a
I really, really, really enjoy the extreme and skillful strategic positioning of Apple and MacOS X by the mastermind Steve Jobs.
No matter what Bill Gates will show, Jobs will include a similar, but better version in the next MacOS X update. By doing that, all new features of Windows Vista will look old and outdated when finally released. And give us Mac users ammo for years to come.
This is so beautifully played, someone should make a drama movie about it.
are here
Well, even though most people don't actually look at their media player while it's playing music, I think there can be improvements on interface design, especially while browsing files.
It's sort of like windows explorer, we don't really need cool flying files effects and transparencies, but it's nice to look at. When we found what we want to find or we've done what we want to have done, we bring something else to the front of the desktop and we don't even see windows explorer anymore, but we still care about effects.
So hopefully Windows Media Player 11 will improve file browsing, and maybe make it fun while I look for the song I want to play, and then get the hell out of my way.
...Actually I'll probably stick with Media Player Classic.
"Lead my skeptic sight."
Steve Balmer just sat down and wrote a review about the new ...
Wait, there were any chairs left to sit?
Smell that freshly baked propaganda frosted with a heaping helping of hype. Mmmmm.
Seriously. Vista is going to flop, mainly because XP can already do what people need their computers to do. No reason to upgrade. So beyond the initial rush of people keeping up with the Jones', it'll peter out pretty quickly. Then Microsoft will blitz every media source even harder and attack linux some more. Frankly, this sucks. I would rather have a root canal than have Vista ever get released. Just do it quietly, please.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
"It most certainly will end up looking a lot better (graphically) than most music players out there, iTunes included." In an ideal world, that would be a sensible comment. Gee, I think I'll dump iTunes and install Windows Media Player instead, because I just like its looks better.
iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer: the truth is, they're all badly behaved applications, and they are a pain. They're all getting bloated, they all suffer from featuritis.
And not one of them seems to more than about 10% devoted to serving actual user needs. They are 90% devoted to pushing someone's agenda--sometimes blatantly, sometimes insidiously.
I install security patches to Windows and Mac OS fairly routinely, but frankly I'm loathe to update any media player, and terrified to install a new one.
The percentage of times that installing a new version of a media player will break something that used to work is higher than the mortality rate from playing Russian roulette.
And they all seem to grow invasivelyinto your operating system like rootlets into a sewer.
When they are clean and functional and do what I want them to do instead of what someone else wants them to do, then I will be very interested in how they look.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Um, how about the fact that Vista is not out yet? Why not wait for an official release then do a story about that?
At least when they do a story about an OSS release it's
a) currently available for download
and
b) free
I don't mind slashvertisements but the daily story about how Vista will make the world a better place is getting rather annoying.
And you KNOW that these "leaks" and "updates" and what not are solely to get the freaks foaming at the mouth for the release date. omg, can't wait for Vista, it will be teh cool, make all dreams come happy happy or something like that...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
When people start running iTunes on their cheaper, Intel-based Apple machines.
If you think Microsoft rips off Apple's style now, just wait until they're actually a contender on the x86/x64 PC market.
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5231. asp .NET framework has received in this process. I must say the screenshot for mediaplayer doesn't excite me at all. c tp2_01.jpg as it looks just as bloated as the one I'm using now. How much do you care about being able to view the album covers? My music is all mix cd's anyway.
I'm personally anxiously awaiting to see what deformations the
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
I think translucent eye candy will be nice but not that big of a deal. The "Mobility" center doesn't seem to offer anything new from what I read. Just a new name/packaging. ActiveX opt-in is nice for grandma and grandpa, but most people have that setting now I'd imagine. Oh and I like the part about power management from the review. "Though the actual power management states--Sleep, Hibernation, and so on--haven't changed in this build, Microsoft tells me that it has improved the reliability of these states." So in other words its not as flakey, trust us. Independent volume control.. Now theres a feature I've been waiting for.. zzzz
~jennifer.k~
That's exactly the problem. You keep posting msft "news" and keep the buzz going and nobody ever thinks about the alternatives.
... well clearly that keeps people focused on MSFT products which is exactly what they want.
How about ya just ignore MSFT like they've been ignoring their customers [hey, where are the open standards compliance? How about a proper optimizing C compiler? etc...] and it'll all be good. If you create a buzz around a BETA build that only MSDN subscribers can access
It's called "obsession" for a reason.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Our company moved most of the users (~85%) to Debian/Linux 3 months ago and the users seem to be very pleased with KDE desktop. The rest of the users will continue using XP for about a year or so, until some issues are resolved. We will not be upgrading.
You'll find all of the pictures here
foo mane padme hum
It's a really good idea: hit a button and this comes up.
Anything like that for enlightenment?
Actually scratch that, I guess it's probably possable quite easily with maximising the pager with some keybinding...still, I've seen some good ideas on quickly navigating to the window you want, which should be useful.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
Does this version have the Media Centre Shell in it? I was under the impression that Vista would incorporate the eHome Shell from Windows XP Media Center Edition, but the Vista Beta 1 release didn't seem to have it.
Vista has over 90% of what market exactly?
Even ME has more market than Vista, and how many stories does it get?
According to Netcraft the server is your common Apache on Linux combination.
/ /www.cooltechzone.com
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:
I'd be inclined to blame their use of PHP for their server troubles. PHP has shown time and time again that it is unsuitable for sites receiving many hits, unless you can throw massive amounts of hardware at it.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
It has been determined that you should not provide microsoft
with FREE advice on software usability. Apparently they
are not smart enough to know how to use it properly.
Psst - just copy the Mac...
This article cost 2 Billion dollars.
So many slashdotters praising a 'New' look MS Windows GUI!!! /.ers.... Remember the first commandment of /. :)
Wake up fellow
Thou shall not worship MS or any of its productions
Snap out of it guys...
I liked the old CD player. A simplistic player for playing CD's, instead of the bloated mediaplayer that replaced it, adding nothing but taking up much more space on the screen. (No, the skin wasn't very helpful)
I don't want a mediacenter kind of application, with everything in one. I want to be able to control the different medias individually, with different and individual controls, and at the same time if i wish to. The mediaplayer has never allowed me this kind of control.
On the other hand, I'm mostly using Linux anyway, so why am I complaining?
Will media player 11 be adware free when it is released? After all, people pay for it.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I don't follow. Are you using a Mac? Sounds like you aren't. If you were, you would know that you could actually close the iTunes window. Or if you wanted, you could run the iTunes widget from Dashboard.
Is this really a "release" as the story claims, or a leak to the internet? I thought the next release would be Beta 2, which I think is due in November.
For the Mac, god yes. But slashdot being an OSDL site, I expect to get more information about OSS than other software, just like I'd expect MSDN to have more articles on MS software than that from other vendors.
I am trolling
Vista is the first time MS is paying attention to graphics (just look at all the "pretty" stuff from transparent windows to screen shots on the taskbar). They are making software improvements across spectrum; Windows Media Player 11, IE 7 has really cool things that even firefox doesn't (e.g. being able to see all tabs at once), the network improvements are awesome (e.g. you can change the order that things are bound to the NIC; IPv6 before IPv4), and tons of other things. They are including spyware/virus tools with Vista so many of the current problems would be caught early. That is if they even can get on th OS, since users aren't running as admins by default.
Most importantly the development tools MS is providing are awesome! Visual Studio 2005 is really easy to use, and very powerful. Anyone who has seen sparkle knows that it's pretty sweet. Before you start screaming flash, you are right, they were first to market, but sparkle is better for developers, much better. Not to mention the 3d rendering tools alone blows flash out of the water.
But, here is why apple should be scared. MS is taking away every reason you should use OSX, with the exception "I hate MS", which Linux can cover. Like it or not, apple has only been able to stay a float because the graphic community has been unflinching behind them, but that is starting to change. XP couldn't support them, Vista can. While the OSX "users" are still backing OSX (for now; the tablet pc is really appealing to creative's because of the pressure sensitivity), traditional Apple developers are starting to stray. Quark is starting to hedge bets on Vista and MS's XML model, take a look at some news articles on their site www.quark.com. Third party software developers have always been Microsoft's strength. Vista has made it really easy for developers, while OSX still isn't.
MS needs one desktop OS competitor to be able to hold off monopoly accusations and say "people have other options", and that is why they haven't gone after Apple's market. Because of Linux Microsoft doesn't need Apple's OS around anymore (remember the 150million they gave apple to stay in business in the late 90's). Because Linux exists MS will now start focusing on apple's market. MS can't kill Linux because it is a hobby OS. For the most part people maintain it for free, on their own time, they are passionate about it, and it's their baby. They won't let it die. OSX on the other hand doesn't have that kind of story. Apple knows this and that is why they are transitioning to Intel, just in case.
I predict OSX won't survive this round with MS and Apple becomes a premium hardware supplier. Say bubye to OSX, I don't see it making it past this decade.
You rip CDs in your music player? How LAME :)
seriously though, CD ripping is certainly one of the bloatware features, so that's only 8 more to come up with OP
I've looked at the screenshots and it just looks like they're messing around to me. They're nothing so special.
I was on Windows for about ten years, until just a few months ago. I brought a Mac mini just to try out OSX because I was getting bored with XP. It blew me away.
Well, actually for the first week I didn't like it much - I thought it was pretty and clever but there were things I could do easily in Windows that I couldn't do with the Mac. But then I bothered to read the documentation, and found out about things like expose and automator, and how easy it is to change menus and shortcut keys, stuff like that, and now I love it. The way all the applications are integrated and programmable from Automator is just so powerful, and way better than what is possible with XP.
So Microsoft, it will take more than pretty interfaces to draw me back to windows - OSX totally rocks once you get to know and understand it.
That's exactly what that is, since it's part of Media Player. It's obvious that he's viewing his "album" or whatever that has all of his collected screenshots.
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
Most things Microsoft produces look tasteless, garish, and gaudy to me. They remind me of a fat Anna Nicole Smith with bright, Mimi makeup caked on. The default XP look reminds me of Sesame Street or Teletubbies. Apple's stuff looks much more refined and elegant in comparison. That's my subjective opinion. Some people like Ferraris. I prefer Porsche.
I can't get to the article, but I doubt Microsoft will left me down by elevating their "style" above the lowest common denominator. Besides, in a Media Player, I spend much more time looking at the media than the player.
From a purely personal point of view I use iTunes because the interface works for me not because it 'looks pretty'. The idea of software getting 'a lot better graphically' is becoming rather trite and shallow.
This is soooo cool. Never mind stability, usability, or the damned security of the new OS. As long as the media player looks groovy, we really don't care.
Just don't tell the marketing folks in Redmond.
in terms of a good UI I think that you need to make it simple for the least experienced users to get the most out of it as quickly as possible. more advanced users will always want to customise the experience, so let them do it. but make it easy for the learners first.
While I agree with the point that learners should get priority because more experienced users know how to bypass all the fluffy stuff and get to the functionality, CyricZ has a point. The screenshots he linked to show that the designers have failed to use space in an efficient and informative way, which is sad considering some of the design talent at Microsoft.
First of all, Aero Glass sucks. I've been working with a Stardock clone of this look and feel for a few weeks now in XP, and it wears thin pretty quickly, adding nothing at all to the OS experience. Other than a sucky look and feel, what's left? Fixes for bugs that never should have hit XP in the first place? New bugs caused by MS putting functionality in the OS that doesn't belong there (e.g., RSS feeds)? How about a search engine for people who put files in random places on their hard drive, then complain when they can't find anything (Wanted: an automated search engine that works with socks and underwear)?
As for Media Player's GUI, does anyone stare at their media player all day, admiring it, or do you fire up a playlist and then minimize it (or if playing video, maximize it to get rid of the GUI entirely).
There's nothing whatever in Vista worth waiting for. What is there I neither want nor need. Right now, I'm running a clone of the Mac OSX GUI on XP. It's easy on the eyes, and doesn't require a video card from Industrial Light and Magic to run.
Sorry, Redmond. Not interested.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
"This is possibly the only application with more anticipation surrounding it than..." The only thing I am anticipating is to stop hearing about this piece of crap that I have no use for. I have reviewed earlier versions of "Longhorn" and it is total junk. My XP works fine (bugs, crashes, and all). All of the software I need is on it and nobody is junmping on 64 bit because nobody needs it (except a few industrial strenght apps).
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
There are more types of customers than just developers. Look beyond your own walls sometime.
By the way, here's the latest in Microsoft's SKU madness for Windows Vista, discovered by extracting data from a file in this build.
;-)
Does your head hurt yet?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Uhm, and VS2005 is free with the OS right? Why do you think OSX is so popular with indie developers? That's right, sherlock, the tools are free with the OS.
I do agree that Microsoft will be much more compelling with the release of Vista, but I don't think Micorosoft will be able to kill Apple as easily as all that. Quite a few features in Vista were copied from OSX (Remember the early Longhorn releases with that huge sidebar on the right? That dissapeared after Microsoft saw OSX 10.4). And while sparkle will make development of user interfaces much easier, It doesn't mean much since the people who develop web interfaces with Flash are not the people who develop applicationn interface with Sparkle. The real competitor to Flash is the Expression engine (Called Acrylic or something) that will make web graphic easier but only for those who run IE. MS is trying to counter the IE only syndrome by offering crapped out versions of the Sparkle runtime for other platforms, but I seriously doubt there will be much uptake with those. The only way it would work would be if it was fully cross platform and Microsoft is far too greedy to ever let that happen.
So no, I don't think Vista will kill OSX. It will make Apple have to fight harder to compete, but that's good.
If you want to have a choice of what software you run on your Windows box you have to support the developers first.
Why do you think there are 10s of thousands of different projects for the Linux and BSD OSes? It ain't because GCC is a "leading provider of developer solutions in a vertical portfolio bullshit bs marketting crap".
It's because the developer scene is strong, well supported and professional.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
wm11 has graphical album covers and stuff in the playlist, along with related online content. not that winamp5 doesnt have that, but your comment is just typical crap from someone who didnt read the article!
Google will have a killer media player can can scan and index media files. Think Picassa, but for mp3s.
I can't read TFA because the submitter didn't add TFM (the fsking mirror). The coral cache and the mirrordot are also not working...
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Why not ....
Here, let me summarize the parent post in one concise sentence:
"Why not do things the way I do them?"
Answer : Not everyone wants to do things the way you do them.
Download my free songs!
Mirror please Thanks
You're looking at the Control Panel in classic view in details mode, i.e. the nerdiest mode. I guess you point is the exact reason that they've added a categorized view since Windows XP. In XP you can stick with the classic view and remove the describing text by choosing another view mode like tiles. I'm pretty shure that Vista will keep these possiblities.
There was one thing I noticed in these screenshots that looks like a real improvement in Vista over every previous incarnation of Windows: It looks like they've finally centralised the placement of all control panels and applications and, thank God, done away with the myriad modal dialog windows that one needed to configure for instance, any network connection.
I think Vista might actually be quite good after all.
It would seem that after all these years Microsoft would finally grasp why their Windows sucks so bad: it's mostly about _quality_, not eye candy! It's about ease of use. It's about ergonomics of the interface. The first Beta of the Vista sucked in terms of both. The second one sucks just as much as the first one. It looks pretty on the screenshots but _try to work with it_! All these blurred letters become pretty annoying in about 30 seconds. The location of interface elements is VERY weird to say at least. The interface is cluttered with unnecessary elements and it's often hard to tell whether something in that interface a part of actually _interface_ (that is, something you can interact with - a button, a link or something) or just a pretty picture on the screen. Look at all that screen space wasters! One small phrase - and half a screen empty field with cute gradient around it!
That's what good about Mac OS X interface: it looks cute, and yet it is not cluttered, not overloaded with unnecessary stuff. And while it's clear that Microsoft is trying hard to imitate Mac OS X, they throw everything thay can possibly come up with into the interface, plus a kitchen sink. It seems to me that they simply don't understand the whole concept of simple and yet powerful user interface.
Here we see a perfect example of the problem facing Microsoft. They're releasing a whole new version of the operating system, and we're looking at the media player. And we're the geek crowd!
;-)
It might not do it the best way, but Windows does everything it needs to for the average user. Most users don't really care about security, or fancy new rendering engines. They want something that works. MS seem to have decided the only way they're going to sell a new OS is with eye candy - and I think they may have a point.
Not that I'm upset to see them struggle, as a happy Linux user
Almost as annoying as all of the other vaporware OSS posts and GPL3 speculation. More obsessions rather than news.
What's going to happen when I'm trying to do something important? I mean, sometimes I like to play music while I'm doing other stuff like playing games. If I'm ripping/encoding, how much of a performance drain is that glitz and glamour going to be? How much of that crap is going to be loaded into memory when its minimized or not visible? Has anyone done any performance benchmarks instead of just ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the pretty graphics?
I mean, if vista requires 512MB of memory, a dedicated DX9 graphics card, and a modern Athlon CPU how much of that is left for me?
Note: I currently run XP on a Duron 900Mhz with a Voodoo3 and 512MB of RAM to surf the internet. Windows XP runs perfectly acceptable on this PC. I guess that means I won't be installing Vista on it :(
Slashdot is primarily a community of Unix/Linux geeks, so *of course* the same doesn't apply - generally, we'd much rather know about developments in the *nix world (which includes Mac OS X) than in the Windows mode. This is Slashdot, not Backslashdot.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
This one application doing everything philosophy. Better would be for them to take a look at the design of their Office sweet of software. The ideal media applications come in the form of hubs.
You create an intuitive and uniform interface among a suite of applications. Then, devote each application to doing its job extremely well. This makes each application bloat free and efficient. In addition, it allows you to make each component very powerful without bogging down the overall program.
A good example of this philosophy is iTunes+Quicktime. I'm certainly not saying that those two applications are perfect, they aren't. But, what makes them so attractive is both are uniform in design, very intuitive to use, feature rich, and link with each other. When iTunes needs to work with video and audio it simply acts as a hub for quicktime. Allowing quicktime, a devoted media player, to handle playback in an efficient fashion.
The added benefit of this approach is you only use up as many system resources as you need at any given moment. MS, would be well served to adopt this approach and split media player into a series of applications, then convert the media player itself into a hub to access the suite of software.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
The moderation on this comment is a joke.
This post is both ONTOPIC and INSIGHTFUL. This is probably the most intelligent post I've seen on this topic in quite a while that doesn't flame or denigrate any other post.
I'm not any OS's fanboy. I use both Slackware and Windoze to good effect depending on the need.
I sure hope I get to metamoderate this one.
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
If you have room for 10,000 files, but you have 30,000 files, you'll actually go through, folder by folder, song by song, to move music onto your player? Or will you also manually drag 20,000 files into 40 different playlists, and then drag those playlists onto your player?
Myself I just let my media player upload the highest rated songs (about half my music) on my 5 favorite playlists automatically and randomly, so every couple weeks it rotates out the songs I haven't heard for songs I have; additionally I tell the media player not to upload songs played more than 15 times.
GPL Deconstructed
The same could be said about OS X. The hardware vendor forced all the customers into buying OS X.
Cust: Hi, I'd like to buy an Apple Computer...
Apple salesperson: That will be $3,000; no free flat panel, no printer and only 512 MB of memory
Cust: I'd like it without the operating system
AS: Sorry. We don't offer custom configurations.
Cust: I'll shop elsewhere
A Mac speed bump is important as it's something I can get hold of if I want - I can charge off to my local Apple store and splash the cash on the latest shiny speed-demon Apple have released; take the last round of Mac updates mentioned on Slashdot - a lot of designers and photographers had been waiting for those machines to arrive so they could buy them to tide them over until the second or third generation of MacTel machines have been released and all the bugs ironed out, with all their apps ported.
/. could get in it's daily dose of MS-bashing, and nothing else.
Even the Mini-Mac speed boost and Ubuntu release updates are a story about something tangible to the average person, whereas this is a story about a barely-interesting update to a closed beta which even if I did care about it I couldnt do anything about - unless you're a shareholder, why do you care? This story was posted solely so
I agree with the grandparent poster - call me back when Vista's released, or at least MS start taking applications for an open beta.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Is it me or is Microsoft always 2 steps forward and 5 steps back?
They won't have to arm-twist. They simply stop offering licenses for XP.
Developers: We can use your help.
"Yeah all 39 of you..."
Hey, there are now 57 of us. Apple reported a 48 percent year-over-year growth in Mac shipments in Q4.
And how much arm-twisting exactly do you think they will be required to do? I'll tell you how much: none at all. Because the Dell's and HP's of the world need to ship the latest version of whatever operating system they support, otherwise they look outdated.
Microsoft may be the bully of the IT playground but be realistic here, Windows 2000 was already good enough and I don't see any vendors shipping that anymore.
Actually, according to my current marketing lecturer (a minor part of my course), marketing is by definition always to the benefit of the consumer/customer. So what M$ does cannot be considered marketing. It's "Sales" or "Advertising", which aren't the same thing. (She then went on to show us a basic video that mostly contradicted her while explaining it...) This same lecturer has said a lot of things that would make me laugh if it wasn't that she was supposed to be actually TEACHING us.
Would you care to explain your answer to me?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The same song in two different albums (at least for Brasilian artists) is a different production... different guest singing/playing, new arrangements, different beat, etc.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
PC Mag has the pictures to what?
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
is adjustable, TweakUI lets you set under "my computer" - "Special Folders" what path choosing 'my music' will open.. set it to the drive/path/partition that actually contains your music.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
> Well, as far as video goes I'm more than happy with Media Player Classic.
> It's basicly a WMP6.4(!) clone but able to play DVDs+++. No skinning, in
> fact 99.9% of the time I use it is in fullscreen playback with no UI at
> all. Haven't seen any feature in WMP7-10 that would make me change back.
I too use MPC, and there are features that made me change _to_ it.
In MPC, I can correct distorted aspect ratios that some internet files come with. Right-click in the video window, select context menu "video" and then "stretch to window". Now resize the window to fit.
In MPC, I can boost the audio volume for my crappy desktop speakers to keep up with livingroom noise. Prefs -> Audio Decoder, select "Normalize" and then "Boost" to about 1/3 of max.
And last not least, MPC doesnt download codecs, nor contact media databases, nor update DRM online licences, nor anything else along these tracks. When I play a file, I play it locally on my machine.
Marc
If you get contacted by the "Loop"/"Link" then you are being
recruited by satanic worshipers known as the Masonic Order.
Stay away from them - they are bad news.
A new build is released every week to subscribers. There are no secret builds, so there are no bona fida leaks.
is in the 10GB range, and the import is already quite slow. But... what do you use instead? Do GNOME has a similar app?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I already have Windows Vista on one of my computers. It's called OS X.
Proverbs 21:19
As for amaroK, I must admit it's nice but I know where my albums are and I got bored with statistics about 8 seconds before I deleted my audioscrobbler account. I use Beep if I'm running X.
I have a somewhat complicated directory structure (who gave me such and such album, among other info), and so gathering and re-separating is useful for me.
And the stats are nice for me to say "hey, last time I heard this was some months ago, let's play it again..."
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
One of the key things about OSX I find is that there's an overall design philosophy at work that's consistent across the whole user interface. It's flexible enough to let developers do some unusual things (usually to their detriment...), but still will overall keep design conformity throughout. It's got the eye candy, but it's not extraneously over done, and is always useful in an ergonomic kind of way.
Once I bought a Mac and started playing around with OSX (fully with the intention of using its BSD base as a kind of learning transition to *nix), I looked at XP and wondered why I waited so long. Now my XP box is used for nothing but games.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
That's exactly the problem. You keep posting msft "news" and keep the buzz going and nobody ever thinks about the alternatives.
Of course, no Apple or Linux articles are ever on this site.
As much as I dislike Windows, it's something that the majority of us will have to use. Just hope that they put a LOT of effort into the security of the software.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Right, I'll fall back on my Apple example, since the Mac community is the biggest bunch of rumormongers known to man. (Appleinsider, Macrumors, etc).
Armtwist? Are you kidding me?
Dell has been begging Microsoft to release Windows more often, because new versions of Windows always increase PC sales. And with Vista's new hardware requirements, Dell can sell beefier PCs with bigger profit margins. Vista will be a huge revenue injection in Dell's left arm. Why on earth would they fight that?
Don't fool yourself. Dell wants Vista to succeed in a big way.
There's no need to make an object just to support an object oriented system. I'd posit that such a system could easily be made cross-platform. Shared memory is a nice-ity, but I dont see that a better implementation thereof compels an entirely new OS to be born. Shared mem aint pretty, but its doable.
Furthermore, many GUI systems are capable of using async callbacks for event notification. AKA generating new threads, as you describe. This process itself comes with (very optimizable) overhead though, as you know well.
These aside, you my friend, are spot on. My heartfelt thanks. I thought I was the only one who was crazy.
Somebody needs a Donkey Kong remake where Ballamer does the "DEVELOPERS!" dance up top, throwing down chairs, and you're a l33t h4x0r who has to rescue tux from him, Mario style :)
of just how screwed up Windows Vista and the whole approach is, have a look at the Control Panel screenshot.
If that's not the sign of an OS in trouble, I don't know what is. 43 entries in the control panel. Wow.
Sensible defaults, anyone?
Agreed. A PC running Windows is an expensive game machine and nothing more. I have a PC that I use for some *very* niche programs, and for games. Everything else is OS X.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
What's good for my mother (or anyone else) is usually not what I consider to be best for me. I will forever be using a command line, a keyboard and application-centric GUIs. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is going to tell me that I don't need a command line, just like I can't tell anyone else they don't need a kitchen-sink media player.
--
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Here's something that ties into that. I was recently on a business trip and normally I don't need to bring a laptop along. This time I had brought my girlfriend's iBook to watch DVDs with, but happened to need it during the entire trip to do note taking during some client sessions.
;)
Interestingly, as the documentation started piling up, and files were being passed around, I was the only one having no problem whatsoever tracking where files were stored, and managing multiple documents being edited at once. Everyone else was fumbling through folders, alt-tabbing until their fingers were sore, etc. By day two, almost everyone had taken a look at how I was effortlessly able to carry on with business tasks with the iBook that had, the day before, been jokingly jibed at since it was the only Apple at the table.
At least two fellows had indicated they'd be looking into getting one soon for business use. I swear, I should be on Apple's payroll.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
While I agree that we don't need breaking coverage of Ballmer's BM, that sort of coverage tends to be given more to Google, who I think happens to be creepier than Microsoft.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
It most certainly will end up looking a lot better (graphically) than most music players out there, iTunes included.
That's great! I always base my choice of media player based on how it looks! I don't care whether it works well, or has useful features, or stays out of my way when I'm trying to do simple things, but it had better look as awesome as my Chinese (or Japanese, I forget) character tatoo, and the window in my computer's case (the one that lets you see my rad water cooling rig), and the neon lights I installed on my Civic (to make it go faster, and get me more poontang).
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Most eagerly awaited Microsoft product besides IE7 huh? I just want Microsoft products to stop sucking.
All I ask for is an IE7 that is standards compliant with at least HTML4, CSS1, CSS2, Javascript, and can properly show alpha transparency in PNG's. I'm so sick of having to make an entirely different stylesheet just for IE to display my website's in a way that is usable.
They could amaze me by properly supporting SVG and canvas too. I can't imagine IE supporting SVG and canvas any sooner than the year 2020 at the rate they're going. If they had any brains whatsoever they'd give up the IE rendering engine and just use Gecko. To me, it seems that would be the easiest and cheapest way to keep end-users from switching to other browsers such as Firefox.
As long as IE sucks I have no reason to think Microsoft has the ability to make a decent program let alone a decent operating system and dsktop enviroment.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Has anyone told the writer or writers of that fine piece of fluff that they can be arrested for smoking crack? Because obviously the writer(s) have smoked up a short ton. No no... Seriously they should know, I only say this because I'm looking out for their best interests.
What's that, slashdot karma points??? HA! I got your karma points right here!!