yes.. that's ample for that task, and you're right, and that was my point. Don't use an older PC and expect the newest stuff to work on. Gamers are use to the idea that there machine won't last more than two years, but the regular consumer isn't. So you're right, they shouldn't have to. I'm glad Dell is returning it to the lowere end stuff, but then again, I don't have a low end PC... so Vista works better than XP ever did for my machine. It's a bit bloated, but a little tuning and it's working faster than Xp. If I had a lesser PC would it be as good? Hell no, I'd load XP. But none of this changes the fact that the fundemental arguement in the article is flawed... badly.
So.. exactly what part of that article qualified as journalism? It read like a page from a scandal rag... well anyway...Why upgrade... you probably shouldn't.. you've already decided you don't like it..... why else? You're computer probably can't handle it anyway. Unless your purchasing new hardware or you're the tuner type like me, Vista really doesn't hold much in the "I need it now" catagory. Of course, if you're a gamer, there's good reasons to upgrade, as long as you're willing to buy a DX10 card with it. (And don't give me the XP could run DX10 line, that's pure BS and anyone who programs understands exactly why XP can't use the memory funcitons that are in DX10.)
As for the two indications the article spoke of: First Dell letting people have XP again. Yes.. they should. Especially on the low end sale computers, they just arn't designed to handle it and really suffer in the performance department. So putting XP back on the low end stuff is a good thing. I applaud Dell for not screwing their customers on the OS. As for the second "Indication", ug... this guy's so far off base it's comical. The computers that will run the XP starter edition and Office that Microsoft is selling for $3 a copy can't possibly run Vista in the first place. Often these developing nations that are going to get this software are looking at getting the bottom of the barrel, whatever is left over after the rest of the world bought their machines. They can't run it, end of story, and MS isn't going to say to a devloping country, "Oh sorry, you have to buy Dell's highend machines, because we're only giving you Vista." *sigh*
People please... logic... it's not just for breakfast anymore.
In short, hate on Vista all you want. Call it MEII, call it the worst OS from MS, I really don't care, but at least show why it's a bad os, not "Oh MS must think it's failing because they're giving away copies of XP to people who can't run Vista." And before you judge, run it on a PC that it was actually designed to run on, not one that's 2 years old and you bought on sale from Dell for $499
HIV is problematic, not just because of the infected T cells attempting to take over the body, but because it allows opportunistic diseases to inhabit the body. Many of which are easily fought off by a healthy individual, but if left too long in an unhealthy host can become terminal. In short, no one dies from AIDS directly, they die from the diseases that take over the body because of the compromised immune system. These range from simple infections, to forms of cancer. Yes we all know what caused the secondary infections, and so they did die from AIDS... but you get the point.
So I'll answer your quesiton this way. Assuming that the person in question hasn't contracted a secondary terminal disease or other ailment, then yes it probably will reverse it. I fear that for those in the later stages this may help prevent further infections and help bolster the immune system, but not end the process. If the body can recover, with the help of other medications and then fight off the secondary diseases... the patient would live, but it's also possible for late stage patients to have contracted irreversable problems that would still end in death.
Eventually we'll see articles on Slashdot that read, "Cure for Aids Found! Research begins on cures secondary infectious diseases still killing patients.
*Crosses his fingres* Well, even that would be a nice change wouldn't it?
I don't post often, but I had to compliment you on your reply to this article. You're right. I don't like that you used the word liberal, mainly because the mainstream media (Fox.Noise) has made this term and the term progressive interchangable, but your sentiment and explination is correct.
It isn't for a lack of freedoms that our society suffers, but from a lack of responsiblity. Particularly one of the main funcitons in society has changed, and someone forgot to tell the last few generations. Our grandparents, and their parents and those before them had particular social imperitive, grow up, get a job, get married, have a kid, grow old, retire, visit grandkids, then die. This wasn't for everyone then, and it's not for everyone now. There are some people who don't understand what having a child means, that a family can be just a a couple and their friends, and that the old progression is no longer needed, nor relevant to our world. The social imperetive of having to have a kid after you marry, or even to marry has led us to a society full of parents who won't take responsibility for their freedoms, and children who will abuse any freedom given them because their parents didn't teach them to be responsible.
I've heard a hundred times some parent say, "But it takes a village to raise a child." But they don't understand those words. The villiage doesn't raise the child, it helps provide the raw materials that will help you grow into what you are to become, but it is the parent that decides which materials to use, and how to focus and form them. The village doesn't raise the child, it only aids in the construction. Parents raise children. PERIOD.
If an adult isn't capable of raising a child, they shouldn't have had the child to begin with. (I know.. accident happen, yadda yadda ya..and now it's too late for that) But making laws to try and force the world to raise your children for you isn't the right approach. I'm often reminded of a quote from the film Parenthood (Haven't seen it? See it.) where a character said simply, "You need a license to have a dog, but any ass***e can have a child." And in many ways that's the problem. I'd honestly like to see society focus more on teaching the next generation what having a child really means, and perhaps giving them the tools they need to be good parents. Maybe we should add that to our "lack of sex" education programs. Something along the lines of, "Here's how it works, here's what can happen, and here's the child you got because you didn't listen to the first two parts. Now lets go over the next 18+ years of you raising your child until your back to your normal life again."
In closing, before video games it was rock music, before rock music, it was crime movies (Damn you Edward G Robbinson! *shakes his fist*), before movies (wait there was life before movies??) there were books (Oh yeah, you can see it can't you, tons of Roman children running off playing Spartans and stabbing each other in the streets and then blaming the local bard for telling them the story), and before that there were cave paintings. At every point along the way someone did something stupid and didn't take responsibility for it, and then wanted to blame something else for thei actions. Video games are this generations cave paintings.
Good night, and good luck, I'm going to go blow up things in Resistance, and then go and play with my dog. (btw current generation, pets are a great subsitute for children and great way to learn how to raise a child. If you can't keep the fish alive, or your dog from biting others, you'll never handle a child)
The state of California actually has a Privacy Act, a rarity in the states. It was actually this act that was used/is being used in the procesecution of HP, who was pre-texting board memebers to find a leak in their organization. The problem, for those who don't remember, isn't that they pre-texted their boardmemebers, but they actually used this technique to aquire personal records of individuals related the board members (and act that would have required a warrent, and probable cause if they were a law enforcement agency) The attempt to gather information on people NOT employed by the company violated the privacy of the individuals and since no contract with HP exists from those individuals (because they're not employees) HP broke the law.
The "bill" in the state legislature just removes the argueing about what is and isn't pre-texting and what does and doesn't violate the states own privacy act, without everyone having to go through the process of hiring legal counsel and letting them make tons of money to fight over something the state already knows isn't allowed under it's existing laws, but needed clarifying. Unfortunatley for those whose privacy was violated by HP, this law will not aid their procescution of HP (ex post facto)
So if you want the bill to pass, it's simple. Start pretending to be a Congressman, and start inquiring about their electric bills, phone bills, etc and watch how fast the law passes. The problem isn't the law, it's that the state representatives don't feel any urgency in passing it.
The RIAA and MPAA need to get a clue. The concept that any individual who is now a lincesee or dually deputized by the state should be allowed to conduct search and seizure (And yes that's what gather information about an individual from organizations that are not public is) is the first step toward a Corptocracy. If the RIAA wants to pursue people, they need to report the crimes to the state, and have the state request a warrent, and then let the state pursue the criminals. They are not the police, and personally I'm getting tired of companies thinking it's okay for them to conduct activities without the supervision of the court, or the state law enforcement agency that any single individual would be charged with Wire Fraud, or Identity Theft for trying. Not to mention being open to tons of civil aciton for Privacy violations.
So here's what I'd like to see someone do. Pre-text all the members of the legal counsel and the investigating tema of both the RIAA and the MPAA, and lets see how quickly they drop their objections. What's good for the goose...
I'm not a fan of chipping, or RFID, or anything that's attached to your body that would link to financial data...why? Simple. If I get mugged right now, they take my wallet and beat me up. If I have a chip that links to my bank account.. well... they'll cut out whatever part of me that chip's in. Think about that, and leave the doomsaying to the evangelists and other looking to control the world with fear... like politicians.
Everytime I see these particular passages quoted I have two reactions, first, "I'm not religious, so I really don't care what you say..." then second....
You do realise that they already marked everyone.. it's called a finger print ID.. and you had it done when you got your drivers license.
As for the buying and selling, well.. it's called a social secuirty number, or a Tin (Taxpayer Identification Number), or anyone of a dozen other id numbers, all of which point back to you, and since the SS# is required to get a driver license, you're linked to that too.
oooo I hear the four horsemen approching fast... better confess your sins and get ready... Personally I'll take my chances with the Speggetti Monster here on earth and stop worrying about the next world and spend more time worrying about fixing this one instead. Be of this world and in this world and act as a steward to this world and the rest will take care of itself.
This isn't as much about DRM, or iTunes as you think, and far more about a growing attitude in Europe about companies that try to force a consumer into exclusively using their systems.
Now before you call go off in a huff about how evil Microsoft is and this being somehow all their fault and poor little Apple having no choice but to do what they did in order to survive, or worse give me the BS arguement about how the record companies forced them to do this... *too late*... here's the real point, and yes this is just the begining of companies that are about to get hit with this and I doubt Norway is the last, you'll likely see most of Northern Europe and France follow quickly. Don't be suprised if you see the entire EU take a position on this issue within the year.
What are you buying when you buy music from iTunes? Am I buying an accessory for my iPod or am I buying music and videos? Well, I'm buying music and videos. I'm not buying a DRM that's for certain...and giving it a pretty name like Fairplay is about as convincing as calling it the "Patriot Act".
By buying from a specific site, I can't give up my right to use what I bought simpy because of the mode I choose to purchase it in. If I buy a DVD from the local store, the store can't tell me that I can only use my DVD on a specific player, namely theirs. If I walk into a record store, the record store own can't tell me, "Oh you can only play this CD on my companies CD player." We went through this back in the days of record players, anyone else know why they called it an RCA 45? instead of a 45?
So that's what's really going on. We, Europe and America, as a whole need to start figuring out what we are and are not buying, what rights as a consumer we have, and is it fair or legal for a company to require you to use their hardware to play music or videos that would, in any other media, be free to use from one device to another.
In the end that's what the DRM battle, and Apple's iTunes, and Microsoft's Zune is about. (I'm leaving Play for Sure out of this on purpose, even my cell phone supports Play for Sure) What rights do consumers have, and what rights are artists entitled to?
What I find interesting about all this DRM and and format AAC vs MP3 vs WMA batttling is that very few companies have realized that throwing in more DRM is actually causing their music sales to flatline. Recently, there was an article on CNET and also on here concerning record sales over the last few years (Record as in music, not specifically CD's or Vinyl). DRM has in fact had NO impact on the revenue that companies are recovering. They were actually under the impression that all the DRM stuff would help eliminate piracy and they would make more money, but the reality, there's making exactly the same as what they were making in the heydays of Napter, and true MP3 players. Funny huh?
In short, it comes down to another Us vs Them and who gets to control it all. Apple? Microsoft? RIAA, MPAA? or the consumers?
Okay have to make the joke.
Did you hear? Walmart now uses Suse for an OS! It'a saving them tons of money, so you can now get 13 pairs of socks for $9.99 instead of 12!
It's an interesting change for Walmart, but not suprising. I bet you'll see more companies change to SuSE that are already *nix based.
If you need proof, just put a chicken leg infront of an Amazon... and watch it eat the chicken and tear apart the bone too... little canibles all of them! LOL.
Anyway, I do subscribe to school that beleives Avians to the be the offshoot of the primative lizards, so they're all just mini-dinos to me. Two of them come out to play on the floor where they are usually face to face with my 70lb Rotty. They chase him around making little hissing noises and laughing. He's terrified an runs away. Reminds me of that scene with compies in Jurasic Park.
oh no no.. I have three in my house too, but if you see greater macaws in the wild you'll notice that on the rare occasion that they drop from the canopy they often won't fly back up instead they choose to climb, and they are suprisingly fast at it. It's an odd behavior, but it's consistant with the gliding evolution since you probably didn't learn to take off first, but instead leaned to control falling first.
Okay, I don't care if they had 1 wing, 2 wings or had 50, the point here is simple.
I want my 'A' from my Evolutionary Biology class! My teacher was wrong! ha! and my research paper was right!
What am I talking about? I argued in my paper that birds didn't learn to fly by running across the ground and spreading their arms out, but in fact lived in trees and were excellent climbers. He stated that the current science didn't support that, even though every Parrot species and Old WOrld species in the world climbs trees and glides from tree to tree.
Anyway, which way did the legs hang? probablly down like the landing gear on a plane, and were for stablization and not lift. But hey.. what do I know.. my bio teacher said I had it wrong last time...
haha!
I looked on MSDN and there's tons of posts about how to make this work and how to work around some of the minor compatability issues. It looks like this is a "Big" little issue. It also looks like my Beta 2 vs the RC1 and RTM had only a temporary suspension of install.
For those unaware this is primarily a concern for people who develop stand alone applications that currently use SQL Express.
Why use SQL express? It's more stable and more flexible than just using ODBC to connect to an Access database file. Plus you can use all other features that you can not use in Access. It's also the defacto standard for Visual Studio 2005 developers so it gets a lot of use now adays in development. It's also far easier to use than installing the clients for Oracle or MySQL and reduces your program's foot print. (1.2MB vs 35 MB)
I actually use this, and when testing Vista didn't run into a single problem with it in it's current state. (It installed and ran fine under Beta 1 and 2 although it warned you that it could be unstable, it seems in RC and RTM they actually added it to the "Can't install" list)
And there's more than one way to connect to a database, SQL express isnt' the primary route, so the article is being VERY presumptious about impact on the industry. It's not writen by someone who knows the difference between SQL server (The server app that runs on Windows Server 2000, 2003 and uses a client program to handle the connections to a server) and the SQLExpress App (For use in stand alone programs and development environments and will not allow connections from any machine other than the host machine)
It's also amazing that the author of the article thought that you wouldn't test seperately on both platforms. He makes it sound like having to test on Xp then on Vista is a bad thing. Honestly, if you arn't testing on both and on Windows 2000, you're not doing your job right.
Is it important? Yes, it sucks to have apps that I was testing under Vista Beta 1, that I can no longer test because of the "no-install" flag. But SP to the rescue!
As for using Oracle vs MS-SQL, which is the bigger point. Well. having to deal with both at work I can tell you, MS-SQL is far easier to maintain and manage and back up. Oracle still has far too many legacy items in 9i and 10 that require "special" treatment. Not to mention that it's error reporting system is pointless 90% of the time, and we have to hand step everything we do to figure out why we're getting an error instead of a single error message that says, "OCA-XXXXX: Column can not hold data" instead of "ORA-XXX: 'DOCNAME' is too long for column." You can imagine what a pain Oracle is when you've got an SQL statement that a page long. I won't even go into how unfriendly Oracle's support is. Half the time you ask them for help the answer is "If you were an Oracle trained admin you'ld know that." How about, "If you put it in the manual, I'd already know that. Or if your people would reply to emails without the snotty tone I'd know that." Ug...
Good point, but that works both ways. If Mac isn't going to support.NET why would Microsoft want to continue product support for a product that only "half" works on OSX because it's lacking.NET support?
I know it's a catch 22, because neither side wants to work with the other, it's more of a "if I have to..." kind of association. I'm more curious to know if MS would want to continue supporting OSX at all if they have to limit what the programs can do because of a lack of.NET support, or if Mac would be willing to support the API if it meant full support for macros, etc in Office for Mac
haha.. historial humor! That's a good one.
As for the RIAA, so let me get this straight, they're sueing eveyone they can find a way to sue, to get more money, but they don't want to pay that money to the people they are supposedly defending? Um.. did I read that right?
Can we just get rid of them now and now not go through this?
I know I have limited experience with Vista at this point, but using Beta 1 and Beta 2, I never had an issue with Suspend or Hibernation. In fact I used it continually. So my quesiton is... how much of this is simply a BIOS issue and how much is really a Vista issue? Now before you respond...
I have 4 computers, all of them worked fine under Vista, however, my personal PC will not suspend under Xp correctly (BSOD or won't wake up at all). My wife's comptuer doesn't hibernate under Xp at all. (Can't boot afterwards have to delete Hib file) But both work perfectly under Vista. The other two machines work fine under both.
It sounds to me like what they fixed under Vista corrected the issues I had with XP but caused other new problems with other computers.
So BIOS vs Software issues? Anyone want to comment... and by comment I don't mean... Linuix figured it out why can't microsoft because that's not a productive discussion, that's just MS bashing. (It may be true.. but it's not productive)
I'm actually wondering about this decission and if it has far more to do with Mac's unwillingness to work with Microsoft to support.NET apps on their platform, deciding instead to only support JavaVM and their own systems.
Why am I thinking that? As a.NET programer I had a chance to work with Office 2007 and one of the first things I noticed was that VBA was being superceeded in the suite by a "VB.NET" system instead. Not a big deal for me, or most VBa users since the format, structures and commands are fairly simliar. But VB.net allows more interconnectivity and function than the older VBa engine ever could. ((Yes that's good and bad when you consider macrovirus issues))
Anyway, just a thought, and I'm interested to hear what other people think. I know that porting the VBa engine in Office 2007 would have been much simpliar for the programing group if Mac had.NET support (and yes there are.NET engine for certain *nix distros and ones that support WinForms) So please comment, I'd like to hear any reasonable comments that do not contain the usual "Why would they want to do that? Support something MS created? That's just giving MS more control" or the other "Mac is just better... install linux...etc comments." but a real valid comment on the thought.
Okay I know, it's not historical or profound, but here's 3 that they left off my Sexy geeks list.
Morgan Webb (love Xplay)
Olivia Munn (love ATOTS)
and my personal fav: Michelle Rodriguez (actress, and yes that means she CAN act not just look pretty, and an avid game player, she's kicked more butt on FPS games than Paris ever could... can Paris even spell butt?)
And for the more intelectually minded they could have looked up any of the following in Google
Women +Physics +Bio Research
Nobel Prize Winners +Women
Litarary Scholars +Women
etc etc etc...
On CPU graphics is always a bad idea. Inevitably you end up with something less than capable, and the only real advantage is for severly low cost systems to cost $49 less. Not a smooth move AMD, especially when you look at Nvidia's CUDA system that are taking the complete opposite approach. GPU as a CPU instead of GPU on a CPU.
I need to ask... what cheap camera did he buy? Cause I have Canon and a Minolta, and I didn't install anything to use either one of them. Serious, the seal is still on the CD's!
When I plugged in my Canon it opened the photo folder and asked me what I wanted to do. When I plugged in my Minolta it did the very same thing.
I've seen that dumb Mac commerical a hundred times where the Mac "magically" works with the latest camera from Japan, and well.. my PC does too... so did I miss a meeting? Was I suppose to have problems?
Anyway... good articles... and reccomended reading for all computer people. As for the debate of Vista vs Leopard. I like vista, I find Leopard clunky and slow, but that's me. I've worked both sides, Mac and PC and I love my PC, and my friends love their MAC... go figure.. to each his own.
-I love Belgium beers. The U.S. buys Budweiser.
-I loved Firefly. The world loves Desperate Houswives.
-I have art over my mantlepiece. The suberbanites put a large mirror there.
-I love that little place down the street. The U.S. loves Applebees.
>All beer sucks, I drink cider.
>Firefly was good, but Max Headroom was better. (yeah old school scifi)
>I have both
>I prefer my kitchen, and applebees is worse than Denny's
I like what I've seen the Wii do so far, and I love what the 360 and the PS3 is capable off. And in the end I'll probably have a Wii and a PS3, but like the critics I'm concerned about launch titles and I'm not the "have to have it this moment" type anyway, so I get time to sit back and watch and listen to reviews and eventually go to a friends house and try it out. We all know that it takes at least 6 months to a year for a game system to reach it's peak performance levels, so what you're seeing on the PS3 now is mainly ports from the X360.. which means X360 graphics... I'm looking forward to FFXIII to see what a PS3 can really do.
Why do I like the Wii? Finally a console system gets that putting aiming in an FPS on that tiny stick is lame... (probably why I only play FPS's on the PC...and Halo is not the BEST FPS EVER...sorry.) I like that they are trying something new, but if I'll wait until I can play one without intteruption for a few days, with some Gamefly titles and then make my decision. For all we know, this could just be a fad, and in the end they'll end up releasing a "normal" controller for the system. (Don't give me the... if it isn't programed to use it garbage.. you can program these things to do whatever you want.. especially the Wii which has an updatable kernel....yes virginia there is *nix.)
What I don't like about the Wii: It's nintendo... that's like the Mr Rodgers of gaming. With rare exception Nintendo has proven that it's more concerned with being popular with parental organizations than with gamers. Fortunately, the market shifted and I hope that Nintendo did to. That 18-34 bracket is the money now, not the 28 to 45 parents that use to dominate the trade.
What I like about the PS3: It's graphics are amazing, it's cinimatics are transparent for games that were written specifically for it. It's fast, it doesn't studder,... did I mention is pretty? And yes, to get the best bennifits you'll need an HD LCD or PLASMA display, and you'll need a PSP for future titles that are "group" play.
What I don't like: The system is going to be bogged down with lots of DRM crap that the MPAA made them put in with the Blu-Ray... It shouldn't effect the games too much, but just think about what happens to a PC that has too many background tasks going on, eventually it catches up. No vibration controller, but the tilt won't let you have one anyway, unless you seperate the halfs... like the Wii, which has both. I don't like the price, but hey it's the rough equivilant of a Nvidia 7950 so I can see the price point, and eventually it will get cheaper for Sony to make, and thus, cheaper for us to buy. (and Yes they will lower the price.. they'll have to... cause no one will pay $650 for a PS3 when they could pay $650 for the PS4 with the Nvidia CUDA processors and Cell2....hey I didn't say it would happen fast)
But you're right TW, until you've had a chance to sit down and kick off a few brats at Best Buy or are lucky enough to find someone who did "have to have it now" you really can't judge. I said earlier that Halo is not the best FPS ever made, in fact from my point of view, it's boring and has poor controls, but I like a very specific type of game. I have friends who think Mario Sunshine was the best platforrmer ever...wouldn't know.. not a big fan of Mario or platformers...
I guess what I'm saying is, in the end it comes down to which system is going to offer what you want, and like to play. If it cost $650 to get the stuff you like to play, or only $299, you'll buy what "fits" you best.
Sort of like how dictatorships create an environment of stability in countries, right?
Sure, they might abuse their power and kill some people, and the laws they dictate might be unjust, but at least you know what you have to comply with.
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of how prior to the standardization of railway gauge each independent railway system was allowed to develop it's own system and then charge people to use it, and purposly take their competitiors systems and modify them to stop their compeitior from running trains on their rails. Or if you don't like that example then there's the standaradizaiton of the automobile that was the direct result of unchecked monoploistic tactics. Or the standardzation of Electrical standards (AC DC 110 220, etc), recording standards (Anyone else remember the RCA 45?), TV (we're still fighting over this one), Radio (FM,AM, Direct Transmission... yeah..Tesla was nuts...), Satellite, Internet, Networks, etc, etc... but your response was as much hyperbole as my comment was so I'll call it even.
Eventually every market creates a "winner" and if the courts step in at that point, or better yet, a legislative body steps in and says, "Fight's over, they win, eveyone use their standard." Things work out better in the long run. Unfortunately, in the short run some of these companies have to die off. If the EU is planning on taking the protcols and turning them over to ISO and then asks or forces all developers to use those protocols as the defacto standard then I'm cool with it. But if it's their intention to create an artifically level feild then there's a problem.
Uh, so? You think nobody on the planet is doing, or wants to do anything outside of the issues you have to diagnose and repair? You seem to have a very myopic view of the world.
*blinks* Um okay, so I'm the only one that gets annoyed by AoL deciding to write code contrary to the existing documentation and then caused system to crash? Or better yet the wonderful medical software companies I work with deciding to ignore ISO standards and write their own homebrews? But lets skip that for a moment and look at it this way...you're as entitled to be wrong as the next person and in this case you are. But agian, not the topic..so truce? well truce after the next comment cause it's bait and I'll bite...
Sort of like Democracy, right?
*coughs* It's another hyberbole like the dictator comment, and it's not helping the discussion and is taking a comment out of context because it suits your purpose and I keep saying you have some good points... so lets get on to those. The point of democracy is to allow each person to have equal say in the foundation, formation and composition of their respective government, it works best when business and industry arn't involved in the process.
But we're getting off topic lobbing insults back and forth, so lets take a look at the rest of the comments.
Without monopoly power, a competitor cannot dictate proprietary standards onto the market. Their competitors will create an open, interoperable standard and support it instead and the proprietary vendor will end up marginalized. This has happened plenty of times in the last 30 years. In the absence of monopoly influence, the market tends to correct itself on those things.
If it did happen then, yes, someone would sue and this ruling could be used for the basis of their suit (actually it probably couldn't since i dont think the EU courts use prior cases as precedent in future cases the way the United States court system does). I'm not sure why you brought that up though, because that was just indicate a properly functioning legal system, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Agreed, but.... I mentioned earlier I work with medical software. Currently there are 26 companies competeting for the same market. Because no one has the greatest share of the market (i.e. 25%) they all are still refusing to work together and keep trying to force their s
Alright, I'm not going to argue about MS being a monopoly or not, to be honest, I don't care. I don't care because one company setting the standards and everyone complying with it creates an environment of stability in computers. Most crashes, problems, and issues I have to diagnose and repair are most often caused by thrid party vendors that wrote software without bothering to read the existing Whitepapers on the subject...which is why this is POINTLESS. Even if MS complies have the people out there won't bother to read the information unless they are trying to take clients away from MS products. I know that's the point right? They're using legal action to ensure that people can play on a level playing feild. It's sounds liek a good idea, but it's a recipe for chaos in the long term. All you end up with is the establishment of new proprietary information from competitors of MS that eventually wil have to be sued to hand the information over as well, and the person who sues them, will use this ruling as the basis for their law suits.
Making MS hand over documentation on protocols is pointless, there are white papers that describe eveything important to a real programer, with a single exception, file formats for Office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Visio, etc) The formats used in Office 2007 are completely different....making this a pointless ruling. They've already changed the very protocols they've been told to hand over, and since 2007 isn't out of BETA yet, it technically isn't covered by the ruling. Smooth move.. this is what happens when courts are allowed to make rulings on technical systems they arn't qualified to rule on. They missed it big time if they really want to level the feild.
Personally I don't think making them turn over anything beyond a table of file format struture is fair to MS or the consumer. LEts say they force MS to turn over documentation about security in Windows (crippled as it already is) you've just given evey hacker a road map! That's about as stupid as a CNN reporter asking, "Can you give me the exact location of the troops?" while the enemy is watching CNN. Please, they want an API to turn off secuirty center, they got it. They want to re-write parts of the OS, screw em. It's not their OS, it's not their right to create more issues for the end user. Symantec and McAfee in particular are the worst abusers of the OS to date (at least in the US), and are ten times worse than MS about their anti-competition practices. At least with an OS you know what you're getting, you can expect it to infest every part of your comptuer, but half the people out their don't get that the copy of Security Center or Internet security that came with their new PC, is so deeply embeded in the OS that half the time the uninstall fails leaving your systems crippled forcing you to reinstall the software or risk having to reinstall windows.
Anyway, rant over. This ruling is pointless, it accomplishes nothing except having MS turn over file format informaiton to help Belgium's conversion to open office and doesn't do crap for the consumer the court is suppose to be protecting.
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yes .. that's ample for that task, and you're right, and that was my point. Don't use an older PC and expect the newest stuff to work on. Gamers are use to the idea that there machine won't last more than two years, but the regular consumer isn't. So you're right, they shouldn't have to. I'm glad Dell is returning it to the lowere end stuff, but then again, I don't have a low end PC... so Vista works better than XP ever did for my machine. It's a bit bloated, but a little tuning and it's working faster than Xp. If I had a lesser PC would it be as good? Hell no, I'd load XP. But none of this changes the fact that the fundemental arguement in the article is flawed... badly.
So.. exactly what part of that article qualified as journalism? It read like a page from a scandal rag... well anyway...Why upgrade... you probably shouldn't.. you've already decided you don't like it..... why else? You're computer probably can't handle it anyway. Unless your purchasing new hardware or you're the tuner type like me, Vista really doesn't hold much in the "I need it now" catagory. Of course, if you're a gamer, there's good reasons to upgrade, as long as you're willing to buy a DX10 card with it. (And don't give me the XP could run DX10 line, that's pure BS and anyone who programs understands exactly why XP can't use the memory funcitons that are in DX10.)
As for the two indications the article spoke of: First Dell letting people have XP again. Yes.. they should. Especially on the low end sale computers, they just arn't designed to handle it and really suffer in the performance department. So putting XP back on the low end stuff is a good thing. I applaud Dell for not screwing their customers on the OS. As for the second "Indication", ug... this guy's so far off base it's comical. The computers that will run the XP starter edition and Office that Microsoft is selling for $3 a copy can't possibly run Vista in the first place. Often these developing nations that are going to get this software are looking at getting the bottom of the barrel, whatever is left over after the rest of the world bought their machines. They can't run it, end of story, and MS isn't going to say to a devloping country, "Oh sorry, you have to buy Dell's highend machines, because we're only giving you Vista." *sigh*
People please... logic... it's not just for breakfast anymore.
In short, hate on Vista all you want. Call it MEII, call it the worst OS from MS, I really don't care, but at least show why it's a bad os, not "Oh MS must think it's failing because they're giving away copies of XP to people who can't run Vista." And before you judge, run it on a PC that it was actually designed to run on, not one that's 2 years old and you bought on sale from Dell for $499
HIV is problematic, not just because of the infected T cells attempting to take over the body, but because it allows opportunistic diseases to inhabit the body. Many of which are easily fought off by a healthy individual, but if left too long in an unhealthy host can become terminal. In short, no one dies from AIDS directly, they die from the diseases that take over the body because of the compromised immune system. These range from simple infections, to forms of cancer. Yes we all know what caused the secondary infections, and so they did die from AIDS... but you get the point.
So I'll answer your quesiton this way. Assuming that the person in question hasn't contracted a secondary terminal disease or other ailment, then yes it probably will reverse it. I fear that for those in the later stages this may help prevent further infections and help bolster the immune system, but not end the process. If the body can recover, with the help of other medications and then fight off the secondary diseases... the patient would live, but it's also possible for late stage patients to have contracted irreversable problems that would still end in death.
Eventually we'll see articles on Slashdot that read, "Cure for Aids Found! Research begins on cures secondary infectious diseases still killing patients.
*Crosses his fingres* Well, even that would be a nice change wouldn't it?
I don't post often, but I had to compliment you on your reply to this article. You're right. I don't like that you used the word liberal, mainly because the mainstream media (Fox.Noise) has made this term and the term progressive interchangable, but your sentiment and explination is correct.
It isn't for a lack of freedoms that our society suffers, but from a lack of responsiblity. Particularly one of the main funcitons in society has changed, and someone forgot to tell the last few generations. Our grandparents, and their parents and those before them had particular social imperitive, grow up, get a job, get married, have a kid, grow old, retire, visit grandkids, then die. This wasn't for everyone then, and it's not for everyone now. There are some people who don't understand what having a child means, that a family can be just a a couple and their friends, and that the old progression is no longer needed, nor relevant to our world. The social imperetive of having to have a kid after you marry, or even to marry has led us to a society full of parents who won't take responsibility for their freedoms, and children who will abuse any freedom given them because their parents didn't teach them to be responsible.
I've heard a hundred times some parent say, "But it takes a village to raise a child." But they don't understand those words. The villiage doesn't raise the child, it helps provide the raw materials that will help you grow into what you are to become, but it is the parent that decides which materials to use, and how to focus and form them. The village doesn't raise the child, it only aids in the construction. Parents raise children. PERIOD.
If an adult isn't capable of raising a child, they shouldn't have had the child to begin with. (I know.. accident happen, yadda yadda ya..and now it's too late for that) But making laws to try and force the world to raise your children for you isn't the right approach. I'm often reminded of a quote from the film Parenthood (Haven't seen it? See it.) where a character said simply, "You need a license to have a dog, but any ass***e can have a child." And in many ways that's the problem. I'd honestly like to see society focus more on teaching the next generation what having a child really means, and perhaps giving them the tools they need to be good parents. Maybe we should add that to our "lack of sex" education programs. Something along the lines of, "Here's how it works, here's what can happen, and here's the child you got because you didn't listen to the first two parts. Now lets go over the next 18+ years of you raising your child until your back to your normal life again."
In closing, before video games it was rock music, before rock music, it was crime movies (Damn you Edward G Robbinson! *shakes his fist*), before movies (wait there was life before movies??) there were books (Oh yeah, you can see it can't you, tons of Roman children running off playing Spartans and stabbing each other in the streets and then blaming the local bard for telling them the story), and before that there were cave paintings. At every point along the way someone did something stupid and didn't take responsibility for it, and then wanted to blame something else for thei actions. Video games are this generations cave paintings.
Good night, and good luck, I'm going to go blow up things in Resistance, and then go and play with my dog. (btw current generation, pets are a great subsitute for children and great way to learn how to raise a child. If you can't keep the fish alive, or your dog from biting others, you'll never handle a child)
The state of California actually has a Privacy Act, a rarity in the states. It was actually this act that was used/is being used in the procesecution of HP, who was pre-texting board memebers to find a leak in their organization. The problem, for those who don't remember, isn't that they pre-texted their boardmemebers, but they actually used this technique to aquire personal records of individuals related the board members (and act that would have required a warrent, and probable cause if they were a law enforcement agency) The attempt to gather information on people NOT employed by the company violated the privacy of the individuals and since no contract with HP exists from those individuals (because they're not employees) HP broke the law. The "bill" in the state legislature just removes the argueing about what is and isn't pre-texting and what does and doesn't violate the states own privacy act, without everyone having to go through the process of hiring legal counsel and letting them make tons of money to fight over something the state already knows isn't allowed under it's existing laws, but needed clarifying. Unfortunatley for those whose privacy was violated by HP, this law will not aid their procescution of HP (ex post facto) So if you want the bill to pass, it's simple. Start pretending to be a Congressman, and start inquiring about their electric bills, phone bills, etc and watch how fast the law passes. The problem isn't the law, it's that the state representatives don't feel any urgency in passing it. The RIAA and MPAA need to get a clue. The concept that any individual who is now a lincesee or dually deputized by the state should be allowed to conduct search and seizure (And yes that's what gather information about an individual from organizations that are not public is) is the first step toward a Corptocracy. If the RIAA wants to pursue people, they need to report the crimes to the state, and have the state request a warrent, and then let the state pursue the criminals. They are not the police, and personally I'm getting tired of companies thinking it's okay for them to conduct activities without the supervision of the court, or the state law enforcement agency that any single individual would be charged with Wire Fraud, or Identity Theft for trying. Not to mention being open to tons of civil aciton for Privacy violations. So here's what I'd like to see someone do. Pre-text all the members of the legal counsel and the investigating tema of both the RIAA and the MPAA, and lets see how quickly they drop their objections. What's good for the goose...
I'm not a fan of chipping, or RFID, or anything that's attached to your body that would link to financial data...why? Simple. If I get mugged right now, they take my wallet and beat me up. If I have a chip that links to my bank account.. well... they'll cut out whatever part of me that chip's in. Think about that, and leave the doomsaying to the evangelists and other looking to control the world with fear... like politicians.
Everytime I see these particular passages quoted I have two reactions, first, "I'm not religious, so I really don't care what you say..." then second....
You do realise that they already marked everyone.. it's called a finger print ID.. and you had it done when you got your drivers license.
As for the buying and selling, well.. it's called a social secuirty number, or a Tin (Taxpayer Identification Number), or anyone of a dozen other id numbers, all of which point back to you, and since the SS# is required to get a driver license, you're linked to that too.
oooo I hear the four horsemen approching fast... better confess your sins and get ready... Personally I'll take my chances with the Speggetti Monster here on earth and stop worrying about the next world and spend more time worrying about fixing this one instead. Be of this world and in this world and act as a steward to this world and the rest will take care of itself.
This isn't as much about DRM, or iTunes as you think, and far more about a growing attitude in Europe about companies that try to force a consumer into exclusively using their systems.
Now before you call go off in a huff about how evil Microsoft is and this being somehow all their fault and poor little Apple having no choice but to do what they did in order to survive, or worse give me the BS arguement about how the record companies forced them to do this... *too late*... here's the real point, and yes this is just the begining of companies that are about to get hit with this and I doubt Norway is the last, you'll likely see most of Northern Europe and France follow quickly. Don't be suprised if you see the entire EU take a position on this issue within the year.
What are you buying when you buy music from iTunes? Am I buying an accessory for my iPod or am I buying music and videos? Well, I'm buying music and videos. I'm not buying a DRM that's for certain...and giving it a pretty name like Fairplay is about as convincing as calling it the "Patriot Act".
By buying from a specific site, I can't give up my right to use what I bought simpy because of the mode I choose to purchase it in. If I buy a DVD from the local store, the store can't tell me that I can only use my DVD on a specific player, namely theirs. If I walk into a record store, the record store own can't tell me, "Oh you can only play this CD on my companies CD player." We went through this back in the days of record players, anyone else know why they called it an RCA 45? instead of a 45?
So that's what's really going on. We, Europe and America, as a whole need to start figuring out what we are and are not buying, what rights as a consumer we have, and is it fair or legal for a company to require you to use their hardware to play music or videos that would, in any other media, be free to use from one device to another.
In the end that's what the DRM battle, and Apple's iTunes, and Microsoft's Zune is about. (I'm leaving Play for Sure out of this on purpose, even my cell phone supports Play for Sure) What rights do consumers have, and what rights are artists entitled to?
What I find interesting about all this DRM and and format AAC vs MP3 vs WMA batttling is that very few companies have realized that throwing in more DRM is actually causing their music sales to flatline. Recently, there was an article on CNET and also on here concerning record sales over the last few years (Record as in music, not specifically CD's or Vinyl). DRM has in fact had NO impact on the revenue that companies are recovering. They were actually under the impression that all the DRM stuff would help eliminate piracy and they would make more money, but the reality, there's making exactly the same as what they were making in the heydays of Napter, and true MP3 players. Funny huh?
In short, it comes down to another Us vs Them and who gets to control it all. Apple? Microsoft? RIAA, MPAA? or the consumers?
Okay have to make the joke. Did you hear? Walmart now uses Suse for an OS! It'a saving them tons of money, so you can now get 13 pairs of socks for $9.99 instead of 12! It's an interesting change for Walmart, but not suprising. I bet you'll see more companies change to SuSE that are already *nix based.
Oh very very much so!
If you need proof, just put a chicken leg infront of an Amazon... and watch it eat the chicken and tear apart the bone too... little canibles all of them! LOL.
Anyway, I do subscribe to school that beleives Avians to the be the offshoot of the primative lizards, so they're all just mini-dinos to me. Two of them come out to play on the floor where they are usually face to face with my 70lb Rotty. They chase him around making little hissing noises and laughing. He's terrified an runs away. Reminds me of that scene with compies in Jurasic Park.
oh no no.. I have three in my house too, but if you see greater macaws in the wild you'll notice that on the rare occasion that they drop from the canopy they often won't fly back up instead they choose to climb, and they are suprisingly fast at it. It's an odd behavior, but it's consistant with the gliding evolution since you probably didn't learn to take off first, but instead leaned to control falling first.
Okay, I don't care if they had 1 wing, 2 wings or had 50, the point here is simple. I want my 'A' from my Evolutionary Biology class! My teacher was wrong! ha! and my research paper was right! What am I talking about? I argued in my paper that birds didn't learn to fly by running across the ground and spreading their arms out, but in fact lived in trees and were excellent climbers. He stated that the current science didn't support that, even though every Parrot species and Old WOrld species in the world climbs trees and glides from tree to tree. Anyway, which way did the legs hang? probablly down like the landing gear on a plane, and were for stablization and not lift. But hey.. what do I know.. my bio teacher said I had it wrong last time... haha!
I looked on MSDN and there's tons of posts about how to make this work and how to work around some of the minor compatability issues. It looks like this is a "Big" little issue. It also looks like my Beta 2 vs the RC1 and RTM had only a temporary suspension of install.
Stephen
For those unaware this is primarily a concern for people who develop stand alone applications that currently use SQL Express.
Why use SQL express? It's more stable and more flexible than just using ODBC to connect to an Access database file. Plus you can use all other features that you can not use in Access. It's also the defacto standard for Visual Studio 2005 developers so it gets a lot of use now adays in development. It's also far easier to use than installing the clients for Oracle or MySQL and reduces your program's foot print. (1.2MB vs 35 MB)
I actually use this, and when testing Vista didn't run into a single problem with it in it's current state. (It installed and ran fine under Beta 1 and 2 although it warned you that it could be unstable, it seems in RC and RTM they actually added it to the "Can't install" list)
And there's more than one way to connect to a database, SQL express isnt' the primary route, so the article is being VERY presumptious about impact on the industry. It's not writen by someone who knows the difference between SQL server (The server app that runs on Windows Server 2000, 2003 and uses a client program to handle the connections to a server) and the SQLExpress App (For use in stand alone programs and development environments and will not allow connections from any machine other than the host machine)
It's also amazing that the author of the article thought that you wouldn't test seperately on both platforms. He makes it sound like having to test on Xp then on Vista is a bad thing. Honestly, if you arn't testing on both and on Windows 2000, you're not doing your job right.
Is it important? Yes, it sucks to have apps that I was testing under Vista Beta 1, that I can no longer test because of the "no-install" flag. But SP to the rescue!
As for using Oracle vs MS-SQL, which is the bigger point. Well. having to deal with both at work I can tell you, MS-SQL is far easier to maintain and manage and back up. Oracle still has far too many legacy items in 9i and 10 that require "special" treatment. Not to mention that it's error reporting system is pointless 90% of the time, and we have to hand step everything we do to figure out why we're getting an error instead of a single error message that says, "OCA-XXXXX: Column can not hold data" instead of "ORA-XXX: 'DOCNAME' is too long for column." You can imagine what a pain Oracle is when you've got an SQL statement that a page long. I won't even go into how unfriendly Oracle's support is. Half the time you ask them for help the answer is "If you were an Oracle trained admin you'ld know that." How about, "If you put it in the manual, I'd already know that. Or if your people would reply to emails without the snotty tone I'd know that." Ug...
Sorry about the rant, enjoy!
*in the distance you hear the faint sound of a macintosh starting up followed by... Mooooooooooooooo*
Im not a linux fan, or an MS fan or a Mac fan, I'm a computer fan... and that's funny.
Okay I missed that on my first read! Thanks Dahan!
Good point, but that works both ways. If Mac isn't going to support .NET why would Microsoft want to continue product support for a product that only "half" works on OSX because it's lacking .NET support?
.NET support, or if Mac would be willing to support the API if it meant full support for macros, etc in Office for Mac
I know it's a catch 22, because neither side wants to work with the other, it's more of a "if I have to..." kind of association. I'm more curious to know if MS would want to continue supporting OSX at all if they have to limit what the programs can do because of a lack of
haha.. historial humor! That's a good one. As for the RIAA, so let me get this straight, they're sueing eveyone they can find a way to sue, to get more money, but they don't want to pay that money to the people they are supposedly defending? Um.. did I read that right? Can we just get rid of them now and now not go through this?
I know I have limited experience with Vista at this point, but using Beta 1 and Beta 2, I never had an issue with Suspend or Hibernation. In fact I used it continually. So my quesiton is... how much of this is simply a BIOS issue and how much is really a Vista issue? Now before you respond...
I have 4 computers, all of them worked fine under Vista, however, my personal PC will not suspend under Xp correctly (BSOD or won't wake up at all). My wife's comptuer doesn't hibernate under Xp at all. (Can't boot afterwards have to delete Hib file) But both work perfectly under Vista. The other two machines work fine under both.
It sounds to me like what they fixed under Vista corrected the issues I had with XP but caused other new problems with other computers.
So BIOS vs Software issues? Anyone want to comment... and by comment I don't mean... Linuix figured it out why can't microsoft because that's not a productive discussion, that's just MS bashing. (It may be true.. but it's not productive)
I'm actually wondering about this decission and if it has far more to do with Mac's unwillingness to work with Microsoft to support .NET apps on their platform, deciding instead to only support JavaVM and their own systems.
.NET programer I had a chance to work with Office 2007 and one of the first things I noticed was that VBA was being superceeded in the suite by a "VB.NET" system instead. Not a big deal for me, or most VBa users since the format, structures and commands are fairly simliar. But VB.net allows more interconnectivity and function than the older VBa engine ever could. ((Yes that's good and bad when you consider macrovirus issues))
.NET support (and yes there are .NET engine for certain *nix distros and ones that support WinForms) So please comment, I'd like to hear any reasonable comments that do not contain the usual "Why would they want to do that? Support something MS created? That's just giving MS more control" or the other "Mac is just better... install linux...etc comments." but a real valid comment on the thought.
Why am I thinking that? As a
Anyway, just a thought, and I'm interested to hear what other people think. I know that porting the VBa engine in Office 2007 would have been much simpliar for the programing group if Mac had
Thanks Mac people!
Okay I know, it's not historical or profound, but here's 3 that they left off my Sexy geeks list. Morgan Webb (love Xplay) Olivia Munn (love ATOTS) and my personal fav: Michelle Rodriguez (actress, and yes that means she CAN act not just look pretty, and an avid game player, she's kicked more butt on FPS games than Paris ever could... can Paris even spell butt?) And for the more intelectually minded they could have looked up any of the following in Google Women +Physics +Bio Research Nobel Prize Winners +Women Litarary Scholars +Women etc etc etc...
On CPU graphics is always a bad idea. Inevitably you end up with something less than capable, and the only real advantage is for severly low cost systems to cost $49 less. Not a smooth move AMD, especially when you look at Nvidia's CUDA system that are taking the complete opposite approach. GPU as a CPU instead of GPU on a CPU.
When I plugged in my Canon it opened the photo folder and asked me what I wanted to do. When I plugged in my Minolta it did the very same thing.
I've seen that dumb Mac commerical a hundred times where the Mac "magically" works with the latest camera from Japan, and well.. my PC does too... so did I miss a meeting? Was I suppose to have problems?
Anyway... good articles... and reccomended reading for all computer people. As for the debate of Vista vs Leopard. I like vista, I find Leopard clunky and slow, but that's me. I've worked both sides, Mac and PC and I love my PC, and my friends love their MAC... go figure.. to each his own.
>All beer sucks, I drink cider. >Firefly was good, but Max Headroom was better. (yeah old school scifi) >I have both >I prefer my kitchen, and applebees is worse than Denny's
I like what I've seen the Wii do so far, and I love what the 360 and the PS3 is capable off. And in the end I'll probably have a Wii and a PS3, but like the critics I'm concerned about launch titles and I'm not the "have to have it this moment" type anyway, so I get time to sit back and watch and listen to reviews and eventually go to a friends house and try it out. We all know that it takes at least 6 months to a year for a game system to reach it's peak performance levels, so what you're seeing on the PS3 now is mainly ports from the X360.. which means X360 graphics... I'm looking forward to FFXIII to see what a PS3 can really do.
Why do I like the Wii? Finally a console system gets that putting aiming in an FPS on that tiny stick is lame... (probably why I only play FPS's on the PC...and Halo is not the BEST FPS EVER...sorry.) I like that they are trying something new, but if I'll wait until I can play one without intteruption for a few days, with some Gamefly titles and then make my decision. For all we know, this could just be a fad, and in the end they'll end up releasing a "normal" controller for the system. (Don't give me the... if it isn't programed to use it garbage.. you can program these things to do whatever you want.. especially the Wii which has an updatable kernel....yes virginia there is *nix.)
What I don't like about the Wii: It's nintendo... that's like the Mr Rodgers of gaming. With rare exception Nintendo has proven that it's more concerned with being popular with parental organizations than with gamers. Fortunately, the market shifted and I hope that Nintendo did to. That 18-34 bracket is the money now, not the 28 to 45 parents that use to dominate the trade.
What I like about the PS3: It's graphics are amazing, it's cinimatics are transparent for games that were written specifically for it. It's fast, it doesn't studder,
What I don't like: The system is going to be bogged down with lots of DRM crap that the MPAA made them put in with the Blu-Ray... It shouldn't effect the games too much, but just think about what happens to a PC that has too many background tasks going on, eventually it catches up. No vibration controller, but the tilt won't let you have one anyway, unless you seperate the halfs... like the Wii, which has both. I don't like the price, but hey it's the rough equivilant of a Nvidia 7950 so I can see the price point, and eventually it will get cheaper for Sony to make, and thus, cheaper for us to buy. (and Yes they will lower the price.. they'll have to... cause no one will pay $650 for a PS3 when they could pay $650 for the PS4 with the Nvidia CUDA processors and Cell2....hey I didn't say it would happen fast)
But you're right TW, until you've had a chance to sit down and kick off a few brats at Best Buy or are lucky enough to find someone who did "have to have it now" you really can't judge. I said earlier that Halo is not the best FPS ever made, in fact from my point of view, it's boring and has poor controls, but I like a very specific type of game. I have friends who think Mario Sunshine was the best platforrmer ever...wouldn't know.. not a big fan of Mario or platformers...
I guess what I'm saying is, in the end it comes down to which system is going to offer what you want, and like to play. If it cost $650 to get the stuff you like to play, or only $299, you'll buy what "fits" you best.
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of how prior to the standardization of railway gauge each independent railway system was allowed to develop it's own system and then charge people to use it, and purposly take their competitiors systems and modify them to stop their compeitior from running trains on their rails. Or if you don't like that example then there's the standaradizaiton of the automobile that was the direct result of unchecked monoploistic tactics. Or the standardzation of Electrical standards (AC DC 110 220, etc), recording standards (Anyone else remember the RCA 45?), TV (we're still fighting over this one), Radio (FM,AM, Direct Transmission... yeah..Tesla was nuts...), Satellite, Internet, Networks, etc, etc... but your response was as much hyperbole as my comment was so I'll call it even.
Eventually every market creates a "winner" and if the courts step in at that point, or better yet, a legislative body steps in and says, "Fight's over, they win, eveyone use their standard." Things work out better in the long run. Unfortunately, in the short run some of these companies have to die off. If the EU is planning on taking the protcols and turning them over to ISO and then asks or forces all developers to use those protocols as the defacto standard then I'm cool with it. But if it's their intention to create an artifically level feild then there's a problem.
Uh, so? You think nobody on the planet is doing, or wants to do anything outside of the issues you have to diagnose and repair? You seem to have a very myopic view of the world.
*blinks* Um okay, so I'm the only one that gets annoyed by AoL deciding to write code contrary to the existing documentation and then caused system to crash? Or better yet the wonderful medical software companies I work with deciding to ignore ISO standards and write their own homebrews? But lets skip that for a moment and look at it this way...you're as entitled to be wrong as the next person and in this case you are. But agian, not the topic..so truce? well truce after the next comment cause it's bait and I'll bite...
Sort of like Democracy, right?
*coughs* It's another hyberbole like the dictator comment, and it's not helping the discussion and is taking a comment out of context because it suits your purpose and I keep saying you have some good points... so lets get on to those. The point of democracy is to allow each person to have equal say in the foundation, formation and composition of their respective government, it works best when business and industry arn't involved in the process.
But we're getting off topic lobbing insults back and forth, so lets take a look at the rest of the comments.
Without monopoly power, a competitor cannot dictate proprietary standards onto the market. Their competitors will create an open, interoperable standard and support it instead and the proprietary vendor will end up marginalized. This has happened plenty of times in the last 30 years. In the absence of monopoly influence, the market tends to correct itself on those things. If it did happen then, yes, someone would sue and this ruling could be used for the basis of their suit (actually it probably couldn't since i dont think the EU courts use prior cases as precedent in future cases the way the United States court system does). I'm not sure why you brought that up though, because that was just indicate a properly functioning legal system, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Agreed, but.... I mentioned earlier I work with medical software. Currently there are 26 companies competeting for the same market. Because no one has the greatest share of the market (i.e. 25%) they all are still refusing to work together and keep trying to force their s
Alright, I'm not going to argue about MS being a monopoly or not, to be honest, I don't care. I don't care because one company setting the standards and everyone complying with it creates an environment of stability in computers. Most crashes, problems, and issues I have to diagnose and repair are most often caused by thrid party vendors that wrote software without bothering to read the existing Whitepapers on the subject...which is why this is POINTLESS. Even if MS complies have the people out there won't bother to read the information unless they are trying to take clients away from MS products. I know that's the point right? They're using legal action to ensure that people can play on a level playing feild. It's sounds liek a good idea, but it's a recipe for chaos in the long term. All you end up with is the establishment of new proprietary information from competitors of MS that eventually wil have to be sued to hand the information over as well, and the person who sues them, will use this ruling as the basis for their law suits.
Making MS hand over documentation on protocols is pointless, there are white papers that describe eveything important to a real programer, with a single exception, file formats for Office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Visio, etc) The formats used in Office 2007 are completely different....making this a pointless ruling. They've already changed the very protocols they've been told to hand over, and since 2007 isn't out of BETA yet, it technically isn't covered by the ruling. Smooth move.. this is what happens when courts are allowed to make rulings on technical systems they arn't qualified to rule on. They missed it big time if they really want to level the feild.
Personally I don't think making them turn over anything beyond a table of file format struture is fair to MS or the consumer. LEts say they force MS to turn over documentation about security in Windows (crippled as it already is) you've just given evey hacker a road map! That's about as stupid as a CNN reporter asking, "Can you give me the exact location of the troops?" while the enemy is watching CNN. Please, they want an API to turn off secuirty center, they got it. They want to re-write parts of the OS, screw em. It's not their OS, it's not their right to create more issues for the end user. Symantec and McAfee in particular are the worst abusers of the OS to date (at least in the US), and are ten times worse than MS about their anti-competition practices. At least with an OS you know what you're getting, you can expect it to infest every part of your comptuer, but half the people out their don't get that the copy of Security Center or Internet security that came with their new PC, is so deeply embeded in the OS that half the time the uninstall fails leaving your systems crippled forcing you to reinstall the software or risk having to reinstall windows.
Anyway, rant over. This ruling is pointless, it accomplishes nothing except having MS turn over file format informaiton to help Belgium's conversion to open office and doesn't do crap for the consumer the court is suppose to be protecting.