The decision to include the WinFX APIs in the.Net framework is a solid decision. The decision to call it the.NET Framework 3.0 is not. It really ought to be 2.1 or 2.5 or something. A lot of new APIs are being added, but all the old stuff is still there, unchanged.
This numbering scheme will make people think this version will have the same impact as the 1.1 -> 2.0 migration, and help further the perception that Microsoft is doing this for Fire and Motion reasons.
The fact so many teachers have second job might have something to do with the fact they only work roughly 10 months out of the year. Picking up a job, particularily one over the summer months (or at least one that picks up during the summer months) can be a good way to keep busy.
You can tell FF6 didn't have any replay value because I lent my copy to someone, finally got it back after a year, my save (near the end, but still unbeaten) had been deleted, and I felt no urge to start over.
Well, obviously if YOU felt no urge to replay the game, that must mean the game has no intrinsic replay value. Care to tell us the other games you feel no urge to replay so we can all stop playing them now?
You are not a representative sample (nor am I, or anyone else for that matter).
If Rockstar undermined the ESRB's ratings, it should've been the ESRB's job to punish Rockstar, rather than the FTC. No, this isn't about lies, or sex, or anything else. It's about politicians producing the appearance of "doing something" to "protect the children", and nothing more. The extremely small fine makes that even clearer. It is not, and should not be the job of the FTC to enforce the ESRB rating guidelines.
Perhaps it's time for the ESRB to get some teeth, unless they want to go the way of the Comics Code Authority. When this hit the news the ESRB could barely muster faint criticism against Rockstar. With this single error, Rockstar managed to destroy almost all the credibility the ESRB had. Is it any wonder that the vultures swooped in?
If you fail to do the dist-upgrade, there is a strong possibility that X will not work properly. Depending on your level of technical expertise, this may or may not qualify as "completely unbootable". The base system should never be so completely broken that you can't recover it, but it is possible.
You can always just call Microsoft during activation if the machine refuses to active all by itself. It's not nearly as terrifying as some make it out to be. They'll just ask if this copy of Windows is installed on any other machines, and then issue the activation code. One thing to keep in mind. Although the Windows activation telephone number uses IVR (Interactive Voice Response), you can type in the activation request code using a touch tone dial pad. It takes some time for the computer to process anything you say, but DTMF digits are processed nearly immediately.
I've had to call to reactivate Windows enough... It's not because there's any piracy going on, but rather hardware configuration problems (e.g. installing Win2K3 on a server without the embedded RAID enabled, and then reinstalling with it enabled). There's been instances of needing to reinstall Windows on laptops where the recovery CDs have been lost or damaged.
Much of what Microsoft does is not new and not innovation.
Come on! What wasn't innovative about the Microsoft Office dinosaur advertising? What an innovation to call their own customers archaic, and to imply the old products they bought were junk!
I don't live in NY, but I hear this same rational from people locally. The fact of the matter is, most of the taxes come from the city residents, so it's only natural that that most of the taxes should go to the city infrastructure. Rural taxpayers are not subsidizing urban dwellers. In fact, it's usually the other way around.
Many of Microsoft's development tools did not traditionally work well under "Limited User" accounts. I believe they've fixed some of the problems with VS2005. It's difficult to write software that operates in a different environment than the one you're currently using, especially for inexperienced programmers. By the time the problems are detected, it may be too late to fix them.
The Celeron D isn't dual core. It's just a Prescott core Celeron with 256KB of L2 cache. The dual core Xeon variant is the Xeon 7000-series. Rather idiotic marketing in my opinion, unless their goal was to hopelessly confuse potential buyers.
Perhaps not as much as you think. Once you make one manufacture ineligible for selling you one kind of system, it becomes pretty easy to invalidate them for all. There are real, valid reasons (and some invalid) for uniformity across an organization.
On the other hand, look at what happened when the trinitron patents finally expired. All of a sudden, you can get cheap CRTs with aperture grill masks for dirt cheap.
So, you have a choice between a catastrophic crash, versus a situation where the system attempts to limp along by "self-correcting". I can say one thing: I know which one is simpler to troubleshoot. With a "self-healing" system, a real problem can go unnoticed until it does serious damage. It's difficult for a computer to reliably know what faults can be automatically 'fixed', and which need user attention.
If your file system driver or storage controller driver was restarting because of a problem, would that be a good thing in your books? I think I'd usually prefer a hard crash because who knows what kind of bad data might be waiting to be written to disk. There are obviously situations where the reverse would be true (network file systems, for example).
No, it's worse than that. Most of it appears to be written by lobbyists, then it gets read by 20-something staffers and then summarized and presented to the elected jackass who then champions the cause. But I might just be a little cynical.
Microsoft and Sony are exactly the same on this point. Microsoft released the X-Box, XBox360, and Windows XP MCE in order to make the Windows PC the centre of the home entertainment system. It hasn't been terribly successful, but if they keep trying, they'll probably eventually succeed. Sony, on the other hand, sees their set-top appliances as the centre of the home entertainment system, and wants to bring PCs in under the umbrella they currently have. Sony's big barrier is that the goals of the consumer electronics division are not always aligned to those of their media division. That means a lot of Sony technologies are basically stillborn because they don't really serve anyone's interests. Outside of Sony devices and multicard readers, I don't see anyone using memory sticks. UMD isn't exactly popular with companies other than Sony, either. This is a problem Sony has had dating all the way back to the Betamax era. Unless something drastic happens at Sony and they suddenly realise they should be catering to their customers rather than to their media division, I don't think they'll ever achieve dominance.
"Apple's future lies in computer-like devices"
iPod.
I think that's pushing the definition of "computer-like devices" a bit.
"Intel will ride its new Merced processor to profit
I don't know which processor the Merced it, but I do know that Intel is still the 800 pound gorilla of PC CPUs.
The Merced is the processor known as Itanium these days. It turned out to be the mistake AMD was waiting for, and let them break into the server market with the 64-bit x86 Opteron processor. He understood how significant the CPU was, he just got the company wrong. Numerous problems, including poor performance (compared to 32-bit CPUs of the time), poor availability, and a lack of compatible software for the IA-64 platform severely retarded the CPU's uptake.
It's not quite that clear cut. Microsoft filed lawsuits in several other countries shortly after they realised that they might very well risk losing their trademark in the U.S. if they continued with the lawsuit. I believe they did succeed in getting the name Lindows banned in Finland, Sweden and in the Netherlands, which forced the name change. A rotten tactic used against a slimy company...
Here's an alternate survey, based on the gameplay.
FF4: The standard. Requires level grinding but not nearly as much as previous games. Above average difficulty.
FF5: Same gameplay as FF4 with the job system that adds a lot of depth. Requires some level grinding. Hard difficulty.
FF6: The esper system makes many of the character seem a little bland, but the gameplay is still solid. Well paced - little or no level grinding required. Average difficulty.
FF7: Slightly weaker gameplay system that often seems limited by the materia choices. Reasonably well paced - a little level grinding required. Average difficulty.
FF8: Weak. The lack of money and the requirement to draw magic out of your enemies make it very tedious. Slow pace due to draw system and hunting components to upgrade weapons. Level grinding usually works against you. Average difficulty, but tedious.
FF9: Returns to FF4 gameplay with some further limitations. Some combat is a little too specialised like in FFX, but not nearly as severe. A bit of level grinding is required. Average difficulty.
FFX: Glorified Rock/Paper/Scissors game masquerading as strategy. Use the right character, and you do massive dammage. Use the wrong character, and you do almost nothing. Level grinding required if you make mistakes in upgrading your characters. Easy difficulty, unless you make mistakes.
FFX-2: A return to the gameplay from FF5, as long as you can tolerate its new found cutesiness. There multiple ways to defeat any given enemy unlike FFX. Little or no level grinding required. Easy difficulty.
Completely ignoring story, that's what I come up with.
Ah, yes. comn, lptn, aux, prn or any of the several other reserved DOS filenames. It only worked if the user was logging his conversations with a client that wanted to make a separate file for each conversation. DCCing people those files when they had their client auto-accept caused a lot of havoc, too.
Those 'magic files' where useful back in the DOS days with stupid programs. If you wanted to print a document out of a program that didn't offer a print function (or would only print to LPT1:), you could sometimes fool the program by telling it to save to A:\prn or A:\lpt2, as long as the program saved things in a format that was understandable by your printer (like plain text). In modern programs, they're just a liability -- you can generate files that are inaccessible by normal means and cause all sorts of unintended behaviours.
Where did you get this $500/client figure? They certainly charge $600/server. There are plenty of things to criticise MySQL over without making stuff up.
Because Apple fans never search for PowerPC errata, because that would shatter their illusion that their machine is PERFECT. To Intel's credit, they document the errata with their products far better than most of their competitors.
As a side benefit, unlike DW7, the prerendered movies actually look good. I cringed everytime DW7 broke into 3D prerendered movies, because they were almost always unneeded, and Enix didn't have the budget to make them look good.
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This numbering scheme will make people think this version will have the same impact as the 1.1 -> 2.0 migration, and help further the perception that Microsoft is doing this for Fire and Motion reasons.
The fact so many teachers have second job might have something to do with the fact they only work roughly 10 months out of the year. Picking up a job, particularily one over the summer months (or at least one that picks up during the summer months) can be a good way to keep busy.
You are not a representative sample (nor am I, or anyone else for that matter).
If Rockstar undermined the ESRB's ratings, it should've been the ESRB's job to punish Rockstar, rather than the FTC. No, this isn't about lies, or sex, or anything else. It's about politicians producing the appearance of "doing something" to "protect the children", and nothing more. The extremely small fine makes that even clearer. It is not, and should not be the job of the FTC to enforce the ESRB rating guidelines. Perhaps it's time for the ESRB to get some teeth, unless they want to go the way of the Comics Code Authority. When this hit the news the ESRB could barely muster faint criticism against Rockstar. With this single error, Rockstar managed to destroy almost all the credibility the ESRB had. Is it any wonder that the vultures swooped in?
If you fail to do the dist-upgrade, there is a strong possibility that X will not work properly. Depending on your level of technical expertise, this may or may not qualify as "completely unbootable". The base system should never be so completely broken that you can't recover it, but it is possible.
You can always just call Microsoft during activation if the machine refuses to active all by itself. It's not nearly as terrifying as some make it out to be. They'll just ask if this copy of Windows is installed on any other machines, and then issue the activation code. One thing to keep in mind. Although the Windows activation telephone number uses IVR (Interactive Voice Response), you can type in the activation request code using a touch tone dial pad. It takes some time for the computer to process anything you say, but DTMF digits are processed nearly immediately. I've had to call to reactivate Windows enough... It's not because there's any piracy going on, but rather hardware configuration problems (e.g. installing Win2K3 on a server without the embedded RAID enabled, and then reinstalling with it enabled). There's been instances of needing to reinstall Windows on laptops where the recovery CDs have been lost or damaged.
I don't live in NY, but I hear this same rational from people locally. The fact of the matter is, most of the taxes come from the city residents, so it's only natural that that most of the taxes should go to the city infrastructure. Rural taxpayers are not subsidizing urban dwellers. In fact, it's usually the other way around.
Many of Microsoft's development tools did not traditionally work well under "Limited User" accounts. I believe they've fixed some of the problems with VS2005. It's difficult to write software that operates in a different environment than the one you're currently using, especially for inexperienced programmers. By the time the problems are detected, it may be too late to fix them.
The Celeron D isn't dual core. It's just a Prescott core Celeron with 256KB of L2 cache. The dual core Xeon variant is the Xeon 7000-series. Rather idiotic marketing in my opinion, unless their goal was to hopelessly confuse potential buyers.
Perhaps not as much as you think. Once you make one manufacture ineligible for selling you one kind of system, it becomes pretty easy to invalidate them for all. There are real, valid reasons (and some invalid) for uniformity across an organization.
Or get something that has a little more power, like an HP server with iLO (Integrated Lights Out) Advanced, or an IBM server with the Remote Supervisor Adapter II. You can have complete console control of the remote system, including virtual drives.
I don't know, driving a car or truck down a washboard road gets pretty close to the same effect as the rumble on game controllers.
On the other hand, look at what happened when the trinitron patents finally expired. All of a sudden, you can get cheap CRTs with aperture grill masks for dirt cheap.
If your file system driver or storage controller driver was restarting because of a problem, would that be a good thing in your books? I think I'd usually prefer a hard crash because who knows what kind of bad data might be waiting to be written to disk. There are obviously situations where the reverse would be true (network file systems, for example).
No, it's worse than that. Most of it appears to be written by lobbyists, then it gets read by 20-something staffers and then summarized and presented to the elected jackass who then champions the cause. But I might just be a little cynical.
Microsoft and Sony are exactly the same on this point. Microsoft released the X-Box, XBox360, and Windows XP MCE in order to make the Windows PC the centre of the home entertainment system. It hasn't been terribly successful, but if they keep trying, they'll probably eventually succeed. Sony, on the other hand, sees their set-top appliances as the centre of the home entertainment system, and wants to bring PCs in under the umbrella they currently have. Sony's big barrier is that the goals of the consumer electronics division are not always aligned to those of their media division. That means a lot of Sony technologies are basically stillborn because they don't really serve anyone's interests. Outside of Sony devices and multicard readers, I don't see anyone using memory sticks. UMD isn't exactly popular with companies other than Sony, either. This is a problem Sony has had dating all the way back to the Betamax era. Unless something drastic happens at Sony and they suddenly realise they should be catering to their customers rather than to their media division, I don't think they'll ever achieve dominance.
It's not quite that clear cut. Microsoft filed lawsuits in several other countries shortly after they realised that they might very well risk losing their trademark in the U.S. if they continued with the lawsuit. I believe they did succeed in getting the name Lindows banned in Finland, Sweden and in the Netherlands, which forced the name change. A rotten tactic used against a slimy company...
FF4: The standard. Requires level grinding but not nearly as much as previous games. Above average difficulty.
FF5: Same gameplay as FF4 with the job system that adds a lot of depth. Requires some level grinding. Hard difficulty.
FF6: The esper system makes many of the character seem a little bland, but the gameplay is still solid. Well paced - little or no level grinding required. Average difficulty.
FF7: Slightly weaker gameplay system that often seems limited by the materia choices. Reasonably well paced - a little level grinding required. Average difficulty.
FF8: Weak. The lack of money and the requirement to draw magic out of your enemies make it very tedious. Slow pace due to draw system and hunting components to upgrade weapons. Level grinding usually works against you. Average difficulty, but tedious.
FF9: Returns to FF4 gameplay with some further limitations. Some combat is a little too specialised like in FFX, but not nearly as severe. A bit of level grinding is required. Average difficulty.
FFX: Glorified Rock/Paper/Scissors game masquerading as strategy. Use the right character, and you do massive dammage. Use the wrong character, and you do almost nothing. Level grinding required if you make mistakes in upgrading your characters. Easy difficulty, unless you make mistakes.
FFX-2: A return to the gameplay from FF5, as long as you can tolerate its new found cutesiness. There multiple ways to defeat any given enemy unlike FFX. Little or no level grinding required. Easy difficulty.
Completely ignoring story, that's what I come up with.
Those 'magic files' where useful back in the DOS days with stupid programs. If you wanted to print a document out of a program that didn't offer a print function (or would only print to LPT1:), you could sometimes fool the program by telling it to save to A:\prn or A:\lpt2, as long as the program saved things in a format that was understandable by your printer (like plain text). In modern programs, they're just a liability -- you can generate files that are inaccessible by normal means and cause all sorts of unintended behaviours.
Where did you get this $500/client figure? They certainly charge $600/server. There are plenty of things to criticise MySQL over without making stuff up.
Because Apple fans never search for PowerPC errata, because that would shatter their illusion that their machine is PERFECT. To Intel's credit, they document the errata with their products far better than most of their competitors.
Depends. He could be drinking American beer. It's mostly water, after all.
As a side benefit, unlike DW7, the prerendered movies actually look good. I cringed everytime DW7 broke into 3D prerendered movies, because they were almost always unneeded, and Enix didn't have the budget to make them look good.