If you recall, it was around this time a couple of years ago that we started hearing about the subscription model and Software Assurance. This was supposed to make life easier for everyone by giving Microsoft a continuous stream of money and receiving from them a continuous stream of the latest and greatest. But Vista, which was promised within the contract period of software assurance, is still months away, and corporations have basically thrown away money for no upgrade. From what I've read, Software Assurance was a bit of a flop because people didn't like the idea of paying money and not necessarily receiving anything in return.
I've started to get a little curious about your other question. Who on earth is going to buy the upgrade when it's painfully expensive (looks like $200-300), and there are darn few computers for sale today that can run it?
if you visit Dell's web site (and if you do you're a major masochist, sadly - it's terrible), the cheapest notebook computer(*) that's "vista capable" is $969 after discounts. They are still selling $499 notebooks, which are obviously badly underspecified for Vista.
What happens when Vista is introduced? Is this the death of the $499 notebook?
Okay, notebooks are expensive. They are selling sub-$300 desktops. What's the cheapest desktop that can run Vista? If you take the 1GB ram requirement seriously, it's the high-end Dimension E310, at $748. They are clearly doing their best to cheap out this system; it includes a 15" flat panel monitor, a species that I thought was virtually obsolete. And yet it's still more than double what their cheapest system costs.
Now, I guess you can run "Vista Basic" on low-end systems, but Microsoft has given me the impression that this is the option for wimps and masochists (those that have not yet been suitably satisfied by Dell's web site).
I remember that when Windows95 came out, all systems available in the stores on introduction night(**) were more or less capable of running it, and had been for some time. this seems to be the first version of Windows that truly requires all-new hardware just to function at a minimal level.
So what's going on here? Does anyone know the reason they decided on a system with such ghastly requirements?
D
(*) If I were a REAL masochist, I would have gone to all the sites (home & home office, small and mid-sized business and large business, and priced every one of them. However, sadly I am not that mean to myself just to make a point on Slashdot. I stuck to Home & Home Office. You know, it's almost worth the extra $100 a Macbook costs to see a clear web page that shows you their only price and makes it dead simple to buy stuff.
(**) Ah, the days when we felt something like enthusiasm for Microsoft's products!
One of the things that resonated with me is that they mentioned all the junk software you have to clear out - all those "free" trial versions of about a billion programs, many of which have a serious ability to mess up your system. I checked out a new Dell PC recently and was amazed at how much of that stuff there is.
Apple's pretty free of that - I think the only trial is of Office, and it's easy to remove if you don't want it.
I think the strongest arguments, though, are anti-spyware. Of the typical computer users I know, none of them are capable of dealing with the problem. Realistically, getting an average computer user to let anti-spyware software run every night and do its job is a losing battle, and the experts are saying nowadays that you need more than one program running in order to be reasonably protected.
I tell all my average computer user friends to get Apple. It will pay off in the end in a lot less heartache.
Well, it's a way to connect with people. If you're satisfied with the people you have, then a social networking site probably looks pretty stupid. You wouldn't surf match.com if you weren't looking for a date, and you wouldn't be on myspace if you weren't looking for people to connect with.
If you are, social networking sites can seem pretty neat since there are a lot of people there, some of who are interesting.
What's really appealing about myspace is that although most people wildly misuse their "space", it is a place where they can be creative and put out things that they like. Those things are not what most programmers think they should like, but the point is that they can be in control and there's plenty of help available to make their profile look as they want it to.
Human beings in general seem to be more interested in whether something looks "cool" than whether you can read it or not. And that's fine, because they are people and they are expressing themselves. And on myspace, it's relatively easy to find them, which is where I think social networking has a huge advantage over standalone blogs.
Someone who put hours and hours into breaking myspace has a pretty interesting perspective on it. Funny, too. I'm Popular.
I'm doing my own site, aimed at more mature people than myspace, but it's not ready yet. To show social networking with an adult flair, I consider my best competition to be Tribe. It used to have adult profiles and... interesting... pictures, but sadly their corporate backers decided that wasn't a brainy scheme and removed it. But it's still pretty much social networking for people who have passed the Myspace stage.
I was a very loyal Thinkpad owner before I switched to Apple a few years back.
I still miss the TrackPoint which is, in my opinion, the most usable pointing device ever invented. And yes, I know many don't share my opinion, but it's also fair to say that many do.
Other than that, I'm a very happy PowerBook user. I'll probably switch to a Macbook Pro sometime this year; I'd like to see the next generation processor come out, and that appears to be imminent.
The PowerBook runs a little hot but I wouldn't make that stop you from switching. It's a fantastic laptop running a brilliant OS. I tried to get a ThinkPad running Linux to authenticate on my wireless network and I was shocked to see that it was still very difficult. Its owner finally gave up in disgust and used our neighbor's network, which was open.
I remember file versioning from ITS (MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System) that I used in the late 1970s. You would save a file as "XXX >" and it would save the latest version of XXX (i.e. XXX 1, XXX 2, etc). ITS had 8.3 file names (8 letter names, three letter extensions) and the version number was the extension.
That being said, I administrated a Windows network and never learned until today (see other replies to your message) that Windows had any kind of versioning at all. So from my somewhat Mac-centric viewpoint, the idea seemed to have been long dead until it was picked up in Leopard and Time Machine.
It's strange, though, that nobody ever told me about Vista's versioning system until I read today's replies to this message. Can someone fill me in? I've read a number of accounts of Vista, and none of them talk about versioning.
(1) Steve Jobs is an exciting character in the land of the bland. It's always fun to watch the master go through his paces. And you can see how much he really loves and is excited by what he's selling. In this cynical age, all of this is rare.
(2) Apple rarely disappoints. They always have interesting, fun products. The competition is drab and dull. Interesting and fun products trump drab and dull every time.
(3) Because journalists like products that are interesting and fun, a lot of them buy Apple products for themselves, so they are interested as customers too.
There have been studies done showing that the urban environment is actually worse on pollution than a suburb, thanks to traffic congestion for those who do run cars. And of course smoke belching busses, unless converted to natural gas or other fuels, are worth about 100 cars worth of pollution. Here in the Pittsburgh area, I never see busses full, either. There are usually less than 10 people on them, which means putting them into individually-owned cars would probably save on pollution.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I tried to get around using public transport for a while. It would take literally hours to get most places. I got a car and my ability to enjoy the city improved enormously, despite traffic congestion problems. I found, being single and not particularly inspired by my home, that it was nice to just wander around the part of the city I worked in until traffic died down. I would hunker down in the local Barnes & Noble or Borders and do some reading before going home.
Later on, I used the ultimate strategy: I moved so I was ten minutes away from my work. I almost never encountered traffic congestion of any kind since good "edge city" services were right near where I worked.
Public transport just takes you where the government wants you to. The car gives you freedom, and that's a great thing, no matter where you live.
In the Philippines, state of the art cellphones are status symbols. Your Nokia 6600 is something to brag about, sort of like what we would do if we got a new Mercedes or BMW here in the US.
So a close friend of mine had a Nokia 6600 and she told me "Something is wrong. I think Celly is sick."
I took a look at "Celly", my name for her cellphone. You see, in the Philippines the girls just love their cellphones, and if you want to be around a Filipina, you quickly get used to the fact that her cellphone is a member of the family, as she constantly texts and talks to people.
Fortunately, I was able to cure Celly by looking her malady up on the web. She was sending multimedia messages out blindly to all my friend's other friends, who of course were programmed in Celly. So people were complaining about the strange messages. Fortunately, most of them didn't have phones supporting the multimedia messaging system, so they were just puzzling, not damaging. The problem was solved thanks to F-Secure's removal tool, which - much to their credit - was free and removed the virus at no charge.
By the time my friend realized what was happening and asked me for help, she had already accumulated $300 in phone charges for the multimedia messages, a huge deal in a country where the average income for those lucky enough to have jobs is $4 a day.
So there's no question this is a real problem, and when it's not looked at right away it's going to be very painful. I don't think she was ever able to get those charges off her phone bill, and that's a huge amount of money for her.
So this is a real danger and I'm afraid F-Secure is right to warn people about it.
A few years ago I worked for a company that had to watch every penny. So of course they didn't want to buy me any kind of fancy chair. In fact, despite paying me big bucks, they gave me a chair that even the telemarketing staff had rejected. The back cushion was detached from its cardboard backing and flopped all over the place.
Well, after a year or so of that, I got severe pain in my hands from the poor typing position that ensued from such a crummy chair. I went to a doctor and he prescribed a truly bizarre wrist splint and an ergonomic chair.
My panicked boss, fearing potential lawsuits in the air, bought me an Aeron and a wrist rest for my keyboard. I tried the wrist splint but it was so weird feeling to use that I didn't use it more than a day or so.
Haven't had any wrist problems since, so having an Aeron or a similarly adjustable chair definitely helps a lot. I had bought an Aeron for home use before getting the one at my work. I now work at home so I'm either using the Aeron or relaxing outdoors with lawn chairs. For some reason relaxing outdoors, even with non-optimal chairs, seems to work wonders for my attitude. Curious but true.
I don't know about the kneeling chair. I tried one once but found it so uncomfortable and strange it wasn't of interest.
I think it's just a reflection of the fact that special effects studios, including Pixar, have huge investments in Linux render farms that they can't write off right away.
Certainly when a new Xserve comes out with the fastest Intel processors, I expect that to change and see more Apple gear in render farms.
I don't think they would be very useful in most rivers since currents often flow over their top speed. How do you deal with that problem in the sailboat world?
It's an interesting tiny niche, and there's so much money associated with it that it's quite profitable for the Duffy people. But I will admit it's a very tiny niche. Those who own these boats have docks with power. They come with the homes in Newport Harbor, so you can walk out of your living room, get on your fully charged boat and take off. This is great because it means the boats get used, unlike the boats in marinas where you have to drive a considerable distance to get to them. But of course it's a lifestyle that's not for everyone. A lot of people might aspire to it, but as I mentioned in a previous post it is expensive to the point of absurdity.
Curiously enough he created a Hybrid electric boat that got favorable reviews but I don't see it on his web site. His web site was recently redesigned in a pretty lousy Flash format; his previous site was really nice, well done and detailed. I don't know why he dropped it for what he has now.
Anyway, I suspect the hybrid electric boat's problem was that it was (if my memory serves) 30' long and $150,000. That's actually downright economical if you consider this(*), a boat which has a more powerful engine and fancier controls but is otherwise similar. You might note that despite the price that particular example is already sold, so there certainly seems to be a market for absurdly priced but relatively small boats.
D
(*) If you love great workmanship, check out the photos. It really is stunning, albiet pretty expensive for what it is.
While I have no doubt you are right about the batteries, I think there are at least a few owners who would have been happy to put the $50k into a new set.
I know this nice fellow who runs the Duffy Electric Boat Company. He made a great big pile of money from Duffy Electric Boats, and he bought an EV1 to support the idea of electric car technology.
The Duffy Boat story is a pretty interesting one for those who are skeptics about electric propulsion technology. Turns out the Duffy Electric Boat was a truly fabulous idea. You see, the speed limit in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach, California is 5 knots. You can run a launch-style boat, complete with polished teakwood and brass, at five knots for an entire day on a set of Trojan golf cart batteries. It turns out to be a wonderful, relaxing way to spend an afternoon.
And of course Newport Harbor, with boat dock homes starting at an economical US$3,500,000 and zooming rapidly up to $25 million plus, was the perfect place to launch a company selling these great little boats, starting at around $30,000 for the 18 foot model. This is pretty much a rounding error in the finances of the nice folks owning these homes, so the Duffy Boat was an immediate hit. Nowadays you can't throw a stone in Newport Harbor without hitting one or two.
So would a rich tinkerer like Mr Duffy not love to own an EV1? Of course. And I'm sure his engineers could figure out something for the batteries too. If he did, there were a lot of loyal EV1 owners who would buy them. If my memory serves, they were a pretty affluent audience.
It's quite possible that GM underestimated the wealth of its audience and their eagerness to keep the vehicles on the road. I don't think GM should have felt an obligation to support the owners past the lease period, but I think it would have been a nice gesture to sell them for $ 1 on an unsupported basis.
You know, this is a little funny. Two bloggers at Microsoft who apparently did a good job getting attention are moving on... to real blogging companies, who probably discovered them thanks to their work at the company we love to loathe.
Seems to me that congratulations are in order here. They got better jobs and that's, well, better. In the end, tweaking the corporate tail paid off.
About six months ago, when I decided I really needed to change my layouts to a more modern CSS design, I bought and read a book about CSS design.
It told me there were three choices:
* A table-only based layout; * A CSS+Table-based layout; and * Pure CSS
It also said that pure CSS was more complex and handling browser varations were more difficult. It looked to me that if I wanted a table with three columns, all of them with background colors filled to the bottom, I would have to create a fixed-size layout, knowing what the size of every element was at the start.
Since I wanted to create templates I could use for arbitrary-sized content, that obviously would not work.
So I selected a table-based layout where each cell was styled with CSS.
Since people are very slow to change browsers, I think the way i did it was probably best.
So tell me, what is wrong with this approach? It seems to work very well for me. What can massive numbers of DIVs and complex markup do that tables cannot?
Is a div really intrinsically better than a table? Seems to me they mean basically the same thing nowadays. They are used to show the relative positioning and style of formatting elements. In reality they have no semantic meaning whatsoever.
So how is it "better" to use div? It certainly doesn't bring any particular meaning to the table.
Personally, I wish CSS just let me define my own tags. I hate having to use
<div class = 'sidebar'>
I'd much rather use
<sidebar>sidebar content</sidebar>
where sidebar was defined exactly as you would define h1. That would be TRUE semantic markup! I think <div class =...> is just a crude hack.
I do web development professionally, but content is more my focus - making it easy to create, find and so on. I want to create an attractive format as simply as possible so that it's easy to edit and understand. Many of the complex CSS formats I've seen are anything but that.
Birthrates in Europe are way below replacement. I don't remember exact figures but they were very low. Europe's population has been aging rapidly.
I guess you could say declining welfare state is an opinion, but it's difficult to see how it could be different. Declining population means a smaller number of people to pay benefits to a large population of retirees, and therefore eventually lower benefits and the decline of a system simply unable to sustain itself.
Thanks to China's "one child" policy and the favoritism towards male children, China is about to become a horrible place to live, at least if you (like most Slashdotters) are a guy. There is about a 20% shortfall of women in the current Chinese generation. Another demographic disaster.
Japan is in a death spiral. There is a birth rate of 1.1 person per woman. For the population to stay the same, you'd have to have 2.1 people per woman. They have decided to develop robots to care for their elderly instead of importing nurses from other countries.
Actually, it's probably corruption in government that makes it impossible to employ people at "civilized' wages. Petty corruption ensures that only the brilliant or the well-connected can advance above sheer poverty. When you're big enough to be noticed, everyone puts their hand out. As a result most people try to stay just below that level.
A lot of people start really marginal small businesses, like a Jeepney route (that's a type of public transport that looks like a stretched version of a Jeep). Jeepney fares are regulated and cost about $ 0.19 per ride. Customer service in these businesses can really put American business to shame. I remember vividly when a customer was running to catch a Jeepney and the driver backed up right in the middle of the road to pick him up! That's a highly illegal move but it sure is great customer service, and all for an additional US$ 0.19, an amount most of us wouldn't bother picking up if it was sitting on the sidewalk in clear view.
And you may have the capitalists wrong, at least in one case. I have a friend who works for a bank that used to be owned by this nice fellow. This is the guy who runs the Robinsons Town Centre malls in the Philippines, which are the cleanest and best maintained shopping centres in the nation. He runs the best condo developments, and the best airline and the best... well, you get the idea.
Anyway, my friend told me her bank was sold by J G Summit to their partner (it had been a joint venture). When it was sold, the raises went away, the generous benefits went away, etc. She told me she would have made a lot more money if J G Summit had kept the bank. So she admitted that she missed J G Summit, an extremely wealthy organiation that had been genuinely good to her.
So don't think the big corporations always keep people down. Sometimes that's just plain wrong, even in the third world.
In the case of the Philippines, I'm afraid it's the government, from the local level on up.
Don't let me steer you wrong. The Philippines is a great country thanks to the warmth and hospitality of its people. It's just impossible to make a living there, that's all.
One problem is that we have to make huge compromises in who we vote for, since there are in the end only two alternatives.
The amount of influence the man on the street has over policy is basically microscopic.
On the other hand, before you write off our system as a failure, compare life in America over life in other countries. Surely most of us would rather live under our system of government than that of, say, Saudi Arabia or China. Even Europe has huge disadvantages over the American system, with its declining population, dying welfare states and high unemployment rates.
Some famous person, whose name I don't remember, said that Democracy is, of course, the worst system of government... except, of course for all the others!
Our system works and in fact has created unprecented prosperity. The poor here have it made compared to the poor in, say, the Philippines where you have to work 10 hour days, six days a week, to make about $ 5 a day, which pays for substandard housing and a couple of meals and that's it. No TV for these folks; in many cases, no electricticy either. And forget Internet, connections are $ 0.50 an hour, which doesn't seem like much until you remember the $5 a day part.
Now, culturally we've grown pretty harsh and pretty messy. I don't have any good answers on the steady decline of civility and decency. And by decency I don't mean lack of pornography; I mean basic friendliness towards my fellow man. I wouldn't mind it if women went topless or nude all the time but I'd rather have the sales clerks in stores not act like selling me stuff was an imposition on their valuable time.
I remember in the Philippines I would go into a convenience store and see the girl manning the cash register say "Welcome sir" and when they didn't have the Diet Coke I wanted, they would say "I'm sorry, sir" in a tone that made me feel they really meant it.
Our system, then, is greatly flawed, but so is the Philippines system with its dreadful poverty. It may be better to get a wife in the Philippines, but it's better to earn a living here in the US. And since we spend most of our lives trying to do that, that's probably the more important thing for most of us.
It's hard for me not to support public roads because identifying and billing the beneficiary of those services are complex, slow people down and at leat potentially invade their privacy. So I'm not a big fan of toll roads.
It's difficult for me to support public schools because so much money is wasted, given to unions and administrators instead of spent in the classroom. Certainly huge amounts of money have been poured into schools with pathetically little to show for it.
Since there is a social benefit in having every child go to school, I would support a voucher plan to allow people to go to private schools of their choice, with public involvement limited to the amount of the voucher. When such opportunities exist, private schools come up to serve them. I do not like public schools at all, since the quality of service seems to be almost uniformly bad, and costs are high.
In order to download the specification, you must read and agree to a license, which states, in part:
1. You may review these Materials only (a) as a reference to assist You in planning and designing Your product, service or technology ("Product") to interface with a Microsoft product, specification, service or technology ("Microsoft Product") as described in these Materials; and (b) to provide feedback on these Materials to Microsoft.
It would appear, then, that technically I am not allowed to write this message, and Microsoft could sue me for doing so. I don't think they will, and I believe that provision would not stand up in court, but nonetheless it is there. If you are trying to claim something is an "open" standard and then you shove a license agreement like that in front of me, then clearly there is something deeply wrong with your definition of "open".
I have downloaded the specification. It's a 350-odd page document which was also available in XPS. I read the XPS document, and each page of it is a file. Lines of the file look something like this:
<Glyphs Fill="#ff000000" FontUri="/Documents/1/Resources/Fonts/CA78F0B5- 3077-43A2-8AC0-53671B1EB57C.odttf" FontRenderingEmSize="10.6997" StyleSimulation s="None" OriginX="144" OriginY="123.84" Indices="70;72;81;87;72,59;85;86,53;17;3,34;36;3,34;86,53;87;85,41;82;78,60;72,59;3;90,83; 76,26;87;75;3;68,58;3,36;90;76;71,63;87,38;75,62;3,36;82,59;73,36;3;19;3,36;76;8 6,50;3,36;87;85;72;68;87;72,58;71,63;3;76;81,61;3,36;87;75,62;72;3,36;86;68;80,9 6;72,59;3,36;80,96;68;81,62;81;72;85;17;3,34" UnicodeString="centers. A stroke with a width of 0 is treated in
the same manner. "/>
This looks like it would be a royal pain to read and write, or to write software capable of reading or writing it. In fact, I seem to remember a simple PDF is quite a bit easier, but perhaps that's just because I didn't use any of the complex features it has.
Now on the surface it seems like you should be able to freely read and write these files, but having to download a license agreement for the specification didn't make me feel optimistic. This document, which is the license for people attempting to write readers or writers, doesn't seem any more helpful:
I am not sure what it means, if anything. It appears to imply that you can in fact write an XPS reader or writer program without paying them money, but only by agreeing to that license. But I am not sure about this since the verbiage is completely bizarre to me. I am truly not sure if I can or cannot write such a program.
I notice that it's unusual XML in that the parameters and text are all within the angle brackets. That means normal XML readers are going to have a hard time with it, which I suspect was the idea. This is not in the open standard spirit, is it?
I don't think DVI is a particularly good format since no mainstream program I'm aware of will read it. Installing TeX, at least last time I did it, was an hours-long ordeal that still leaves scars on my psyche. I think it's easier now since someone has come up with a kit specifically for MacOS X, but as I recall it's still 100mb +.
At the same time, this new XPS format, at this moment, has less support than even that, since only users of Windows Vista can read or write it.
You can't even defend Microsoft's decision to offer their introduction in XPS because if it covers Vista installation, by defintion the people who need it most won't be able to view the file!
I'd install the beta just for the heck of it, but I don't own any Windows computers that fit even the minimum hardware requirements.
I read the documentation for users, and it appears to be telling me exactly what PDF does, but presenting it as new. That doesn't seem exactly kosher. Upon reading this description, my impression is that this format is not very innovative and is simply the same thing as PDF.
And I'm not interested in viewing a video; too much of a waste of time.
So, since you appear to be Microsoft's official spokesman, what does this new format do that PDF can't? Why would I want to choose it over PDF?
I believe in minimal government, but I think there's still a place for government, just a small one.
I think the core of Libertarianism is few regulations, low taxes and low government spending. There are a few situations where government spending improves freedom. For instance, government roads that are free to use mean that people are free to go where they want, without tolls. Some form of law enforcement makes us safer.
But it would be much more efficient to see privately run bus and taxi networks to supply public transport than our existing grossly inefficient system. The Philippines has a system of public transport that's privately owned and typical fares are 9.5 pesos (US$0.19). Unionization and the government monopolies in the US force much higher fares here and that's a huge disservice to the poor people who represent almost all users of public transport. Here in Pittsburgh, the bus fare is in the $ 2.25-$3 range and that's bound to make travel very difficult and any car far cheaper.
But past that, government schools seem to be designed to indocrinate kids into our society in ways that are not always desirable. It may be reasonable for us to tax ourselves so that we can educate our kids, but it might not be so reasonable to have the government run schools. I believe very firmly in vouchers that would let public and private schools compete on an equal footing. I suspect that if that was done, numerous private schools would emerge and there would probably be little left of the public school network after a while. I believe this is a deserved outcome if you consider the quality of a public school education. We are spending a lot of money and getting miserable results; consider the overall level of literacy in our society.
In short, the important thing is freedom, not so much who provides what. If there is freedom, then government services will stand and fall on the merits. I would argue that some form of law enforcement, and some form of road infrastructure, are things government should provide. But I can at least talk to people who prefer otherwise.
The people I dislike politically are the people who say that government-run schools should be given unlimited funds, whether effective or not, with similar thoughts for other government services. On the whole, I think the person who pays directly for services like schooling is far better off than the one who's shoehorned into a one size fits all situation.
Is the mass transit system public? I thought it was privately run.
Of course the reason the public transport system is so great is that Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world where population density is sufficiently high to make it make sense. That's also why it can make a profit.
Since it is profitable, it doesn't really deviate much from the libertarian ideal. The libertarian ideal becomes betrayed when government runs a service nobody wants, just because it's politically expedient to do so. I don't think there's much of that in Hong Kong.
Libertarianism is not about not giving government workers benefits. Government workers can be generously compensated and we can still have a free society, as long as we keep the number of them down. It's about stripping down government to a minimum and having very limited government interference in human life. The British were keen on education, so they decided the minimum included education.
I'm a little surprised that health care was included, though. How's the overall cost and quality of care?
Slashdot Mirror
The subscription model is in tatters.
If you recall, it was around this time a couple of years ago that we started hearing about the subscription model and Software Assurance. This was supposed to make life easier for everyone by giving Microsoft a continuous stream of money and receiving from them a continuous stream of the latest and greatest. But Vista, which was promised within the contract period of software assurance, is still months away, and corporations have basically thrown away money for no upgrade. From what I've read, Software Assurance was a bit of a flop because people didn't like the idea of paying money and not necessarily receiving anything in return.
I've started to get a little curious about your other question. Who on earth is going to buy the upgrade when it's painfully expensive (looks like $200-300), and there are darn few computers for sale today that can run it?
if you visit Dell's web site (and if you do you're a major masochist, sadly - it's terrible), the cheapest notebook computer(*) that's "vista capable" is $969 after discounts. They are still selling $499 notebooks, which are obviously badly underspecified for Vista.
What happens when Vista is introduced? Is this the death of the $499 notebook?
Okay, notebooks are expensive. They are selling sub-$300 desktops. What's the cheapest desktop that can run Vista? If you take the 1GB ram requirement seriously, it's the high-end Dimension E310, at $748. They are clearly doing their best to cheap out this system; it includes a 15" flat panel monitor, a species that I thought was virtually obsolete. And yet it's still more than double what their cheapest system costs.
Now, I guess you can run "Vista Basic" on low-end systems, but Microsoft has given me the impression that this is the option for wimps and masochists (those that have not yet been suitably satisfied by Dell's web site).
I remember that when Windows95 came out, all systems available in the stores on introduction night(**) were more or less capable of running it, and had been for some time. this seems to be the first version of Windows that truly requires all-new hardware just to function at a minimal level.
So what's going on here? Does anyone know the reason they decided on a system with such ghastly requirements?
D
(*) If I were a REAL masochist, I would have gone to all the sites (home & home office, small and mid-sized business and large business, and priced every one of them. However, sadly I am not that mean to myself just to make a point on Slashdot. I stuck to Home & Home Office. You know, it's almost worth the extra $100 a Macbook costs to see a clear web page that shows you their only price and makes it dead simple to buy stuff.
(**) Ah, the days when we felt something like enthusiasm for Microsoft's products!
One of the things that resonated with me is that they mentioned all the junk software you have to clear out - all those "free" trial versions of about a billion programs, many of which have a serious ability to mess up your system. I checked out a new Dell PC recently and was amazed at how much of that stuff there is.
Apple's pretty free of that - I think the only trial is of Office, and it's easy to remove if you don't want it.
I think the strongest arguments, though, are anti-spyware. Of the typical computer users I know, none of them are capable of dealing with the problem. Realistically, getting an average computer user to let anti-spyware software run every night and do its job is a losing battle, and the experts are saying nowadays that you need more than one program running in order to be reasonably protected.
I tell all my average computer user friends to get Apple. It will pay off in the end in a lot less heartache.
D
Well, it's a way to connect with people. If you're satisfied with the people you have, then a social networking site probably looks pretty stupid. You wouldn't surf match.com if you weren't looking for a date, and you wouldn't be on myspace if you weren't looking for people to connect with.
... interesting ... pictures, but sadly their corporate backers decided that wasn't a brainy scheme and removed it. But it's still pretty much social networking for people who have passed the Myspace stage.
If you are, social networking sites can seem pretty neat since there are a lot of people there, some of who are interesting.
What's really appealing about myspace is that although most people wildly misuse their "space", it is a place where they can be creative and put out things that they like. Those things are not what most programmers think they should like, but the point is that they can be in control and there's plenty of help available to make their profile look as they want it to.
Human beings in general seem to be more interested in whether something looks "cool" than whether you can read it or not. And that's fine, because they are people and they are expressing themselves. And on myspace, it's relatively easy to find them, which is where I think social networking has a huge advantage over standalone blogs.
Someone who put hours and hours into breaking myspace has a pretty interesting perspective on it. Funny, too. I'm Popular.
I'm doing my own site, aimed at more mature people than myspace, but it's not ready yet. To show social networking with an adult flair, I consider my best competition to be Tribe. It used to have adult profiles and
D
I was a very loyal Thinkpad owner before I switched to Apple a few years back.
I still miss the TrackPoint which is, in my opinion, the most usable pointing device ever invented. And yes, I know many don't share my opinion, but it's also fair to say that many do.
Other than that, I'm a very happy PowerBook user. I'll probably switch to a Macbook Pro sometime this year; I'd like to see the next generation processor come out, and that appears to be imminent.
The PowerBook runs a little hot but I wouldn't make that stop you from switching. It's a fantastic laptop running a brilliant OS. I tried to get a ThinkPad running Linux to authenticate on my wireless network and I was shocked to see that it was still very difficult. Its owner finally gave up in disgust and used our neighbor's network, which was open.
D
I remember file versioning from ITS (MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System) that I used in the late 1970s. You would save a file as "XXX >" and it would save the latest version of XXX (i.e. XXX 1, XXX 2, etc). ITS had 8.3 file names (8 letter names, three letter extensions) and the version number was the extension.
That being said, I administrated a Windows network and never learned until today (see other replies to your message) that Windows had any kind of versioning at all. So from my somewhat Mac-centric viewpoint, the idea seemed to have been long dead until it was picked up in Leopard and Time Machine.
It's strange, though, that nobody ever told me about Vista's versioning system until I read today's replies to this message. Can someone fill me in? I've read a number of accounts of Vista, and none of them talk about versioning.
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I can think of three more reasons:
(1) Steve Jobs is an exciting character in the land of the bland. It's always fun to watch the master go through his paces. And you can see how much he really loves and is excited by what he's selling. In this cynical age, all of this is rare.
(2) Apple rarely disappoints. They always have interesting, fun products. The competition is drab and dull. Interesting and fun products trump drab and dull every time.
(3) Because journalists like products that are interesting and fun, a lot of them buy Apple products for themselves, so they are interested as customers too.
D
There have been studies done showing that the urban environment is actually worse on pollution than a suburb, thanks to traffic congestion for those who do run cars. And of course smoke belching busses, unless converted to natural gas or other fuels, are worth about 100 cars worth of pollution. Here in the Pittsburgh area, I never see busses full, either. There are usually less than 10 people on them, which means putting them into individually-owned cars would probably save on pollution.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I tried to get around using public transport for a while. It would take literally hours to get most places. I got a car and my ability to enjoy the city improved enormously, despite traffic congestion problems. I found, being single and not particularly inspired by my home, that it was nice to just wander around the part of the city I worked in until traffic died down. I would hunker down in the local Barnes & Noble or Borders and do some reading before going home.
Later on, I used the ultimate strategy: I moved so I was ten minutes away from my work. I almost never encountered traffic congestion of any kind since good "edge city" services were right near where I worked.
Public transport just takes you where the government wants you to. The car gives you freedom, and that's a great thing, no matter where you live.
D
In the Philippines, state of the art cellphones are status symbols. Your Nokia 6600 is something to brag about, sort of like what we would do if we got a new Mercedes or BMW here in the US.
So a close friend of mine had a Nokia 6600 and she told me "Something is wrong. I think Celly is sick."
I took a look at "Celly", my name for her cellphone. You see, in the Philippines the girls just love their cellphones, and if you want to be around a Filipina, you quickly get used to the fact that her cellphone is a member of the family, as she constantly texts and talks to people.
Fortunately, I was able to cure Celly by looking her malady up on the web. She was sending multimedia messages out blindly to all my friend's other friends, who of course were programmed in Celly. So people were complaining about the strange messages. Fortunately, most of them didn't have phones supporting the multimedia messaging system, so they were just puzzling, not damaging. The problem was solved thanks to F-Secure's removal tool, which - much to their credit - was free and removed the virus at no charge.
By the time my friend realized what was happening and asked me for help, she had already accumulated $300 in phone charges for the multimedia messages, a huge deal in a country where the average income for those lucky enough to have jobs is $4 a day.
So there's no question this is a real problem, and when it's not looked at right away it's going to be very painful. I don't think she was ever able to get those charges off her phone bill, and that's a huge amount of money for her.
So this is a real danger and I'm afraid F-Secure is right to warn people about it.
D
A few years ago I worked for a company that had to watch every penny. So of course they didn't want to buy me any kind of fancy chair. In fact, despite paying me big bucks, they gave me a chair that even the telemarketing staff had rejected. The back cushion was detached from its cardboard backing and flopped all over the place.
Well, after a year or so of that, I got severe pain in my hands from the poor typing position that ensued from such a crummy chair. I went to a doctor and he prescribed a truly bizarre wrist splint and an ergonomic chair.
My panicked boss, fearing potential lawsuits in the air, bought me an Aeron and a wrist rest for my keyboard. I tried the wrist splint but it was so weird feeling to use that I didn't use it more than a day or so.
Haven't had any wrist problems since, so having an Aeron or a similarly adjustable chair definitely helps a lot. I had bought an Aeron for home use before getting the one at my work. I now work at home so I'm either using the Aeron or relaxing outdoors with lawn chairs. For some reason relaxing outdoors, even with non-optimal chairs, seems to work wonders for my attitude. Curious but true.
I don't know about the kneeling chair. I tried one once but found it so uncomfortable and strange it wasn't of interest.
Hope that helps.
D
I think it's just a reflection of the fact that special effects studios, including Pixar, have huge investments in Linux render farms that they can't write off right away.
Certainly when a new Xserve comes out with the fastest Intel processors, I expect that to change and see more Apple gear in render farms.
D
I don't think they would be very useful in most rivers since currents often flow over their top speed. How do you deal with that problem in the sailboat world?
It's an interesting tiny niche, and there's so much money associated with it that it's quite profitable for the Duffy people. But I will admit it's a very tiny niche. Those who own these boats have docks with power. They come with the homes in Newport Harbor, so you can walk out of your living room, get on your fully charged boat and take off. This is great because it means the boats get used, unlike the boats in marinas where you have to drive a considerable distance to get to them. But of course it's a lifestyle that's not for everyone. A lot of people might aspire to it, but as I mentioned in a previous post it is expensive to the point of absurdity.
Curiously enough he created a Hybrid electric boat that got favorable reviews but I don't see it on his web site. His web site was recently redesigned in a pretty lousy Flash format; his previous site was really nice, well done and detailed. I don't know why he dropped it for what he has now.
Anyway, I suspect the hybrid electric boat's problem was that it was (if my memory serves) 30' long and $150,000. That's actually downright economical if you consider this(*), a boat which has a more powerful engine and fancier controls but is otherwise similar. You might note that despite the price that particular example is already sold, so there certainly seems to be a market for absurdly priced but relatively small boats.
D
(*) If you love great workmanship, check out the photos. It really is stunning, albiet pretty expensive for what it is.
I shouldn't have implied that it was a comparable engineering achievement to the EV1.
I just thought it was pretty cool.
And certainly he could afford to refit an EV1 with all that money he earned from it.
My real question is why destroy the cars? If someone wants to put $50k into an EV1 to keep it running, why not allow it?
D
While I have no doubt you are right about the batteries, I think there are at least a few owners who would have been happy to put the $50k into a new set.
I know this nice fellow who runs the Duffy Electric Boat Company. He made a great big pile of money from Duffy Electric Boats, and he bought an EV1 to support the idea of electric car technology.
The Duffy Boat story is a pretty interesting one for those who are skeptics about electric propulsion technology. Turns out the Duffy Electric Boat was a truly fabulous idea. You see, the speed limit in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach, California is 5 knots. You can run a launch-style boat, complete with polished teakwood and brass, at five knots for an entire day on a set of Trojan golf cart batteries. It turns out to be a wonderful, relaxing way to spend an afternoon.
And of course Newport Harbor, with boat dock homes starting at an economical US$3,500,000 and zooming rapidly up to $25 million plus, was the perfect place to launch a company selling these great little boats, starting at around $30,000 for the 18 foot model. This is pretty much a rounding error in the finances of the nice folks owning these homes, so the Duffy Boat was an immediate hit. Nowadays you can't throw a stone in Newport Harbor without hitting one or two.
So would a rich tinkerer like Mr Duffy not love to own an EV1? Of course. And I'm sure his engineers could figure out something for the batteries too. If he did, there were a lot of loyal EV1 owners who would buy them. If my memory serves, they were a pretty affluent audience.
It's quite possible that GM underestimated the wealth of its audience and their eagerness to keep the vehicles on the road. I don't think GM should have felt an obligation to support the owners past the lease period, but I think it would have been a nice gesture to sell them for $ 1 on an unsupported basis.
D
You know, this is a little funny. Two bloggers at Microsoft who apparently did a good job getting attention are moving on ... to real blogging companies, who probably discovered them thanks to their work at the company we love to loathe.
Seems to me that congratulations are in order here. They got better jobs and that's, well, better. In the end, tweaking the corporate tail paid off.
Good news, no?
D
About six months ago, when I decided I really needed to change my layouts to a more modern CSS design, I bought and read a book about CSS design.
...> is just a crude hack.
It told me there were three choices:
* A table-only based layout;
* A CSS+Table-based layout; and
* Pure CSS
It also said that pure CSS was more complex and handling browser varations were more difficult. It looked to me that if I wanted a table with three columns, all of them with background colors filled to the bottom, I would have to create a fixed-size layout, knowing what the size of every element was at the start.
Since I wanted to create templates I could use for arbitrary-sized content, that obviously would not work.
So I selected a table-based layout where each cell was styled with CSS.
Since people are very slow to change browsers, I think the way i did it was probably best.
So tell me, what is wrong with this approach? It seems to work very well for me. What can massive numbers of DIVs and complex markup do that tables cannot?
Is a div really intrinsically better than a table? Seems to me they mean basically the same thing nowadays. They are used to show the relative positioning and style of formatting elements. In reality they have no semantic meaning whatsoever.
So how is it "better" to use div? It certainly doesn't bring any particular meaning to the table.
Personally, I wish CSS just let me define my own tags. I hate having to use
<div class = 'sidebar'>
I'd much rather use
<sidebar>sidebar content</sidebar>
where sidebar was defined exactly as you would define h1. That would be TRUE semantic markup! I think <div class =
I do web development professionally, but content is more my focus - making it easy to create, find and so on. I want to create an attractive format as simply as possible so that it's easy to edit and understand. Many of the complex CSS formats I've seen are anything but that.
D
How are you measuring the carrying capacity of an area?
D
Birthrates in Europe are way below replacement. I don't remember exact figures but they were very low. Europe's population has been aging rapidly.
x ?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL3145021&imageid=&ca p=
I guess you could say declining welfare state is an opinion, but it's difficult to see how it could be different. Declining population means a smaller number of people to pay benefits to a large population of retirees, and therefore eventually lower benefits and the decline of a system simply unable to sustain itself.
Thanks to China's "one child" policy and the favoritism towards male children, China is about to become a horrible place to live, at least if you (like most Slashdotters) are a guy. There is about a 20% shortfall of women in the current Chinese generation. Another demographic disaster.
Japan is in a death spiral. There is a birth rate of 1.1 person per woman. For the population to stay the same, you'd have to have 2.1 people per woman. They have decided to develop robots to care for their elderly instead of importing nurses from other countries.
Here's the French unemployment rate, 9.3%.
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.asp
The US unemployment rate is about half that - under 5%.
The French unemployment rate for muslim immigrants is in the 25-30% range, which is much of the reason for the recent unrest.
These are all facts. Unpleasant facts, but facts nonetheless. And they fully support my adjectives.
D
Actually, it's probably corruption in government that makes it impossible to employ people at "civilized' wages. Petty corruption ensures that only the brilliant or the well-connected can advance above sheer poverty. When you're big enough to be noticed, everyone puts their hand out. As a result most people try to stay just below that level.
... well, you get the idea.
A lot of people start really marginal small businesses, like a Jeepney route (that's a type of public transport that looks like a stretched version of a Jeep). Jeepney fares are regulated and cost about $ 0.19 per ride. Customer service in these businesses can really put American business to shame. I remember vividly when a customer was running to catch a Jeepney and the driver backed up right in the middle of the road to pick him up! That's a highly illegal move but it sure is great customer service, and all for an additional US$ 0.19, an amount most of us wouldn't bother picking up if it was sitting on the sidewalk in clear view.
And you may have the capitalists wrong, at least in one case. I have a friend who works for a bank that used to be owned by this nice fellow. This is the guy who runs the Robinsons Town Centre malls in the Philippines, which are the cleanest and best maintained shopping centres in the nation. He runs the best condo developments, and the best airline and the best
Anyway, my friend told me her bank was sold by J G Summit to their partner (it had been a joint venture). When it was sold, the raises went away, the generous benefits went away, etc. She told me she would have made a lot more money if J G Summit had kept the bank. So she admitted that she missed J G Summit, an extremely wealthy organiation that had been genuinely good to her.
So don't think the big corporations always keep people down. Sometimes that's just plain wrong, even in the third world.
In the case of the Philippines, I'm afraid it's the government, from the local level on up.
Don't let me steer you wrong. The Philippines is a great country thanks to the warmth and hospitality of its people. It's just impossible to make a living there, that's all.
D
One problem is that we have to make huge compromises in who we vote for, since there are in the end only two alternatives.
... except, of course for all the others!
The amount of influence the man on the street has over policy is basically microscopic.
On the other hand, before you write off our system as a failure, compare life in America over life in other countries. Surely most of us would rather live under our system of government than that of, say, Saudi Arabia or China. Even Europe has huge disadvantages over the American system, with its declining population, dying welfare states and high unemployment rates.
Some famous person, whose name I don't remember, said that Democracy is, of course, the worst system of government
Our system works and in fact has created unprecented prosperity. The poor here have it made compared to the poor in, say, the Philippines where you have to work 10 hour days, six days a week, to make about $ 5 a day, which pays for substandard housing and a couple of meals and that's it. No TV for these folks; in many cases, no electricticy either. And forget Internet, connections are $ 0.50 an hour, which doesn't seem like much until you remember the $5 a day part.
Now, culturally we've grown pretty harsh and pretty messy. I don't have any good answers on the steady decline of civility and decency. And by decency I don't mean lack of pornography; I mean basic friendliness towards my fellow man. I wouldn't mind it if women went topless or nude all the time but I'd rather have the sales clerks in stores not act like selling me stuff was an imposition on their valuable time.
I remember in the Philippines I would go into a convenience store and see the girl manning the cash register say "Welcome sir" and when they didn't have the Diet Coke I wanted, they would say "I'm sorry, sir" in a tone that made me feel they really meant it.
Our system, then, is greatly flawed, but so is the Philippines system with its dreadful poverty. It may be better to get a wife in the Philippines, but it's better to earn a living here in the US. And since we spend most of our lives trying to do that, that's probably the more important thing for most of us.
D
It's hard for me not to support public roads because identifying and billing the beneficiary of those services are complex, slow people down and at leat potentially invade their privacy. So I'm not a big fan of toll roads.
It's difficult for me to support public schools because so much money is wasted, given to unions and administrators instead of spent in the classroom. Certainly huge amounts of money have been poured into schools with pathetically little to show for it.
Since there is a social benefit in having every child go to school, I would support a voucher plan to allow people to go to private schools of their choice, with public involvement limited to the amount of the voucher. When such opportunities exist, private schools come up to serve them. I do not like public schools at all, since the quality of service seems to be almost uniformly bad, and costs are high.
D
It would appear, then, that technically I am not allowed to write this message, and Microsoft could sue me for doing so. I don't think they will, and I believe that provision would not stand up in court, but nonetheless it is there. If you are trying to claim something is an "open" standard and then you shove a license agreement like that in front of me, then clearly there is something deeply wrong with your definition of "open".
I have downloaded the specification. It's a 350-odd page document which was also available in XPS. I read the XPS document, and each page of it is a file. Lines of the file look something like this:
<Glyphs Fill="#ff000000" FontUri="/Documents/1/Resources/Fonts/CA78F0B5-
3077-43A2-8AC0-53671B1EB57C.odttf" FontRenderingEmSize="10.6997" StyleSimulation
s="None" OriginX="144" OriginY="123.84" Indices="70;72;81;87;72,59;85;86,53;17;3
the same manner. "
This looks like it would be a royal pain to read and write, or to write software capable of reading or writing it. In fact, I seem to remember a simple PDF is quite a bit easier, but perhaps that's just because I didn't use any of the complex features it has.
Now on the surface it seems like you should be able to freely read and write these files, but having to download a license agreement for the specification didn't make me feel optimistic. This document, which is the license for people attempting to write readers or writers, doesn't seem any more helpful:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpspatentlic.ms
I am not sure what it means, if anything. It appears to imply that you can in fact write an XPS reader or writer program without paying them money, but only by agreeing to that license. But I am not sure about this since the verbiage is completely bizarre to me. I am truly not sure if I can or cannot write such a program.
I notice that it's unusual XML in that the parameters and text are all within the angle brackets. That means normal XML readers are going to have a hard time with it, which I suspect was the idea. This is not in the open standard spirit, is it?
D
I don't think DVI is a particularly good format since no mainstream program I'm aware of will read it. Installing TeX, at least last time I did it, was an hours-long ordeal that still leaves scars on my psyche. I think it's easier now since someone has come up with a kit specifically for MacOS X, but as I recall it's still 100mb +.
At the same time, this new XPS format, at this moment, has less support than even that, since only users of Windows Vista can read or write it.
You can't even defend Microsoft's decision to offer their introduction in XPS because if it covers Vista installation, by defintion the people who need it most won't be able to view the file!
I'd install the beta just for the heck of it, but I don't own any Windows computers that fit even the minimum hardware requirements.
D
I read the documentation for users, and it appears to be telling me exactly what PDF does, but presenting it as new. That doesn't seem exactly kosher. Upon reading this description, my impression is that this format is not very innovative and is simply the same thing as PDF.
And I'm not interested in viewing a video; too much of a waste of time.
So, since you appear to be Microsoft's official spokesman, what does this new format do that PDF can't? Why would I want to choose it over PDF?
D
I believe in minimal government, but I think there's still a place for government, just a small one.
I think the core of Libertarianism is few regulations, low taxes and low government spending. There are a few situations where government spending improves freedom. For instance, government roads that are free to use mean that people are free to go where they want, without tolls. Some form of law enforcement makes us safer.
But it would be much more efficient to see privately run bus and taxi networks to supply public transport than our existing grossly inefficient system. The Philippines has a system of public transport that's privately owned and typical fares are 9.5 pesos (US$0.19). Unionization and the government monopolies in the US force much higher fares here and that's a huge disservice to the poor people who represent almost all users of public transport. Here in Pittsburgh, the bus fare is in the $ 2.25-$3 range and that's bound to make travel very difficult and any car far cheaper.
But past that, government schools seem to be designed to indocrinate kids into our society in ways that are not always desirable. It may be reasonable for us to tax ourselves so that we can educate our kids, but it might not be so reasonable to have the government run schools. I believe very firmly in vouchers that would let public and private schools compete on an equal footing. I suspect that if that was done, numerous private schools would emerge and there would probably be little left of the public school network after a while. I believe this is a deserved outcome if you consider the quality of a public school education. We are spending a lot of money and getting miserable results; consider the overall level of literacy in our society.
In short, the important thing is freedom, not so much who provides what. If there is freedom, then government services will stand and fall on the merits. I would argue that some form of law enforcement, and some form of road infrastructure, are things government should provide. But I can at least talk to people who prefer otherwise.
The people I dislike politically are the people who say that government-run schools should be given unlimited funds, whether effective or not, with similar thoughts for other government services. On the whole, I think the person who pays directly for services like schooling is far better off than the one who's shoehorned into a one size fits all situation.
D
Is the mass transit system public? I thought it was privately run.
Of course the reason the public transport system is so great is that Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world where population density is sufficiently high to make it make sense. That's also why it can make a profit.
Since it is profitable, it doesn't really deviate much from the libertarian ideal. The libertarian ideal becomes betrayed when government runs a service nobody wants, just because it's politically expedient to do so. I don't think there's much of that in Hong Kong.
Libertarianism is not about not giving government workers benefits. Government workers can be generously compensated and we can still have a free society, as long as we keep the number of them down. It's about stripping down government to a minimum and having very limited government interference in human life. The British were keen on education, so they decided the minimum included education.
I'm a little surprised that health care was included, though. How's the overall cost and quality of care?
D