You apparently didn't grasp my question. Puzzling through a poorly written manual takes time away from revenue-generating activities. Tech support owes its employment in part to the fact that it is much faster to ask an expert, even to ask question that the expert may find stupid, than it is to consult a poorly written document. If time had no value, there would be no need for tech support. So again I ask, isn't this your job? Ahh.. we have one of the entitled. I'll bet you get put on hold a lot...
But as long as OOXML is not approved an open standard, it's not officially an open standard.
I read TFA, and I must say I'm surprised at MSs reaction. They seem to me to be genuinely terrified about this. Instead of making a plugin for ODF they go crying about how many jobs this would cost and what not. Amazing. Why do they do that? Perhaps because Office and to a lesser extent Windows, are the roots of the Microsoft empire. They pay for the Zune and the Xbox, and all the other pies that Microsoft have a finger in. If they support ODF, they can't control who gets to use it. Then the Microsoft Office lock in is gone. Once that happens, people can use alternative office suites, and it is one giant step towards Windows becoming irrelevant.
How can you tell whether music is from an artist represented by the RIAA? Try http://www.riaaradar.com/ They have a search engine with lists of albums and artists tagged with RIAA membership.
Not everyone has all the disk space in the world or a dedicated file server. Some people just own one machine, likely a laptop, with pretty limited disk space and their CDs are their backup. And just about every PC that is still in use has a USB port. If it doesn't, then it is quite likely not fast enough to encode anything anyway. A cheap disk caddy and a hard drive, and you have as much storage space as you could possibly want. Unless you intend to lug your entire music collection around with you, which kind of makes the media player argument academic.
Cowon's players support it. They also do FLAC. As do iRiver and iAudio. Many of the far eastern makers support Ogg. You may have to get them online instead of walking into your local consumer electronics store, but you have access to a much wider choice of models and brands. Not just current iPods and a few no name cheap models.
Almost every product has them. I think even the Zune has two. There was.... right up to the "incident"
The poor guy got two zunes and squirted himself to death.
Dont get excited. january 2008 is when MS will stop XP sales and preloads. Didn't they extend that a few months to keep the "element" that has yet to see the value inherent in vista happy? Something like a 5 month extension sa I remember. The big question is will they extend the extension...
The thing to remember is that IE is not a browser. Its a Microsoft product launcher. Thankfully, the products are not always as wonderful as they seem to think.
a) 'sudo apt-get' is a command line. Casual PC users aren't going to touch the command line. Not to mention you need to know what you're 'apt-get'ing in the first place So don't use the command line. There are usually one or two GUI tools with obscure titles like Add/Remove software hidden away in the first layer of the Applications menu. They also have a search function that reads through the descriptions and everything. So even if you don't know the name of the program you want, you surely know what you want to do, and can search on that.
It's a living hell here with us Linux weirdos. Downloading, installing and registering the application in a categorized menu, and then getting rid of the download files and setting it up for global updates with no user intervention except choosing it from a list with descriptions of all the software.. I agree. Its useless. Why would anybody prefer that over the joy that is Windows software installation?
Much better to hunt around for multiple easily damaged or lost install disks and serial numbers. Or going to various websites and hoping the one you download is the right one. Then wasting gigabytes of disk space or multiple DVDs to keep them so you don't have to download again. And then downloading or installing all the patches for the various programs, providing the company is still in business.
b) http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform=Linux - not quite as easy as Windows, eh? When you can do stuff like that in Linux, then you can claim it's easy to use for novices. Or.. Go to youtube or any other site that has a fair chance of having flash on the page and follow the instructions for installing the firefox plugin automatically.. Just like with Windows. We did want to make it nice and complicated, but those darn Mozilla people went and made it simple!!
So now we can claim its ready for novices then.. Great.. Party at Khuffie's!!
Oops.. hang on.. We still don't have all the latest games, Photoshop or Microsoft Office. So we obviously can't be using our Linux computers for anything useful or fun. Drat!! Back to the basement to sob into our noodles while we curse the software gods for not giving us over priced software to pirate.
The One Laptop Per Child program should be preloaded with call center software and a "bad English" tutor to prepare 3rd world chldren for their future. Don't be so hard on yourselves.. American English isn't that hard to understand.
I mean come on, if they said they had no security holes, nobody would believe them. If they released too many security holes, their stock would go down. So they have to find a happy medium. A third option is to stop releasing misleading press statements about security and other issues where Microsoft only ever comes out top when they have paid for the report.
Does this advance their reputation as a stable strong company, or make them look like they are on the defensive?
There's a tech store ladder now? Last time I checked they were all atrocious enough to lump in the same category of 'never listen to these people, they just want your money and have no clue what they're talking about'. Nobody said that the ladder was all that vertical..
I see this quite a lot... companies admitting their guilt, and then releasing "cleaned up" source code that complies with the license(s) in question. And without long drawn out court cases. In this case, unless proven otherwise, ASUS have not done anything terrible. They didn't release the code initially, but they did when asked. End of story. Its possible some over zealous person in the legal department decided that they might give away ASUS secrets, or it could be a simple oversight. Who knows. Linux working with more standard business models with the usual NDAs and complicated licenses for every little thing are new territory. Just as Dell had a few hiccups with sales people not knowing about the Linux computers, or not offering the extended service agreement. Both of which were solved once it got up high enough in the food chain.
It doesn't really benefit ASUS if someone can't use their chosen distro instead of the Xandros one the Eee comes with, and it doesn't even do anything for Xandros, as they have already been paid for the work they have done. Nobody gains from the source being kept secret, and everybody gains from it being opened.
The problem is that "cleaned-up" source code creates a different set of binaries, for which source code must also be released.
They need to release the SAME source code that was used to create the binaries which they've already released and distributed, not just "cleaned-up" code, which generates different binaries. Just checked the article again, and I couldn't find anything about them releasing cleaned up code, just that they opened up the missing archives with the code in question for the ASUS module and Busy box. Looks like ASUS have complied with the license and are doing nothing wrong.
actually XP is incapable of running true DX10 applications because DX10 removes directsound. Because of buggy graphics card drivers, Directsound was all too often a cause of crash bugs. Vista, rather than talking to sound hardware uses a software layer to interface with soundcards so software makers never actually get direct access (and are less likely to crash because of this). This is what you're supposed to use instead of directsound and XP doesn't offer anything like this. I may be totally wrong here, but wasn't the whole idea behind all the DirectX stuff to provide the game writers a way to access the hardware without going through Windows, and accessing the hardware on a much more direct level in the first place? Hence the "direct" part of DirectX
Ok, lets look at this, It's Christmas, I buy a gift, a game for a XBox PS3 or Wii, stick it in and it works. Cost of the game is the same as one for a computer. Dedicated hardware cost 250 to 500, roughly. I buy a gift, a computer game, will it work? If there is a possibility of upgrading what's the cost? Yes hard core gamer will foot the bill but the game systems now equal to or better than a PC would anyone else? Where's the future. Buy Vista for a game? What is really being said is buy a complete new system for a game. Does this make economic sense? Would you base a business on this? It's over, dedicated gaming systems have won. The Wii with 7 people in front of it ranging from 15 to 47 convinced me this weekend. Its not so simple. Right now, a PC game is perhaps less graphically rich than a current PS3 or Xbox360 game, but console games are different to PC games. They appeal to different sectors of the gaming market. And in a year or two, there will be games available for the PC that make consoles look dated. Its a symptom of the market. Technology moves on very quickly. Each time a new console is released, the PC gaming industry is pronounced dead.. again, but still comes back a few years later and keeps going. The markets overlap. Nothing more complicated than that.
Consoles are a frozen snapshot of technology the day they are released, while PCs tend to develop all the time. Last year a dual processor system was the height of the technology, next year it will be quad, and the software to take real advantage of these multi processor systems will appear very quickly, as there are more and more multi processor PCs on people's desks each week. Not much point flogging these processing powerhouses unless they can be used all at once, so a game or app that does more than just run on one single core will appear very soon if it is not already there. Graphics cards are constantly evolving, and there will be more graphics horsepower in a mid range PC card in three years time than any console on the market today. In a few years, the consoles will be relying on old tech, while the PC of the day will be running new tech that wasn't on the market when the console was released.
I can understand the problem of buying a new game for a PC. But those who are into PC gaming are going to know the spec of the computer they intend to run it on, and will choose to upgrade or not. I've done some upgrades to play a specific game before. Nothing as daft as paying for the top of the range video card, but upgrading my current card to a few generations higher every second year, or adding a bit more memory is within the reach of most gamers, and if you keep at a reasonable mid range, you can play most current games. Especially if you build your own computer. Only the idiots and posers buy the pretty botuique systems with all the state of the art gaming components. The smart ones buy last year's tech for way less and dial down the eye candy a bit.
It is I agree, more expensive than console gaming as far as hardware is concerned, but not that much more if you do it in sensible steps and don't go for the cutting edge stuff. And a PC can do way more than just play games, so while the upgrade might be influenced by the games someone wants to play, its not just games and nothing else. Just about everything benefits from a faster machine, so the other uses help justify the expense.
average users require fewer resources than even today's cheapest PCs have
If I had a dime for everytime someone complained about their lowend PC being "too slow!" and then finding out it only has 512MB of RAM, I'd.. well, I would've earned a couple of bucks anyway.. And how many of those were Linux users? I ran Fedora Core 5 and 6 on a cobbled together PC with 512 meg memory, a cheap 128 meg Nvidia card and an Athlon 2600 processor while I was making the move to Linux, and it was quite nippy enough. It was more pleasent to use thatn my then 300Mhz Athlon64 running XP Pro.
Selling a PC with less than a gig (or 2, if it comes with Vista preinstalled) is downright criminal. Agreed for Windows, not for Linux.
Sure, average moes won't stress the CPU or play high end video games, but visiting a few Jpop-video rich myspace pages, while skype'ing and IM'ing at the same time does kinda require RAM. True enough, although I have found that not so many low end users are really into having several programs running at once.
Similarly, I still haven't bougth any music via download, because i don't want to sort out this DRM mess. I'm hoping DRM on downloads vanishes so I can start spending money (and not accidentally end up with some DRM nonsense). I think many feel the same. Despite being the biggest, the iTunes site doesn't sell nearly as much as one would think with the convenience factor of buying a song and having it download to your home computer in seconds. If you put it up against the other ecommerce offerings like Amazon and all the other companies that sell over the net, they have been incredibly successful, while music downloads are crawling along under DRM shackles that put many consumers off the idea.
It would be nice to think that Microsoft put Asus up to selling a small low powered laptop with one of their pet Linux distros on it.. And deliberately breaking the license in the hope that the next Steve the Monkey Boy show could point and laugh at the Linux people being anti business. But I doubt it.
Thanks for the mental image though. I like the idea of the Microsoft upper management seeing the sales figures and the internet buzz over a trojan horse project that was never meant to succeed selling out and a new market that Microsoft can't really compete in being revealed.
A far more likely scenario is that Xandros delivered the distro customized for the Asus machine, and somewhere in the various legal departments, someone didn't bother following the terms of the license fully. I'll wait until Xandros and Asus respond before I start seeing malice where bureaucratic oversight is a good enough explanation. The product hasn't been out that long, so give them time to get the source properly organized and published before calling foul.
You just pointed out that it competes with itself. By nature, it is not a mono culture. I hope that Ubuntu does not overwhelm the other distros for this reason. Not quite. Linux is potentially more diverse, but if left as the only OS its still becomes a mono culture. Linux is more resistant to this state, but not immune. Distros may vary, but they all use the same kernel and the same bits in slightly different configurations.
I doubt Linux would be seriously damaged if all other OS companies just shriveled up and died. I wouldn't be so sure. It might take longer, as Linux isn't made by any one company, and it competes with it's self. But it would happen eventually. Any mono culture is bad. Linux only, Apple only, or Microsoft only. If there is nobody to compete against, the product suffers.
Mac OS X Leopard is faster than Tiger, which was faster than Jaguar.
Apple's a bloody impressive company nowadays:-).
D But didn't Apple do a major backward compatibility wrecking rewrite of their OS fairly recently? If MS did that, there would be no more monopoly. Apple users are pretty loyal to the OS of choice, Microsoft users just hope the old and important stuff still works.
I'd love to know just how much legacy code is in each new Windows.
Something must be wrong... I just copied 18GB in about 20 minutes. Microsoft addressed the slow copy in a patch. Don't worry. That will be fixed in the final release.
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I read TFA, and I must say I'm surprised at MSs reaction. They seem to me to be genuinely terrified about this. Instead of making a plugin for ODF they go crying about how many jobs this would cost and what not. Amazing. Why do they do that? Perhaps because Office and to a lesser extent Windows, are the roots of the Microsoft empire. They pay for the Zune and the Xbox, and all the other pies that Microsoft have a finger in. If they support ODF, they can't control who gets to use it. Then the Microsoft Office lock in is gone. Once that happens, people can use alternative office suites, and it is one giant step towards Windows becoming irrelevant.
The thing to remember is that IE is not a browser. Its a Microsoft product launcher. Thankfully, the products are not always as wonderful as they seem to think.
It's a living hell here with us Linux weirdos. Downloading, installing and registering the application in a categorized menu, and then getting rid of the download files and setting it up for global updates with no user intervention except choosing it from a list with descriptions of all the software.. I agree. Its useless. Why would anybody prefer that over the joy that is Windows software installation?
Much better to hunt around for multiple easily damaged or lost install disks and serial numbers. Or going to various websites and hoping the one you download is the right one. Then wasting gigabytes of disk space or multiple DVDs to keep them so you don't have to download again. And then downloading or installing all the patches for the various programs, providing the company is still in business. b) http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform=Linux - not quite as easy as Windows, eh? When you can do stuff like that in Linux, then you can claim it's easy to use for novices. Or.. Go to youtube or any other site that has a fair chance of having flash on the page and follow the instructions for installing the firefox plugin automatically.. Just like with Windows. We did want to make it nice and complicated, but those darn Mozilla people went and made it simple!!
So now we can claim its ready for novices then.. Great.. Party at Khuffie's!!
Oops.. hang on.. We still don't have all the latest games, Photoshop or Microsoft Office. So we obviously can't be using our Linux computers for anything useful or fun. Drat!! Back to the basement to sob into our noodles while we curse the software gods for not giving us over priced software to pirate.
Does this advance their reputation as a stable strong company, or make them look like they are on the defensive?
It doesn't really benefit ASUS if someone can't use their chosen distro instead of the Xandros one the Eee comes with, and it doesn't even do anything for Xandros, as they have already been paid for the work they have done. Nobody gains from the source being kept secret, and everybody gains from it being opened. The problem is that "cleaned-up" source code creates a different set of binaries, for which source code must also be released.
They need to release the SAME source code that was used to create the binaries which they've already released and distributed, not just "cleaned-up" code, which generates different binaries. Just checked the article again, and I couldn't find anything about them releasing cleaned up code, just that they opened up the missing archives with the code in question for the ASUS module and Busy box. Looks like ASUS have complied with the license and are doing nothing wrong.
Consoles are a frozen snapshot of technology the day they are released, while PCs tend to develop all the time. Last year a dual processor system was the height of the technology, next year it will be quad, and the software to take real advantage of these multi processor systems will appear very quickly, as there are more and more multi processor PCs on people's desks each week. Not much point flogging these processing powerhouses unless they can be used all at once, so a game or app that does more than just run on one single core will appear very soon if it is not already there. Graphics cards are constantly evolving, and there will be more graphics horsepower in a mid range PC card in three years time than any console on the market today. In a few years, the consoles will be relying on old tech, while the PC of the day will be running new tech that wasn't on the market when the console was released.
I can understand the problem of buying a new game for a PC. But those who are into PC gaming are going to know the spec of the computer they intend to run it on, and will choose to upgrade or not. I've done some upgrades to play a specific game before. Nothing as daft as paying for the top of the range video card, but upgrading my current card to a few generations higher every second year, or adding a bit more memory is within the reach of most gamers, and if you keep at a reasonable mid range, you can play most current games. Especially if you build your own computer. Only the idiots and posers buy the pretty botuique systems with all the state of the art gaming components. The smart ones buy last year's tech for way less and dial down the eye candy a bit.
It is I agree, more expensive than console gaming as far as hardware is concerned, but not that much more if you do it in sensible steps and don't go for the cutting edge stuff. And a PC can do way more than just play games, so while the upgrade might be influenced by the games someone wants to play, its not just games and nothing else. Just about everything benefits from a faster machine, so the other uses help justify the expense.
If I had a dime for everytime someone complained about their lowend PC being "too slow!" and then finding out it only has 512MB of RAM, I'd.. well, I would've earned a couple of bucks anyway.. And how many of those were Linux users? I ran Fedora Core 5 and 6 on a cobbled together PC with 512 meg memory, a cheap 128 meg Nvidia card and an Athlon 2600 processor while I was making the move to Linux, and it was quite nippy enough. It was more pleasent to use thatn my then 300Mhz Athlon64 running XP Pro. Selling a PC with less than a gig (or 2, if it comes with Vista preinstalled) is downright criminal. Agreed for Windows, not for Linux. Sure, average moes won't stress the CPU or play high end video games, but visiting a few Jpop-video rich myspace pages, while skype'ing and IM'ing at the same time does kinda require RAM. True enough, although I have found that not so many low end users are really into having several programs running at once.
It would be nice to think that Microsoft put Asus up to selling a small low powered laptop with one of their pet Linux distros on it.. And deliberately breaking the license in the hope that the next Steve the Monkey Boy show could point and laugh at the Linux people being anti business. But I doubt it.
Thanks for the mental image though. I like the idea of the Microsoft upper management seeing the sales figures and the internet buzz over a trojan horse project that was never meant to succeed selling out and a new market that Microsoft can't really compete in being revealed.
A far more likely scenario is that Xandros delivered the distro customized for the Asus machine, and somewhere in the various legal departments, someone didn't bother following the terms of the license fully. I'll wait until Xandros and Asus respond before I start seeing malice where bureaucratic oversight is a good enough explanation. The product hasn't been out that long, so give them time to get the source properly organized and published before calling foul.
Mac OS X Leopard is faster than Tiger, which was faster than Jaguar.
Apple's a bloody impressive company nowadays
D But didn't Apple do a major backward compatibility wrecking rewrite of their OS fairly recently? If MS did that, there would be no more monopoly. Apple users are pretty loyal to the OS of choice, Microsoft users just hope the old and important stuff still works.
I'd love to know just how much legacy code is in each new Windows.