Well, I have no problem with Windows way of file names. I can use different case letters if I want, but I do not have to type SomEProG.eXe into the console (on the semi-rare occasion that I need to use the command line) but can still see how the creator wanted to name that file.
The same with C/C++ programming languages. The variable and function names are case sensitive, but if one were to use them (var, Var, vAr...) it would lead to more confusion than (var1, var2, var3...), it would also lead to bugs if you mistype the case. So, it only accomplishes that I use only lower case for variable and function names and wish that the internal function names would be lower case too. With Pascal/Delphi there is no case sensitivity for names.
It's my hope that ReactOS will be fully functional eventually. Until then i use then next best compatible thing.
As for open source - it's good as long as the binary is provided. I can program, but only very simple programs, so the source is usually useless to me. If only the source code is provided, then I have to download compilers, libraries and so on just for that single use of compiling the application.
As for Linux - great for simple uses (we use it where I work, the main usage is OpenOffice and Firefox), not so great for advanced ones. I don't even know how to install a driver to Linux (if it is not provided in.sh file) not that I have seen one supplied with a device that is not a video card. There are lots of incompatible Linux distributions, while an application written for Windows XP usually works on 2000 and Vista (having some probability to work on NT4 and 9X), with Linux you have to have all those different versions of all libs which may be incompatible with one another.
Also, what is with that file name case sensitivity? Does anybody name different files just using different case? "file File fIle FIle..."
Anyway, my opinion about Linux is biased, because I usually use Windows, but configuring Linux is no less confusing than Windows is.
Because XP will stop being supported with the release of Windows 7
I don't throw something out only because it is out of production or its warranty is expired. I at least wait until it is broken beyond repair.
Then all the internal unfixed bug sheets of XP will be reported and published in China, Russia, and wherever Conficker came from.
This is more scary, but unless those bugs include something that would allow remote code execution even if I have a firewall, then I don't really care. Also, someone may release a patch (like it happened with the WMF vulnerability).
Then Microsoft will stop pushing all new copies of XP and accidentally invalidate all "genuine" XP keys.
Without updates there is no point in having "genuine" Windows, and the notifications are easy to crack (for now the whole validation can be cracked unless M$ adds if OS='XP' then valid:=false; to their code).
I have the original (not pirated) MS DOS v5 install floppies that are fully readable, so yeah, I'd say that a 5.25" floppy holds its data pretty well (3.5" floppies not so well, but I have a floppy that was written in 1997 and is still readable).
Your machine probably costs more than some of mine ones combined, which I either got for free or cheap or reused my old "main PC" when I built a new one. Two exceptions being my main PC (which has 2x dual core CPUs and 3.25GB RAM) and my file server (which has 8HDDs with total capacity of ~2TB).
And that's the point for me. If I can use a 233MHz PC for a certain task that has to run all the time, I will.
And VMware ESX Server could not find a hard drive on my Siemens Primergy N400 server, despite there being 3 SCSI and one IDE drives. Then I found out that if I use VMware I cannot get TCP segmentation offload that my network card has, so the network would be slower.
I used BitTornado before I started to use uTorrent (a few years ago). I was OK, as long as I was on dialup and downloaded/seeded one torrent at a time. When I got a better connection I wanted to download/seed more than one torrent at a time and the lack of global UL limit made that very difficult with BitTornado.
I later used it on a PC with Linux (since uT does not have a Linux version, and I did not want to use Wine - feels unstable and I wanted to leave that PC alone for months). That PC had a ver good conection, but I encountered the same problems - lack of global speed setting and 2 desktops covered with BT windows.
I agree. That's why if I need a computer for some job, I use the fastest program available for that job, so that I could use an old PC which I may happen to have, or buy a used PC cheaper than a new PC.
Downloading torrents with uTorrent at up to 100mbps/100mbps (may eventually get that connection) and being able to transfer downloaded files from that PC to other PCs: 2x Xeon 700MHz, 1GB RAM, Win2003. Oh, that PC also has VMware server installed so that I can experiment with some programs that I may eventually transfer to a dedicated PC. (actually I also wanted to use that PC as a router, didn't work, VMware+RRAS=problems)
Gathering stats on upload/download and free disk space with cacti: Cyrix MediaGX 233MHz, 128MB RAM, WinNT4.
So yeah, I do not want to use a quad core PC just to download torrents at 4mbps.
You are accused of murder. this is your strike #1. I do not need any evidence.
If you get accused of murder two more times, you WILL be sentenced to death (or will spend the rest of your life in prison if your local laws do not allow executions). You DO NOT have the right to a trial. You DO NOT have the right to a lawyer. You DO NOT have a right to an appeal.
(I'm now calling two of my friends, you will be in prison in no time)
Well, do you know a lot of apps that need to use more than 2-3GB of RAM? Ok, AutoCAD, Photoshop, video editing software, but these are specialty apps, if someone needs them they will have the 64bit computer and lots of RAM.
Internet browser and word processor shouldn't need that much RAM, so they are fine on a 32bit system. And 32bits means less transistors and less power used in a netbook.
Kind of. Find any rootkit virus that works on Win9x or 3.11:) All others, while still being harmful, can be easily detected and removed nowadays. Rootkits, though, still are a problem that can make one format the hard drive.
Upgrade or use dual OS. W7 for games, XP for everything else. I believe that MS refusing to port DX10 to XP caused such slow adoption of it. Usually, when a new DX version comes out all new games use it and get better graphics etc. With DX10 game companies had two choices: make games that use the full potential of DX10, but can be played by minority of gamers or use DX9 and get slightly lower graphics or a bit lower speed but sell more copies. They add optional DX10 support later with a minor increase in graphics (more realistic clouds or grass for example).
Also, there seems to be less and less improvement. I think that games are approaching the end of graphics increase, because when you see a game like Crysis, it's hard to make much better graphics. So at some point graphics will stop being the selling point of games and some other qualities will take over, maybe good gameplay and storyline...
Nice, I have a PC with 2GHz Celeron CPU and 256MB of RAM, XP runs kinda slow especially after I installed Avira. Can't wait for Windows 7 to come out - it will be faster than XP. (Will it be faster than 2000? NT4? Will it run OK on a 233MHz/64MB PC?)
Security bugs don't always matter. If the system is not connected to the internet and is not used to open files received from other computers then no virus will be able to get to it. Also, virus creators go with the OS and probably the majority of recent viruses wouldn't work on Windows 95 or NT4 not to mention 3.11.
So, get a PC with Intel Atom CPU and an integrated VGA. This, of course, applies only if you do not have a lot of PCI or ISA cards that you need to use. If need to use an ISA card, then your choices are limited.
I don't know about flash vs hdd reliability, but those USB flash drives go bad all the time (not for me though - I don't use one:))
I actually thought about this - I can get an ATX power supply which works from 12V, then add the battery and a charger (big 50Hz transformer + rectifier) that is powerful enough to run the PC and charge the battery. I only saw a 12V ATX PSU up to about 150W though. Could still be used to run a PC with Atom CPU (also, mini ITX boards are small, so I could have a lot of free space for a big battery in a standard case). I will probably do this if I ever have a faster connection (and need a faster router).
Well, you assume that all information about the format is lost, while I assumed that the detailed specifications are lost, but general knowledge remains (or they find a printout of a relevant wikipedia article with the media).
Why would a future generation want to read about me?
Well, current historians want to read about people who lived a long time ago, and not only about the kings but also about ordinary people. So maybe future historians will want to read about you.
It's easy* to play a cylinder or a disc record if you do not really care abut Hi-End quality. You just need some way of spinning the record and a needle.
Reading audio off a tape is more difficult* - you need to construct a magnetic head, know the width of the track, make the amplifier and the tape transport. But it could be done.
Now try to contruct a VCR - difficult*. Not only are the heads so small, you have to align them almost perfectly, transport the tape at a constant speed, and be able to decode the video.
Constructing a CD/DVD/BD player is almost impossible*. Tight tolerances, the need to decode the data make it so. While MO disks last for a long time, there will be a problem of finding a working device after 40 years, even if the data is still in the disk.
* This assumes that the original specifications for the format are lost, and you try to build it using general knowledge of how it should work, but have no access to the blueprints.
As for recording data so that it lasts a long time - write it to a vinyl or shellac disk. I have a shellac record that is almost 100 years old and it can still be played. Old vinyl records can be played as well. Yes, records wear out after some number of plays, but you are archiving the data, that is putting it somewhere safe and not accessing it often (if you are accessing it often then you will have no problem of transferring it so some new medium before the old one rots or becomes obsolete and do not need to write it to vinyl).
...they would be widowed and deprived of their income,...
Which still happens to spouses and children of people who do not produce IP (like plumbers, drivers, builders, managers). He's dead -> does not work anymore -> does not get paid.
So why are families of IP producers different? The person died, he no longer works and no longer gets paid. If he had some brains, he put some of the money he earned in a bank or invested it, so he has something to leave for his family. Just like every other person.
Personally, I'd go for 'copyright last x years after first publication, rights sold to coporations revert to the author if the work is not commercially exploited, rights reverted to the author expire quickly if the work is still not commercially exploited', and I'd say x should be around 30 to 50 ish.
I'd agree with that. If the company or author stops selling their product and the author does not want to sell it either or is dead, then the copyright should expire.
Yes, I saw that post, but just wanted to clarify that I indeed have a NUMA PC (and not all dual opteron motherboards have memory slots for CPU2, mine does).
I also have a dual Xeon 700MHz PC, and it is SMP. What I have noticed though is that if I run a single threaded program on the PC with opterons, task manager shows one core at 100% and others at ~0%. If I run that program on the Xeon PC, task manager shows both CPUs at 50%. So I guess this is one way of finding out if you have SMP or NUMA.
No, not really. Single core CPU is the same for all programs, so if you have a 5GHz CPU, it will generally be 5 times faster than a 1GHz* CPU for any application - be it games, video encoding or something else.
Now, my computer has two sockets, both of which have a dual core CPU, so in total I have 4 cores 2GHz each. My PC would be quite fast if the program was NUMA-aware and had 4 threads. In that case, my computer would probably outperform a 1x8GHz CPU with the same RAM technology. However, as soon as I start playing a game that does not support multithreading, my computer becomes just 2GHz and memory with higher latency than a one single core CPU would have.
There are tasks that you can't break up into multiple cores (for example the calculation of 2*2+2 can't be broken up because you have to know the answer of the multiplication before you can add anything to it, though 2*2+4*4 could be broken up).
Also, PCs were pretty responsive with a 100MHz CPU not so long ago, now we need 2x2GHz (40x more) to do the same tasks (word processing etc)?
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Well, I have no problem with Windows way of file names. I can use different case letters if I want, but I do not have to type SomEProG.eXe into the console (on the semi-rare occasion that I need to use the command line) but can still see how the creator wanted to name that file.
The same with C/C++ programming languages. The variable and function names are case sensitive, but if one were to use them (var, Var, vAr...) it would lead to more confusion than (var1, var2, var3...), it would also lead to bugs if you mistype the case. So, it only accomplishes that I use only lower case for variable and function names and wish that the internal function names would be lower case too. With Pascal/Delphi there is no case sensitivity for names.
It's my hope that ReactOS will be fully functional eventually. Until then i use then next best compatible thing.
As for open source - it's good as long as the binary is provided. I can program, but only very simple programs, so the source is usually useless to me. If only the source code is provided, then I have to download compilers, libraries and so on just for that single use of compiling the application.
As for Linux - great for simple uses (we use it where I work, the main usage is OpenOffice and Firefox), not so great for advanced ones. I don't even know how to install a driver to Linux (if it is not provided in .sh file) not that I have seen one supplied with a device that is not a video card. There are lots of incompatible Linux distributions, while an application written for Windows XP usually works on 2000 and Vista (having some probability to work on NT4 and 9X), with Linux you have to have all those different versions of all libs which may be incompatible with one another.
Also, what is with that file name case sensitivity? Does anybody name different files just using different case? "file File fIle FIle..."
Anyway, my opinion about Linux is biased, because I usually use Windows, but configuring Linux is no less confusing than Windows is.
Because XP will stop being supported with the release of Windows 7
I don't throw something out only because it is out of production or its warranty is expired. I at least wait until it is broken beyond repair.
Then all the internal unfixed bug sheets of XP will be reported and published in China, Russia, and wherever Conficker came from.
This is more scary, but unless those bugs include something that would allow remote code execution even if I have a firewall, then I don't really care. Also, someone may release a patch (like it happened with the WMF vulnerability).
Then Microsoft will stop pushing all new copies of XP and accidentally invalidate all "genuine" XP keys.
Without updates there is no point in having "genuine" Windows, and the notifications are easy to crack (for now the whole validation can be cracked unless M$ adds if OS='XP' then valid:=false; to their code).
I have the original (not pirated) MS DOS v5 install floppies that are fully readable, so yeah, I'd say that a 5.25" floppy holds its data pretty well (3.5" floppies not so well, but I have a floppy that was written in 1997 and is still readable).
Your machine probably costs more than some of mine ones combined, which I either got for free or cheap or reused my old "main PC" when I built a new one. Two exceptions being my main PC (which has 2x dual core CPUs and 3.25GB RAM) and my file server (which has 8HDDs with total capacity of ~2TB).
And that's the point for me. If I can use a 233MHz PC for a certain task that has to run all the time, I will.
And VMware ESX Server could not find a hard drive on my Siemens Primergy N400 server, despite there being 3 SCSI and one IDE drives. Then I found out that if I use VMware I cannot get TCP segmentation offload that my network card has, so the network would be slower.
I used BitTornado before I started to use uTorrent (a few years ago). I was OK, as long as I was on dialup and downloaded/seeded one torrent at a time. When I got a better connection I wanted to download/seed more than one torrent at a time and the lack of global UL limit made that very difficult with BitTornado.
I later used it on a PC with Linux (since uT does not have a Linux version, and I did not want to use Wine - feels unstable and I wanted to leave that PC alone for months). That PC had a ver good conection, but I encountered the same problems - lack of global speed setting and 2 desktops covered with BT windows.
I agree. That's why if I need a computer for some job, I use the fastest program available for that job, so that I could use an old PC which I may happen to have, or buy a used PC cheaper than a new PC.
Downloading torrents with uTorrent at up to 100mbps/100mbps (may eventually get that connection) and being able to transfer downloaded files from that PC to other PCs: 2x Xeon 700MHz, 1GB RAM, Win2003.
Oh, that PC also has VMware server installed so that I can experiment with some programs that I may eventually transfer to a dedicated PC.
(actually I also wanted to use that PC as a router, didn't work, VMware+RRAS=problems)
Gathering stats on upload/download and free disk space with cacti: Cyrix MediaGX 233MHz, 128MB RAM, WinNT4.
So yeah, I do not want to use a quad core PC just to download torrents at 4mbps.
You are accused of murder. this is your strike #1. I do not need any evidence.
If you get accused of murder two more times, you WILL be sentenced to death (or will spend the rest of your life in prison if your local laws do not allow executions). You DO NOT have the right to a trial. You DO NOT have the right to a lawyer. You DO NOT have a right to an appeal.
(I'm now calling two of my friends, you will be in prison in no time)
Or, you know, you could keep the printer and buy ink refills or refilled cartridges and not the overpriced ones from HP...
Well, do you know a lot of apps that need to use more than 2-3GB of RAM? Ok, AutoCAD, Photoshop, video editing software, but these are specialty apps, if someone needs them they will have the 64bit computer and lots of RAM.
Internet browser and word processor shouldn't need that much RAM, so they are fine on a 32bit system. And 32bits means less transistors and less power used in a netbook.
Kind of. Find any rootkit virus that works on Win9x or 3.11 :) All others, while still being harmful, can be easily detected and removed nowadays. Rootkits, though, still are a problem that can make one format the hard drive.
Upgrade or use dual OS. W7 for games, XP for everything else. I believe that MS refusing to port DX10 to XP caused such slow adoption of it. Usually, when a new DX version comes out all new games use it and get better graphics etc. With DX10 game companies had two choices: make games that use the full potential of DX10, but can be played by minority of gamers or use DX9 and get slightly lower graphics or a bit lower speed but sell more copies. They add optional DX10 support later with a minor increase in graphics (more realistic clouds or grass for example).
Also, there seems to be less and less improvement. I think that games are approaching the end of graphics increase, because when you see a game like Crysis, it's hard to make much better graphics. So at some point graphics will stop being the selling point of games and some other qualities will take over, maybe good gameplay and storyline...
Even faster than Windows XP
Nice, I have a PC with 2GHz Celeron CPU and 256MB of RAM, XP runs kinda slow especially after I installed Avira. Can't wait for Windows 7 to come out - it will be faster than XP.
(Will it be faster than 2000? NT4? Will it run OK on a 233MHz/64MB PC?)
Last time I checked VMware Server was free too.
Security bugs don't always matter. If the system is not connected to the internet and is not used to open files received from other computers then no virus will be able to get to it. Also, virus creators go with the OS and probably the majority of recent viruses wouldn't work on Windows 95 or NT4 not to mention 3.11.
So, get a PC with Intel Atom CPU and an integrated VGA. This, of course, applies only if you do not have a lot of PCI or ISA cards that you need to use. If need to use an ISA card, then your choices are limited.
I don't know about flash vs hdd reliability, but those USB flash drives go bad all the time (not for me though - I don't use one :))
I actually thought about this - I can get an ATX power supply which works from 12V, then add the battery and a charger (big 50Hz transformer + rectifier) that is powerful enough to run the PC and charge the battery. I only saw a 12V ATX PSU up to about 150W though. Could still be used to run a PC with Atom CPU (also, mini ITX boards are small, so I could have a lot of free space for a big battery in a standard case). I will probably do this if I ever have a faster connection (and need a faster router).
Well, you assume that all information about the format is lost, while I assumed that the detailed specifications are lost, but general knowledge remains (or they find a printout of a relevant wikipedia article with the media).
Well, the data from ThePirateBay will be useful, since it does not contain DRM.
Why would a future generation want to read about me?
Well, current historians want to read about people who lived a long time ago, and not only about the kings but also about ordinary people. So maybe future historians will want to read about you.
It's easy* to play a cylinder or a disc record if you do not really care abut Hi-End quality. You just need some way of spinning the record and a needle.
Reading audio off a tape is more difficult* - you need to construct a magnetic head, know the width of the track, make the amplifier and the tape transport. But it could be done.
Now try to contruct a VCR - difficult*. Not only are the heads so small, you have to align them almost perfectly, transport the tape at a constant speed, and be able to decode the video.
Constructing a CD/DVD/BD player is almost impossible*. Tight tolerances, the need to decode the data make it so. While MO disks last for a long time, there will be a problem of finding a working device after 40 years, even if the data is still in the disk.
* This assumes that the original specifications for the format are lost, and you try to build it using general knowledge of how it should work, but have no access to the blueprints.
As for recording data so that it lasts a long time - write it to a vinyl or shellac disk. I have a shellac record that is almost 100 years old and it can still be played. Old vinyl records can be played as well. Yes, records wear out after some number of plays, but you are archiving the data, that is putting it somewhere safe and not accessing it often (if you are accessing it often then you will have no problem of transferring it so some new medium before the old one rots or becomes obsolete and do not need to write it to vinyl).
...they would be widowed and deprived of their income,...
Which still happens to spouses and children of people who do not produce IP (like plumbers, drivers, builders, managers). He's dead -> does not work anymore -> does not get paid.
So why are families of IP producers different? The person died, he no longer works and no longer gets paid. If he had some brains, he put some of the money he earned in a bank or invested it, so he has something to leave for his family. Just like every other person.
Personally, I'd go for 'copyright last x years after first publication, rights sold to coporations revert to the author if the work is not commercially exploited, rights reverted to the author expire quickly if the work is still not commercially exploited', and I'd say x should be around 30 to 50 ish.
I'd agree with that. If the company or author stops selling their product and the author does not want to sell it either or is dead, then the copyright should expire.
Yes, I saw that post, but just wanted to clarify that I indeed have a NUMA PC (and not all dual opteron motherboards have memory slots for CPU2, mine does).
I also have a dual Xeon 700MHz PC, and it is SMP. What I have noticed though is that if I run a single threaded program on the PC with opterons, task manager shows one core at 100% and others at ~0%. If I run that program on the Xeon PC, task manager shows both CPUs at 50%. So I guess this is one way of finding out if you have SMP or NUMA.
No, my PC has two Opterons 270 and each of them has its own memory.
No, not really. Single core CPU is the same for all programs, so if you have a 5GHz CPU, it will generally be 5 times faster than a 1GHz* CPU for any application - be it games, video encoding or something else.
Now, my computer has two sockets, both of which have a dual core CPU, so in total I have 4 cores 2GHz each. My PC would be quite fast if the program was NUMA-aware and had 4 threads. In that case, my computer would probably outperform a 1x8GHz CPU with the same RAM technology. However, as soon as I start playing a game that does not support multithreading, my computer becomes just 2GHz and memory with higher latency than a one single core CPU would have.
There are tasks that you can't break up into multiple cores (for example the calculation of 2*2+2 can't be broken up because you have to know the answer of the multiplication before you can add anything to it, though 2*2+4*4 could be broken up).
Also, PCs were pretty responsive with a 100MHz CPU not so long ago, now we need 2x2GHz (40x more) to do the same tasks (word processing etc)?