Think of the poor airline pilots, who have 100's of lives on board, restricted lanes to travel in, air traffic control to help guide them....now having to watch out for lunatics in personal flying cars swooping across the front of their cockpits. It'd be an interesting new approach for a terrorist attack.
I'm guessing most of the planet would be curious to know just how this jackass managed to cause so much suffering to so many. It'd be a service to world peace (yeah I know, bare with me) to prevent history repeating itself. Perhaps the answer lies in the brain. I'm sure there'd be plenty of concerned citizens around the globe who'd happily speed up the donation if they got the chance. Perhaps letting Dubya retire to Baghdad to revel in his successful war to restore democracy to Iraq would work, he'd need to pay for his own security of course, the deficit he's left behind can't stretch to excesses like protecting him from his own mistakes.
Dubya has to be a fascinating study, how an imbecile managed to do so much damage. Logic and common sense has no answers to this. Maybe a vaccine can be discovered and fed into the air supplies of government buildings the world over.
I'm guessing uni means "one" in this case, so it's an all enclosed "one body". Apple do like to invent things that have already been invented so who knows.
It could be cop slang for another student bankrupted by university fees and the promise of high earnings, waking up to the fact that their degree is worthless, and the jobs market has evaporated having passed the suicide exam.
You're assuming everyone knows how to do this, remember the largest percentage of PC "users" struggle to cope when their "settings" menu changes to "preferences" in an update. In too many cases calling them "users" is a compliment.
And require all buyers to sign a EULA that they have to return it to base to be refilled with fuel.....for a nominal service charge of course. Hmmmm, names, lemmiesee......iCar maybe??
When you have more money than sense do you care that your car is going through fuel a jumbo jet would be proud of? When you suddenly have a lot less money that gas guzzler is now a source of your problems. You still need the transport, so you need to get much more bang for your buck.
In that example you'd be unlikely to be able to do much to that car, but companies will have to innovate to put more economic cars on the courts to tempt you to buy.....well, unless you're Ford in the US, in that case you stick your head in the sand, ignore all the signs and keep pumping out gas guzzlers that nobody wants.....then take your private jet into Washington for a government hand out. When fuel was cheap Ford had no reason to innovate, they could continue with the same old, same old. When it becomes an issue, Ford are caught with their pants down and are miles behind the competition and a mountain to climb.....which costs money.....money tied up in cars on forecourts that nobody wants to buy.
When you can't afford to buy new stuff that the advertisers claim you need, you have to make do with what you have, get more out of it. In many cases you find that new feature of that new product, whodathunkit? You don't need it anyway. Your secretary does not need a quad-core super computer to type up some letters and do some email, despite what Microsoft would like you to believe. The longer money is tight, this plays increasingly into OSS hands. Microsoft won't be going away anytime soon but it will make life much more difficult for them.
Look back a couple of generations (depending on your age) at those people living in the first half of the 20th Century. Between 2 world wars and a depression. Absolutely NO disposable income at all. NO money for anything not absolutely essential to living. Women especially were great at making the household budget stretch further than it had any rights to. They didn't do this buy doing the same things as before, they innovated, and passed ideas to each other. These are the people who mostly would save up to buy things in cash, they'd save in banks and see credit as a last resort.
Innovation will continue despite the credit crunch, but investment in it as a means to make money will be much harder to come by. People who see it as an earner will be more conservative. People who want to create something better for their own (or society in general) use will continue to do so although they may be more limited in their contributions due to not having as much spare time etc.
This can be the mindset when you're working to the clock, watching for 5pm to tick past, doing make work to look busy. You have no love for the project, if there are bugs, so what? Just as long as the consequences (if any) can be aimed at someone else. The bottom line is that you continue to get your pay cheque, not the quality of the project.
OSS by comparison is largely done by volunteers with a love for the project, who actually take pride in their work and the work of others. If you're giving your own free time to do something you're not clock watching doing make work.
A photo showing badly carried out maintenance could cause them a lot of money to first silence the bad PR, smear the whistle blower to discredit them, then to cut corners in "fixing" what had been exposed. Much cheaper to stop the photo before it can possibly get into the public domain....ahem....I mean "terrorists could use this info, are you a terrorist sonny? If not, you will do your patriotic duty and delete these images!!!! NOW!!!!"
If they started MySpace or FaceBook groups called "I'm a sex offender, get me out of here" as an amnesty of sorts. Who knows, you could do a webcam stream on ustream of the contestants eating bugs in a prison cell with an online poll of whether they should be rewarded with a kick in the spuds, or the star prize....castration by snake bite.
Officials seem to be overlooking one issue with more and more laws demanding gathering of more and more data. The more you have, the harder it gets to find the important stuff, and filter it out from the mass of completely innocent stuff. In theory it must be a great response barked out like a trained dog to any problem "how do we address issue...... ?" "sir, gather more data sir!!!".
It's gonna be even more useless the more proprietary formats and platforms are used in gathering it. The success of Microsoft's army of lobbyists (among others) who peddle constantly changing closed source formats will actually work against the effectiveness of law enforcement. All it will do it fill up hard drives with very little real effect.
How many seized PC's are stacked up in evidence rooms around the world waiting to be forensically gone over? More are seized every day. This is needed, but the only way it can be done with any degree of effectiveness is to carefully aim your net, not just grab everything that moves in the hope that some day your staff will stumble onto something important, after months and months of nothing.
In this case, it's usernames and passwords, but we all know it's impossible to create a new account on websites right? Maybe the authorities are planning on patenting the "create new account" function on websites since they clearly haven't noticed it's already in widespread use.
If your PC is legally allowed to be examined with no notice under some punishment handed down by the court, then anyone with an ounce of sense would use something like a live CD with an encrypted USB pendrive for stored data.
I don't like the big brother mentality that virtually every government around the world seem to be heading towards to some degree, but even with the most rabid of lobby groups and agenda setters, it's not as efficient as it's made out to be. It would seriously helped if governments got people who at least know what electricity is to work out laws that affect IT. It seems most of our politicians may still think that's a little candle inside that bulb which mysteriously lights itself when you flick the switch.....judging by the insane and completely unworkable ideas they try to push out.
Depending on how hard the credit crunch hits, and for how long. Everyone is tightening their belts, trying to cut excess drains on outgoings, limiting new investments to the absolute necessary until profits start to pick up. They will hold on as long as possible, but the clock is not infinite, corporations around the world don't have board meetings to discuss how to maximise Microsoft's profits; they discuss maximising their own.
What you've painted works fine until their IT stack is no longer updated and they have to choose to become more vulnerable by the day to exploits, or choose the painful transition to a save IT stack. If the motivation is strong enough, all of these elements are just things to work through to get to the other side.
By the time their hand has been forced to switch away from XP / Office XP will giving Microsoft billions / millions for the latest lock-in combo (depending on the size of the corporation) be seen as worth the ROI when they DO have an alternate path to choose? Even if they have growing pains to get there?
How many staff will have to be laid off to pay Microsoft's licences fees? If their competitors are choosing the migration away from Microsoft (which some definitely will, though Microsoft's army of lobbyists and lawyers will likely minimise that number), it'll put the loyal Microsoft setups a disadvantage in a tough economic climate to compete.
The bottom line is that the more the credit crunch bites, the less appealing expensive software licences appear, the more the free (as in cost) solutions will grow in user base, even if there they are chosen on cost alone. The real question is; can Microsoft lure the chumps back in when economic times are better when they've acclimatised to the free alternative? For most people it's going to be just as good......which makes the expensive Microsoft alternative a VERY hard sell. A large part of their profits come from the fact that they've gotten the non-IT savy to believe that ONLY Microsoft offers them the solutions, which will be well broken the more the credit crunch hits.
Vista took so long to get to "release" mode, and even then most people saw it as very expensive "beta" quality, and not great beta at that. I wonder if this is a planned attack to make sure that when people think "Windows 7" they think...."hey, the beta was brilliant, it can only get better". This plan (if successful) avoids the more honest label Vista got as an anchor around it's neck.
The problem we have with any Microsoft products and services, is that for the most part, they are shit....pimped by "independent" sources all spouting what Microsoft pay them to. The bullshit pipes are well oiled by now that you almost have to assume that any source of positive news for Microsoft is paid for by Microsoft. They are very rarely genuine independent reviews. They have not only made their own beds for this assumption, they made the bed factory and all the linen......and patented all the processes involved.....including "closing eyes for extended period to recharge". LOL
Who knows though, they may have it right......eventually. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day.
Damn, it filtered my tag. Is there a way to edit a previous post you made on Slashdot? All I see is "Reply". I guess that's what happens when you rarely use tags in replies. You go to use them and the input setting strip them off. Perhaps I should preview stuff beforehand huh?
An open standard voluntary system would be fine, where webmasters can add some accepted code into the meta tags of their site so search engines can be trained to recognise and filter it. That way you could have user profiles on PC's as options like the movie ratings. You could then apply that age rating, which would then apply the filters to the search results. I know dansgardian is supposed to be good.
This solution would be more aimed at keeping inappropriate material away from minors. It also assumes a completely unfiltered output for adults who don't want filtered, which I don't think our esteemed Minister has in mind when he talks of censorship. It would also rely on webmasters knowing about, then deciding to apply the ratings system agreed on. It since it would be self applied. it also relies on webmasters all having a similar view of the guidelines of what is suitable for 13+ etc which I believe is all but impossible. This would bring in all sorts of legal issues. The web is worldwide, so enforcing anything will be difficult and very expensive (if at all possible).
New Labour are well known for throwing all sorts of red herring policies to the media to distract from some other Government business they need to get through. They tend to pick controversial topics they know will get the attention of the public. It's the Government equivalent of shaking a shiny bauble in front of a pram, while the other hand feels about inside the handbag hanging from it for the purse and any other valuables. These red herrings are never meant to be serious, they exist to distract the media and the public. When the frenzy has built enough they can back down and claim that they've "listened to the people". As has been said though....if the reaction is muted, they may just decide they can get away with actually doing it.
The best way to filter is for the parents to start getting clued about PC's, and for OS vendors to provide a preset profile mode which includes basic (easily GUI editable) filtering as a starting point. The parents need to set up profiles for their kids which match their age range. This of course relies on a hellavalota things that are not likely to happen, when that's more hassle that screaming at the government to "think of the children!". Besides, learning means "taking responsibility", and we can't have that can we?
Usually media stories about Star Wars means that George Lucas has decided his pension pot needs a little top up and another remaster of the only successful movies he's made are on the cards. There are so many different versions now it's hard to see any new remastering swindles to pull.
Perhaps an Ewoks sequel (or prequel...we know he's fond of those), or maybe a "who shot first" DVD, with the option to play ANH and have a different cut of the cantina scene edited in. Since the Star Wars franchise are all about making money, my guess is that a "who shot first" DVD would be sold as 2 DVDs, with a new 5 minute documentary interview with George Lucas on why this new remaster is worth buying to sit alongside the multiple copies you already have. Part 1 of the interview (the first 2.5 minutes will be on DVD 1, the second part will be on DVD 2....like Pokemon....."gotta buy 'em all").
Maybe it's a remastered Special Edition with Hayden Chritsiansen removed from Vader's funeral pire scene in ROTJ. It could be a new scene added to the end of ROTJ where Jar Jar is accidentally shot and killed by celebratory laserfire......to please the crowds who have given him his pension pot, despite being fucked over and over again.
Spending time securing it, then keeping it secure is the issue here. There's only so much you can do to secure Windows, it will never be secure; it's not designed to be. Sure you can add lots of programs to protect against various things, load down the resources available and keep it reasonably secure, as long as it keeps updating those programs (as well as Windows itself). Over time Windows will get hosed, even with all that effort. Eventually the only options left to you will be to wipe the OS and reinstall it, or write off the PC itself and go buy a new PC.
One of the key parts of the whole "keeping it secure" is that EVERY element of that security is kept updated. When a new exploit is found, there are developers able to fix it and put out a patch for the users. Would you use an antivirus program from a company who went bankrupt 2 years ago? Any new viruses created (or found) in that 2 years+ would not be detected. The same applies to the core OS. When Microsoft (or Apple) decide to pull the plug on an older OS, that means nobody is fixing the new holes.
You're right in saying that every few years it's good to get a new OS, a more modern OS, with more modern features, more compatibility with modern trends or modern versions of programs. I agree. That means either upgrading the OS that's installed, wiping to reinstall fresh, or buying a new PC. This is where Linux becomes a much better investment.
Both Apple and Microsoft will only sell you the latest version of their OS, even if older ones are still supported. They still update Windows 2000 now, but try getting a new budget PC with Windows 2000 installed. XP is even newer, has much longer left on the update life cycle, but you have to fight to get a new PC with XP installed, and often pay a premium price for the "privilege" of older software. The point here, is that Microsoft only want to sell you Vista which a) costs a small fortune and b) needs a supercomputer to run on. This means that your Windows 2000 PC (despite being fine for everything you need it to do) won't handle the software they are trying to shove on you. This means buying a new PC, even though the one they have is perfectly fine for their needs (apart from the company behind it deciding not to update it any more for commercial reasons)
When they cut off support and tell you to "just upgrade" it's about them making more money, not serving you with any new value for money features. Remember we're not talking geek use here, we're talking seniors who only want basic PC functionality like surfing the web, sending email, instant messaging and sharing small video clips or photos of with the family.
At some point you will have to upgrade for them. You want this to be as easy as possible. You want mostly everything to be done for you. With Linux, you backup all of the home folder including the.files and.folders then copy them back to the new fresh install. This will keep ALL their previous settings. A simple bash script will install all their applications (those not pre installed with the distro) in one swoop. All of those newly installed applications will already be configured just as they were before because you backed up and restored the,files and.folders. In addition to that, if the hardware worked out of the box last time, it will work this time. You don't have to worry about the company who makes your printer or scanner having an XP driver but not a Vista one yet. A single program, with a few clicks can update your entire system.
Windows on the other hand, you have to jump though all sorts of hoops, with program CDs, driver CDs etc. Install them all one at a time, configure them one at a time, reboot endlessly, update them one at a time. Hope that Microsoft haven't removed the driver for your printer in this version of Windows. Hope that all your software works with the new version of Windows, if not, guess what you get told......."just upgrade". Guess what that often means? Yeah, you got it
To be fair, support for every OS is dropped at some point. Even the LTS Linux distros drop after some 5 years, so it's a good idea to upgrade then (if you haven't done so by then). The difference is that upgrading a Linux distro is free of cost. You still have the downtime and potential problems to face, but at least it's free.
When both Apple and Microsoft tell you the answer to the problems you're having is to "upgrade" it translates into "give us more money", in addition to the downtime and potential problems. This multiplies in complexity and cost if you have multiple PC's to upgrade. Both Apple and Microsoft know that you're more likely to go buy a new PC when the old one gets slow which includes a pre-installed new OS, rather than wipe and reinstall on your old hardware. They have long used more bloated software to force people to buy a new PC. The new OS won't run on the old hardware. For the most part, Linux does not do that, although Ubuntu has been a smidgen guilty of that recently. It also helps that Linux has no product keys for either the OS or applications.
Why would you have to upgrade? You assume Microsoft will keep patching Windows 2000 indefinitely? Like they did with Windows 95 and Windows 98? At least while they are spending time finding and fixing the holes the OS won't sink. As soon as they stop, it'll get more insecure by the day. Assuming your hardware still functions, and your needs have not changed, will you still be running Windows 2000 5, 10 or 15 years after Microsoft have abandoned it?
They want you to spend more money on the new stuff after all. You can't fix it yourself, because they have the source code. Only they can fix it for the same reasons. Even if some knowledgeable, well meaning people got hold of the source code, do you think Microsoft's army of lawyers would ignore their noble efforts in keeping Windows users with an older version of their flagship revenue stream? They are abandoned for a reason. If XP was open source, Vista would be extinct. In the open source world, if there are people willing to develop for it, it lives.
Not to mention third party applications which only have options for the newer versions of Windows. In 5, 10 or 15 years are you going to get programs compatible with Windows 2000? Given how secure a Windows PC is when it IS being supported, I'd imagine your unsupported Windows box won't last that long without a regular reinstall.
Ever wonder why CD / DVD writing is so bad under Windows straight out of the box? Do the words "intellectual property" give any clues? The last thing they want to do is make it easy to shove music / movies / programs etc onto a DVD after they spent ages crippling the OS with DRM.
From what I remember, ripping music in Windows Media Player not only defaults to their own.wma format, it also rips it with the "copy protection" flag enabled. You have to (know about, then know how to) change the options if you want "normal" rips.
Like everything else in Windows, a third party program will always give you a better solution than the native Windows one.
All this is great, assuming the senior citizen in question has spare money from a (very likely) shrinking pension to spend on having to upgrade when Apple want more money. They will most likely keep their PC (whatever OS they go with) for many years. Neither Apple or Microsoft like those people. They will stop supporting them at some point, meaning that an upgrade is required; which means another chunk of cash. When they go to buy the current OS they'll have to fork out money for a whole new PC since their one won't be capable of the new software.
And after forking out all that cash, what new benefits do they get beyond what they already had? What was wrong with their old PC if it wasn't faulty?
Maybe it's just my food / power etc prices that seem to be rising by the day. Until this recession runs it's course, everyone will be looking for ways to cut outgoings. Being locked into a vendor revenue stream does not seem like a good plan to me. Both Apple and Microsoft have one goal; to make as much money as possible.....not to care about it's users.
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Not to mention a lot more expensive. These things would be a criminals dream.
Think of the poor airline pilots, who have 100's of lives on board, restricted lanes to travel in, air traffic control to help guide them....now having to watch out for lunatics in personal flying cars swooping across the front of their cockpits. It'd be an interesting new approach for a terrorist attack.
...don't contract Microsoft to do the in car entertainment.
I'm guessing most of the planet would be curious to know just how this jackass managed to cause so much suffering to so many. It'd be a service to world peace (yeah I know, bare with me) to prevent history repeating itself. Perhaps the answer lies in the brain. I'm sure there'd be plenty of concerned citizens around the globe who'd happily speed up the donation if they got the chance. Perhaps letting Dubya retire to Baghdad to revel in his successful war to restore democracy to Iraq would work, he'd need to pay for his own security of course, the deficit he's left behind can't stretch to excesses like protecting him from his own mistakes.
Dubya has to be a fascinating study, how an imbecile managed to do so much damage. Logic and common sense has no answers to this. Maybe a vaccine can be discovered and fed into the air supplies of government buildings the world over.
Good point.
I'm guessing uni means "one" in this case, so it's an all enclosed "one body". Apple do like to invent things that have already been invented so who knows.
It could be cop slang for another student bankrupted by university fees and the promise of high earnings, waking up to the fact that their degree is worthless, and the jobs market has evaporated having passed the suicide exam.
You're assuming everyone knows how to do this, remember the largest percentage of PC "users" struggle to cope when their "settings" menu changes to "preferences" in an update. In too many cases calling them "users" is a compliment.
And require all buyers to sign a EULA that they have to return it to base to be refilled with fuel.....for a nominal service charge of course. Hmmmm, names, lemmiesee......iCar maybe??
When you have more money than sense do you care that your car is going through fuel a jumbo jet would be proud of? When you suddenly have a lot less money that gas guzzler is now a source of your problems. You still need the transport, so you need to get much more bang for your buck.
In that example you'd be unlikely to be able to do much to that car, but companies will have to innovate to put more economic cars on the courts to tempt you to buy.....well, unless you're Ford in the US, in that case you stick your head in the sand, ignore all the signs and keep pumping out gas guzzlers that nobody wants.....then take your private jet into Washington for a government hand out. When fuel was cheap Ford had no reason to innovate, they could continue with the same old, same old. When it becomes an issue, Ford are caught with their pants down and are miles behind the competition and a mountain to climb.....which costs money.....money tied up in cars on forecourts that nobody wants to buy.
When you can't afford to buy new stuff that the advertisers claim you need, you have to make do with what you have, get more out of it. In many cases you find that new feature of that new product, whodathunkit? You don't need it anyway. Your secretary does not need a quad-core super computer to type up some letters and do some email, despite what Microsoft would like you to believe. The longer money is tight, this plays increasingly into OSS hands. Microsoft won't be going away anytime soon but it will make life much more difficult for them.
Look back a couple of generations (depending on your age) at those people living in the first half of the 20th Century. Between 2 world wars and a depression. Absolutely NO disposable income at all. NO money for anything not absolutely essential to living. Women especially were great at making the household budget stretch further than it had any rights to. They didn't do this buy doing the same things as before, they innovated, and passed ideas to each other. These are the people who mostly would save up to buy things in cash, they'd save in banks and see credit as a last resort.
Innovation will continue despite the credit crunch, but investment in it as a means to make money will be much harder to come by. People who see it as an earner will be more conservative. People who want to create something better for their own (or society in general) use will continue to do so although they may be more limited in their contributions due to not having as much spare time etc.
This can be the mindset when you're working to the clock, watching for 5pm to tick past, doing make work to look busy. You have no love for the project, if there are bugs, so what? Just as long as the consequences (if any) can be aimed at someone else. The bottom line is that you continue to get your pay cheque, not the quality of the project.
OSS by comparison is largely done by volunteers with a love for the project, who actually take pride in their work and the work of others. If you're giving your own free time to do something you're not clock watching doing make work.
A photo showing badly carried out maintenance could cause them a lot of money to first silence the bad PR, smear the whistle blower to discredit them, then to cut corners in "fixing" what had been exposed. Much cheaper to stop the photo before it can possibly get into the public domain. ...ahem....I mean "terrorists could use this info, are you a terrorist sonny? If not, you will do your patriotic duty and delete these images!!!! NOW!!!!"
You mean some people actually bought Zunes and run them long enough to notice it's sudden death? LOLOLOLOL
Go on, flame me; you know you want to.....what better way to add a little heat to New Years Eve. HEEHEHE
If they started MySpace or FaceBook groups called "I'm a sex offender, get me out of here" as an amnesty of sorts. Who knows, you could do a webcam stream on ustream of the contestants eating bugs in a prison cell with an online poll of whether they should be rewarded with a kick in the spuds, or the star prize....castration by snake bite.
Officials seem to be overlooking one issue with more and more laws demanding gathering of more and more data. The more you have, the harder it gets to find the important stuff, and filter it out from the mass of completely innocent stuff. In theory it must be a great response barked out like a trained dog to any problem "how do we address issue ...... ?" "sir, gather more data sir!!!".
It's gonna be even more useless the more proprietary formats and platforms are used in gathering it. The success of Microsoft's army of lobbyists (among others) who peddle constantly changing closed source formats will actually work against the effectiveness of law enforcement. All it will do it fill up hard drives with very little real effect.
How many seized PC's are stacked up in evidence rooms around the world waiting to be forensically gone over? More are seized every day. This is needed, but the only way it can be done with any degree of effectiveness is to carefully aim your net, not just grab everything that moves in the hope that some day your staff will stumble onto something important, after months and months of nothing.
In this case, it's usernames and passwords, but we all know it's impossible to create a new account on websites right? Maybe the authorities are planning on patenting the "create new account" function on websites since they clearly haven't noticed it's already in widespread use.
If your PC is legally allowed to be examined with no notice under some punishment handed down by the court, then anyone with an ounce of sense would use something like a live CD with an encrypted USB pendrive for stored data.
I don't like the big brother mentality that virtually every government around the world seem to be heading towards to some degree, but even with the most rabid of lobby groups and agenda setters, it's not as efficient as it's made out to be. It would seriously helped if governments got people who at least know what electricity is to work out laws that affect IT. It seems most of our politicians may still think that's a little candle inside that bulb which mysteriously lights itself when you flick the switch.....judging by the insane and completely unworkable ideas they try to push out.
Depending on how hard the credit crunch hits, and for how long. Everyone is tightening their belts, trying to cut excess drains on outgoings, limiting new investments to the absolute necessary until profits start to pick up. They will hold on as long as possible, but the clock is not infinite, corporations around the world don't have board meetings to discuss how to maximise Microsoft's profits; they discuss maximising their own.
What you've painted works fine until their IT stack is no longer updated and they have to choose to become more vulnerable by the day to exploits, or choose the painful transition to a save IT stack. If the motivation is strong enough, all of these elements are just things to work through to get to the other side.
By the time their hand has been forced to switch away from XP / Office XP will giving Microsoft billions / millions for the latest lock-in combo (depending on the size of the corporation) be seen as worth the ROI when they DO have an alternate path to choose? Even if they have growing pains to get there?
How many staff will have to be laid off to pay Microsoft's licences fees? If their competitors are choosing the migration away from Microsoft (which some definitely will, though Microsoft's army of lobbyists and lawyers will likely minimise that number), it'll put the loyal Microsoft setups a disadvantage in a tough economic climate to compete.
The bottom line is that the more the credit crunch bites, the less appealing expensive software licences appear, the more the free (as in cost) solutions will grow in user base, even if there they are chosen on cost alone. The real question is; can Microsoft lure the chumps back in when economic times are better when they've acclimatised to the free alternative? For most people it's going to be just as good......which makes the expensive Microsoft alternative a VERY hard sell. A large part of their profits come from the fact that they've gotten the non-IT savy to believe that ONLY Microsoft offers them the solutions, which will be well broken the more the credit crunch hits.
Vista took so long to get to "release" mode, and even then most people saw it as very expensive "beta" quality, and not great beta at that. I wonder if this is a planned attack to make sure that when people think "Windows 7" they think...."hey, the beta was brilliant, it can only get better". This plan (if successful) avoids the more honest label Vista got as an anchor around it's neck.
The problem we have with any Microsoft products and services, is that for the most part, they are shit....pimped by "independent" sources all spouting what Microsoft pay them to. The bullshit pipes are well oiled by now that you almost have to assume that any source of positive news for Microsoft is paid for by Microsoft. They are very rarely genuine independent reviews. They have not only made their own beds for this assumption, they made the bed factory and all the linen......and patented all the processes involved.....including "closing eyes for extended period to recharge". LOL
Who knows though, they may have it right......eventually. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day.
Damn, it filtered my tag. Is there a way to edit a previous post you made on Slashdot? All I see is "Reply". I guess that's what happens when you rarely use tags in replies. You go to use them and the input setting strip them off. Perhaps I should preview stuff beforehand huh?
Slashdot really needs easy markup.
An open standard voluntary system would be fine, where webmasters can add some accepted code into the meta tags of their site so search engines can be trained to recognise and filter it. That way you could have user profiles on PC's as options like the movie ratings. You could then apply that age rating, which would then apply the filters to the search results. I know dansgardian is supposed to be good.
This solution would be more aimed at keeping inappropriate material away from minors. It also assumes a completely unfiltered output for adults who don't want filtered, which I don't think our esteemed Minister has in mind when he talks of censorship. It would also rely on webmasters knowing about, then deciding to apply the ratings system agreed on. It since it would be self applied. it also relies on webmasters all having a similar view of the guidelines of what is suitable for 13+ etc which I believe is all but impossible. This would bring in all sorts of legal issues. The web is worldwide, so enforcing anything will be difficult and very expensive (if at all possible).
New Labour are well known for throwing all sorts of red herring policies to the media to distract from some other Government business they need to get through. They tend to pick controversial topics they know will get the attention of the public. It's the Government equivalent of shaking a shiny bauble in front of a pram, while the other hand feels about inside the handbag hanging from it for the purse and any other valuables. These red herrings are never meant to be serious, they exist to distract the media and the public. When the frenzy has built enough they can back down and claim that they've "listened to the people". As has been said though....if the reaction is muted, they may just decide they can get away with actually doing it.
The best way to filter is for the parents to start getting clued about PC's, and for OS vendors to provide a preset profile mode which includes basic (easily GUI editable) filtering as a starting point. The parents need to set up profiles for their kids which match their age range. This of course relies on a hellavalota things that are not likely to happen, when that's more hassle that screaming at the government to "think of the children!". Besides, learning means "taking responsibility", and we can't have that can we?
Usually media stories about Star Wars means that George Lucas has decided his pension pot needs a little top up and another remaster of the only successful movies he's made are on the cards. There are so many different versions now it's hard to see any new remastering swindles to pull.
Perhaps an Ewoks sequel (or prequel...we know he's fond of those), or maybe a "who shot first" DVD, with the option to play ANH and have a different cut of the cantina scene edited in. Since the Star Wars franchise are all about making money, my guess is that a "who shot first" DVD would be sold as 2 DVDs, with a new 5 minute documentary interview with George Lucas on why this new remaster is worth buying to sit alongside the multiple copies you already have. Part 1 of the interview (the first 2.5 minutes will be on DVD 1, the second part will be on DVD 2....like Pokemon....."gotta buy 'em all").
Maybe it's a remastered Special Edition with Hayden Chritsiansen removed from Vader's funeral pire scene in ROTJ. It could be a new scene added to the end of ROTJ where Jar Jar is accidentally shot and killed by celebratory laserfire......to please the crowds who have given him his pension pot, despite being fucked over and over again.
Spending time securing it, then keeping it secure is the issue here. There's only so much you can do to secure Windows, it will never be secure; it's not designed to be. Sure you can add lots of programs to protect against various things, load down the resources available and keep it reasonably secure, as long as it keeps updating those programs (as well as Windows itself). Over time Windows will get hosed, even with all that effort. Eventually the only options left to you will be to wipe the OS and reinstall it, or write off the PC itself and go buy a new PC.
One of the key parts of the whole "keeping it secure" is that EVERY element of that security is kept updated. When a new exploit is found, there are developers able to fix it and put out a patch for the users. Would you use an antivirus program from a company who went bankrupt 2 years ago? Any new viruses created (or found) in that 2 years+ would not be detected. The same applies to the core OS. When Microsoft (or Apple) decide to pull the plug on an older OS, that means nobody is fixing the new holes.
You're right in saying that every few years it's good to get a new OS, a more modern OS, with more modern features, more compatibility with modern trends or modern versions of programs. I agree. That means either upgrading the OS that's installed, wiping to reinstall fresh, or buying a new PC. This is where Linux becomes a much better investment.
Both Apple and Microsoft will only sell you the latest version of their OS, even if older ones are still supported. They still update Windows 2000 now, but try getting a new budget PC with Windows 2000 installed. XP is even newer, has much longer left on the update life cycle, but you have to fight to get a new PC with XP installed, and often pay a premium price for the "privilege" of older software. The point here, is that Microsoft only want to sell you Vista which a) costs a small fortune and b) needs a supercomputer to run on. This means that your Windows 2000 PC (despite being fine for everything you need it to do) won't handle the software they are trying to shove on you. This means buying a new PC, even though the one they have is perfectly fine for their needs (apart from the company behind it deciding not to update it any more for commercial reasons)
When they cut off support and tell you to "just upgrade" it's about them making more money, not serving you with any new value for money features. Remember we're not talking geek use here, we're talking seniors who only want basic PC functionality like surfing the web, sending email, instant messaging and sharing small video clips or photos of with the family.
At some point you will have to upgrade for them. You want this to be as easy as possible. You want mostly everything to be done for you. With Linux, you backup all of the home folder including the .files and .folders then copy them back to the new fresh install. This will keep ALL their previous settings. A simple bash script will install all their applications (those not pre installed with the distro) in one swoop. All of those newly installed applications will already be configured just as they were before because you backed up and restored the ,files and .folders. In addition to that, if the hardware worked out of the box last time, it will work this time. You don't have to worry about the company who makes your printer or scanner having an XP driver but not a Vista one yet. A single program, with a few clicks can update your entire system.
Windows on the other hand, you have to jump though all sorts of hoops, with program CDs, driver CDs etc. Install them all one at a time, configure them one at a time, reboot endlessly, update them one at a time. Hope that Microsoft haven't removed the driver for your printer in this version of Windows. Hope that all your software works with the new version of Windows, if not, guess what you get told......."just upgrade". Guess what that often means? Yeah, you got it
Well, you go ahead and use old unsupported boxes for your net use, I'm sure the botnet operators will welcome your contribution to the cause.
To be fair, support for every OS is dropped at some point. Even the LTS Linux distros drop after some 5 years, so it's a good idea to upgrade then (if you haven't done so by then). The difference is that upgrading a Linux distro is free of cost. You still have the downtime and potential problems to face, but at least it's free.
When both Apple and Microsoft tell you the answer to the problems you're having is to "upgrade" it translates into "give us more money", in addition to the downtime and potential problems. This multiplies in complexity and cost if you have multiple PC's to upgrade. Both Apple and Microsoft know that you're more likely to go buy a new PC when the old one gets slow which includes a pre-installed new OS, rather than wipe and reinstall on your old hardware. They have long used more bloated software to force people to buy a new PC. The new OS won't run on the old hardware. For the most part, Linux does not do that, although Ubuntu has been a smidgen guilty of that recently. It also helps that Linux has no product keys for either the OS or applications.
Why would you have to upgrade? You assume Microsoft will keep patching Windows 2000 indefinitely? Like they did with Windows 95 and Windows 98? At least while they are spending time finding and fixing the holes the OS won't sink. As soon as they stop, it'll get more insecure by the day. Assuming your hardware still functions, and your needs have not changed, will you still be running Windows 2000 5, 10 or 15 years after Microsoft have abandoned it?
They want you to spend more money on the new stuff after all. You can't fix it yourself, because they have the source code. Only they can fix it for the same reasons. Even if some knowledgeable, well meaning people got hold of the source code, do you think Microsoft's army of lawyers would ignore their noble efforts in keeping Windows users with an older version of their flagship revenue stream? They are abandoned for a reason. If XP was open source, Vista would be extinct. In the open source world, if there are people willing to develop for it, it lives.
Not to mention third party applications which only have options for the newer versions of Windows. In 5, 10 or 15 years are you going to get programs compatible with Windows 2000? Given how secure a Windows PC is when it IS being supported, I'd imagine your unsupported Windows box won't last that long without a regular reinstall.
Ever wonder why CD / DVD writing is so bad under Windows straight out of the box? Do the words "intellectual property" give any clues? The last thing they want to do is make it easy to shove music / movies / programs etc onto a DVD after they spent ages crippling the OS with DRM.
From what I remember, ripping music in Windows Media Player not only defaults to their own .wma format, it also rips it with the "copy protection" flag enabled. You have to (know about, then know how to) change the options if you want "normal" rips.
Like everything else in Windows, a third party program will always give you a better solution than the native Windows one.
All this is great, assuming the senior citizen in question has spare money from a (very likely) shrinking pension to spend on having to upgrade when Apple want more money. They will most likely keep their PC (whatever OS they go with) for many years. Neither Apple or Microsoft like those people. They will stop supporting them at some point, meaning that an upgrade is required; which means another chunk of cash. When they go to buy the current OS they'll have to fork out money for a whole new PC since their one won't be capable of the new software.
And after forking out all that cash, what new benefits do they get beyond what they already had? What was wrong with their old PC if it wasn't faulty?
Maybe it's just my food / power etc prices that seem to be rising by the day. Until this recession runs it's course, everyone will be looking for ways to cut outgoings. Being locked into a vendor revenue stream does not seem like a good plan to me. Both Apple and Microsoft have one goal; to make as much money as possible.....not to care about it's users.