As a preface, I spent some 10 years as an administrator at a LOTR based MUSH. With a time ratio of 3:1 It meant 3 years in Middle Earth (ME) went by in 1 year of real life. For you hobbits, that means that you give a birthday party every 4 months. Having started to play just a few years before the third age yr 3000, there was little real concern about what would happen in the 5 or so years when we had to actually stage the War of the Ring. Original founders had not really considered this an issue as the point was to create an environment for RP in the Tolkien world, not to play out the script of the books. However there was always some pressure from various philosophies of role play and game play in general, on whether we should in some way develop the long term story arc and whether to allow deviations from the general thread of events. This becomes pretty complicated as Tolkien had a sort of longer story arc than most, with events that occurred thousands of years before, in books some of the players had never read, having some impact. In fact, the more a player knew, and cared about Tolkien, the harder it was to play the game, knowing that on the one hand they might realisticly play their characters role, and on the other hand, they might run into situations where quality role play and story making conflicted with the actual plot in ways that only an expert might detect ahead of time.
This meant the typical uses of comic book/soap opera/RP retcon techniques (retroactive continuity...) which, ill used, creates a hostility so fierce that the term retcon in the MUSH gained the status of fighting words, i.e., if you did not intend to cause someone to freak out and begin an anti-fascist march at your home, you said things like 'we might want to adjust the outcome to match the theme a little more closely, and perhaps there is some backstory we could RP out to clarify why your character suddenly had to NOT slay Boromir as a 12 year old for kissing your pig. (That never happened... Or did it! Retcon!)
Anyway, the point is that, there were legitimate arguments to let things play out as if we got to year 3000 and let things diverge. There were others that said, lets get to year 3008 or so and then freeze until we figure things out, allowing the game clock to advance but maintaining the pre LOTR environment. Others wanted to move towards a sort of scripted version of the war, but of course focus also on the places that were not described, to explore how such a big event effected the other populations. (Places mentioned in a sentence have a whole life when you have 2000+ active players trying to play their favorite characters)
As an admin, alot of my effort was aimed towards providing guidance in resolving conflicts both operationally and thematically.
Now LOTR Online is not a MUSH. Players do not drive the content the same way. Most folks just want to see the sights and participate in the battles, and get that Tolkien feel. But the fact is that I won't be playing this game, having spent a decade of my life trying to combine fun, Tolkien, role play, and computers. I will never be real happy watching hordes of hobbits wandering around, making Frodo and Bilbo seem like homebodies, nor will Noldo elves dancing topless on mailboxes make me happy.
I prefer original works of fantasy. I love to read Tolkien. I first read the hobbit when I was 6, and was done with all the books (including Silmarilian which had just recently come out in soft cover) by the time I was 8.
I am glad more people are buying the books, and are excited by what I consider some of the greatest examples of story telling and most graceful uses of the English language. But to claim that knowing what will happen makes a game more playable, or that such an idea is new, is really quite absurd. There have been 100's of games in which we know the story. And if you really expect LOTR online to END for plot purposes, rather than because they are no longer making money, you are in the gardens of Lorien, dreaming away.
At work I like a nice stable environment, but I have traditionally used my home machine as a cutting edge tester. Using Beryl in that environment, I have crashed out of the window manager on a regular basis, have had the configuration become unusuable (as in either toss it or reload a saved config) for no clear reason, and certainly seen some performance degredation. That being said, I think its general functionality (once bugs get cleared out) is nifty. I love being able to see all my apps at once in context, love the fact that while I am moving things, and getting all those visual effects, windows are completely live (videos don't even jump). Since I rarely game anymore, it adds value to me having a decent video card.
The fact that it is.20 or whatever suggests one shouldn't run it with the idea that it is going to be rock stable. I look forward to it moving to that state. I think it is impressive enough as is.
Didn't really read the article did we? The article blames Apple. I know that Apple's version of Vista has some compatibility with Microsoft or should I say OS X 10.4, but really, please stop whining about all the Vista Bashing, when the point of the article is a) that there is a user problem and when he goes to each company for support they pass the buck and b) the writer (probably erroneously since a BSOD is not really the fault of userland code) blames Apple for it.
I remember having marathon games of Carmaggedon and leaving the office to discover that just walking down the street without running over people was surprisingly difficult.
I can't see how driving afterwards would be unaffected.
Still I think people talking on their phones while driving probably outweighs any of it. Not to mention the ones who are text messaging.
Again, as it has been pointed out clearly, if you promise something free upon purchase of something else that is not the same thing as simply offering to give something away for free, with a buyer beware, you get what you pay for.
Dell specifically offered to provide free upgrades to Vista for people who were buying Vista ready machines before the release, to get holiday sales.
We can assume that the reason really is the fact that they are shipping upgrades as fast as they can and the only folks who are going to be loud are the ones waiting. To suggest that they are really trying to hold off shipment until they can produce a disk with drivers that work for hardware they already certified as ready would be fraudulent (selling hardware they promise meets Microsofts criteria for whichever level of compatibility without it being true is a class action lawsuit, or a recall)
In any case the likeliest answer is that the release is less than 2 weeks old, we have had terrible winter weather over that time, and the number of people who idiotically were unable to wait to get a computer preloaded with their OS, probably is greater than expected, mostly because they have no idea what it really means to upgrade an OS, since its been some 5 years since there has been a major release.
#1. Old news #2. Apples and Oranges (IIS on Windows versus Apache on Linux? Which are we comparing?) #3. Lack of detail: You can't see what system calls are really involved. No indication of configuration. No version numbers.
So that puts it in the realm of FUD, although the blogger does explain that its just a blog.
From my experience with Linux and Windows, the philosophical difference has to do with what is doing most of the work. In Windows a great deal of functionality is granted by the Windows API. As most programmers throughout the 90's know, Microsoft created their API around the functionality they needed for their own development, and then the rest of us had to buy the 'Secret' API manual with all the treats.
In Linux the Kernel where all those system calls go, is pretty limited compared to Windows. Where most functionality is added for developers is in shared libraries. Windows of course has the too, but its more a matter of where the real action is running. Is it in the kernel or in userspace. With Linux mostly its userspace, so there is less issues with software errors being capable of interfering with the machine itself. Still there are ways developers, especially of servers requiring some superuser priveleges (listening to ports under 1024) have provided security holes in basic interfaces (Sendmail and Bind for example). Still thats not reserved to Linux. Beyond that, we talk about the fact that Linux users don't run as root, but I have seen alot of irc session where the username of root is in the GID. So SOME folks do run as root. Whether the distributions now make that less necessary, that is also how Vista is going.
Apache is a bad project to compare other software too. It has been remarkably well developed both for stability and resisting sneaky security issues. Obviously one can muck up their configuration to reduce their security, but Apache itself (despite its initial moniker of being A patchy webserver) is a terrific example of well run coding projects.
IIS on the other hand is one of the posterchildren of security problems, with early versions not checking for navigation of parent directories, along with other trivial insecurites, based in some ways on permitting the developer to easily integrate IIS with other Microsoft tools.
So yes, IIS on Windows is more insecure than Apache on Linux. And Apache on Linux has always kicked IIS's ass in market share. I wonder if we compared Apache on Linux to Apache on Windows what we would find.
This is not really a rhetorical question: Why switch to Linux? I think if you have no answers for that question than the switch to Linux will be unsatisfying. If the answer has to do with 'i wanted to save money' well thats possibly valid, but I am pretty sure that the folks who don't want to pay for Linux are going to have the least impact on the economic driving forces.
(Note: I use whatever tools I have to use to satisfy job requirements. I try to use Linux when it is appropriate since I have been using it for 14 years, but i also use Windows, and MacOS)
So if the reason you are trying Linux because you want to evade paying Microsoft, then complaining because it doesn't integrate with your expensive Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is somewhat... backwards... There are solutions for shared calendars, shared address books, and e-mail. Whether or not you are prepared to integrate such a system instead of paying for Microsoft to do it is a question you can answer for your own situation.
Every operating system has issues. I have had hardware work BETTER in Linux than in Windows, as improbable as that sounds. It doesn't mean that I would 'give up on Microsoft' as I am bound by what my customer or employer wants. My ability to effectively implement solutions in Linux allows my customer or employer to use it effectively, and does create traction that allows Linux solutions to be taken seriously. But I don't try to make the Boss's secretary run it because then the Boss says 'I didn't get notified about my golf date because your damned Linux is broken'
Whereas, I do like the fact that my boss says 'We are going to switch over to Linux/MySQL as part of our backend standard... because I have answered the issues in THAT sort of environment'
It would be like saying I need a circular saw because I am trying to cut my toenails. How about not bitching that it isn't compatible and finding the right tool that solveS YOUR problem rather than just going with a tool because its hip.
There can be no doubt or argument that there should be only one open standard. I believe that there IS doubt and argument on this topic. I personally am not even sure if you are suggesting that no one should argue for or against the idea of a single open standard.
Personally I see no reason that multiple standards should exist as long as they are open and maintained by independent bodies. The nature of file format standards which are clearly described and fully documented allow for translation between file formats as a relatively trivial effort. And when one finds this is not a trivial effort, then the standards diverge enough to suggest they have a real virtue as a seperate standard, perhaps by organizing the content in ways that have different purposes.
Beyond this, the idea of a single standard is attractive until the process of extending that standard becomes a competition for each affected party's primary concerns.
I am not sure why PDF and word processing documents have that much in common. PDF inherits from Postcript the idea that one can take the same language and describe a document for display or rendering on wide varities of devices. In many ways it is an output format.
Most word processing documents are designed to allow quick editing and organization of large documents. They are usually not optimized for display, except for a proliferation of markup which has a multiple personality disorder confusion as to whether it is content or layout.
I can see many reasons for multiple standards which are open. The idea of non-open standards make little sense to me. A standard needs to be open to be reliably standard. To suggest there is a standard and not communicate all details, nor allow others to use it without restriction is proprietary and not a true standard. Data formats which are proprietary have their purposes of course, but there are obviously benefits to encouraging standardization in an industry.
I just searched around on this, and was also disturbed by what I see which can be summed up by 'they tested it live, the developers fixed the bug based on the attack, the MOAB team posted a release with evidence of the attack, then removed it, then denied it happened, and denounced all potential proof as unreliable'
The parent shouldn't be modded flamebait, but thats not really important. Even the fact that they used it live was relatively minor (it wasn't infecting peoples computers as far as I could tell). What bothers me is that the lack of transparency they accuse Apple or other developers of, hardly seems valid in light of their own lack of honesty. This has been questioned before, and if they hadn't already made themselves look a bit foolish by targetting open source multiplatform tools, they certainly would have lost credibility based on this stunt.
I don't know that people posting exploits on a public site, and making press releases about it is the same as reporting bugs to a developer. I mean I am sure there are many people who have posted messages about exploiting bugs in some way in many forums, but mostly they aren't technically reporting those bugs to the developer. In the case of MOAB they explicitly have stated they were NOT reporting the bugs to the Apple, but were doing it a different way to force Apple to respond differently than their normal process. Now you accuse Apple of not treating this with their normal process.
Perhaps your expectations are the part that needs patching.
I was more troubled by the way they treated Omniweb, a small software company that has a good reputation for being responsive to users and released an update to the bug almost immediately. The workaround is to use Firefox (which has its own bugs) or wait for Omniweb to release a fix. They didn't bother to update their bug report to point to the fix.
I think in general they haven't got much press. People who argue that Apple's are no more secure than other OS's will continue to miss the point, which is that Microsoft intentionally designed their OS to allow their Email Reader or Word Processor to have the power to modify the OS. It wasn't a buffer overflow, improper validation of file formats. It was a feature designed to allow developers to create extensibility. The fix was to tell grandma not to open any email from anyone whose address she didn't recognize.
Yes it is true that diskutils and such is the kind of convenience that shields the user from understanding the repurcussions of permissions and other issues that can result in insecurity, but to suggest that someone who intentionally authenticates and authorizes System Administration tasks that overtly effects permissions on the box they are maintaining may effect security permissions on that machine is hard to justify as a security flaw. One may as well state that any machine that allows root access to anyone at all is inherently flawed. There ARE infact arguments that this is true, that there should be no root account, but that often just spreads the risk around to multiple accounts.
Similar flaws in devices in your home including chairs that can be used to hit people in the head, sharp knives, cars that allow the user to control the direction risking the possibility that they might drive into things, and lots of choking hazards such as doorknobs.
Yeah, it is hard to accuse Apple of dodging the project by explicitly highlighting their 'contribution'. I wonder what the author wanted to see.
"Oh Noez, W3 WUZ PWNED by the MO@B Kr3w!!!!"
Really pretty respectful to simply describe the bug, and describe the exploit that is specifically focussed on that bug, pointing the the source of it.
I think that MOAB did focus attention on some real issues although they had to stretch out some issues to multiple days (several DMG file structure errors which essentially were DOS at worst (a corrupt file shouldn't cause crashes it is true, but that can be one day worth of bugs since the fix is essentially 'validate file more effectively before loading it')
As far as the questions about things like diskutil restoring permissions on files that have lost their SUID bits due to being modified, thats a solid issue, although diskutil is run by administrative account from what I recall, and really points back to the question of how do you avoid having someone with an account on a machine they have in their home or office from getting root access, and then not doing stupid things to their machine. Basicly the same can be said about any system that allows someone root access. There is no OS that can stop SU from fraking things up as far as I know.
Anyway, I think the real truth is that there are no great showstoppers. Omniweb closed their security flaw the day it was released (and wondered why they couldn't have been contacted prior to the publicity. Any argument that 'Apple ignores bug reports' sort of goes to hell when talking about third party software issued). Even worse was day two's focus on VLC a project that has less relevance on Apple's OS than it does in the Linux world. I think they should have focused on things Apple needed to fix, rather than things that break on Apples, just like they break everywhere, without Apple having much to do with it at all, nor any real influence on the developers. I mean technically you could put any Window security issue into the Apple MOAB since Windows apps run on Macs these days. Is that helpful? Not really.
So I would say that Apple has shown a willingness to respond to a bug report, I have not really seen them creating negative press against the MOAB folks, and there hasn't really been a showstopper that was strong enough to get mainstream press.
I have had a second life account for over a year. I have some typical number of Lindon dollars. I have never bought more. I have never spent any. I have no real understanding of the economy, except that if I want to import a graphic image into the system it costs money, so I don't.
I am sure I am missing out, but lots of people have GIVEN me things that I assume cost someone money at some point. That of course dilutes the value of the investment. The pay back probably involves social status, similar to potlatch societies where whomever gives away more is the 'wealthiest'.
Clearly the actual issue is how to convert ANY of that into real value, in a way that economists can equate either directly or analogously to real world value, such as income or return on investment.
What this article does most effectively is highlight the lack of support for predictable commerce. The same is true in countries with unregulated financial systems, and the factors of anonymous commerce, no legal system, and essentially no reliable contract, means that the only commerce that is effective for most people involves commerce in which there is a low stake, which means that actual use and accumulation of wealth is both hindered, and less valuable.
This is a vending machine economy. Its based on a million players putting in a quarter in a slot machine, or buy a new outfit, face, body etc... Things that are specifically part of the online environment (playing with toys or enhancing your visual representation)...
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Second Life really is more interesting because it is the equivalent of a Graphical MUSH where all the users have the ability to create items. I can create any number of items, and give them away or clone them. A good item may be worth something but since any good item can be reverse engineered and distributed at no cost, there is little value to developing quality code except for social praise. Real designers and coders actually can earn good livings in the 'FIRST WORLD' so most of what you see is toys made by people for fun, which makes alot of sense.
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Last but not least, its a crappy environment for real development. It is harder to output text in any meaningful format. Thats an intentional crippling to force people who want to create content to have to pay to input graphics, rather than write code to actually draw graphics. Pretty regressive considering the direction of the web, which enables REAL commerce and has created a good amount of wealth.
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When SecondLife stops being a scam, and supports real internet technology and openness, perhaps it will also draw the kind of mindshare that will create real value and an honest marketplace, but that is a different economic model. For now, its mostly a place to play john and whore and part of that means paying, and if that happens to let your one dollar turn into 250, then the game seems more exciting. If a grown woman and parent of two actually believes that earning 185 dollars a month for being a whore and a mule for money laundering is good money, then I guess thats what she deems herself worth. Hard to argue with that sort of capitalism.
a) I think that the creative designers work on whatever platform they are hired to work on, or which best support their interest. I don't think they are limited to phones or desktop. The actual creative work there is the same. So I would say that as long as the platform supports the designers they will happily design for it.
b) The whole front being a touch screen isn't really original. I think the Newton was all touch screen. Original palms were almost entirely touch screen. What is original is a multi-touch interface. No Consumer product has one as far as I know. There is alot of interface research going on about this sort of technology but in general they work using a set of cameras or other sensors and are table top. So while not ENTIRELY original, the idea of an interface in which more than one finger can be used at once allows some metaphors that we haven't seen yet. Thats where the designers are really going to go nuts... And lets also note the fact that there is no stylus. That means the screen is engineered for fingers. That is new too. I am very interested to see what the actual useability will be like.
c) They made it REALLY clear that they have 200 patents on this. That touchscreen if it works out will become the only way to go, and Apple owns that technology lock stock and barrel. I don't doubt there will be an iMac, an iPod and maybe even MacBook's that will come with it. Again depending on how well it works, it probably will define the tablet, handheld market.
I am more interested in what the multi-touch screen interface will do as far as interface development. I mean the Time article talks about this starting off as a 'tablet' prototype but the screen itself drove Jobs to push the project in this direction. I have seen some high-end multi-touch demonstrations on large scale panels, and its pretty major, moving away from the single cursor and the click,drag,double-click. The fact that there are motion sensors, proximity sensors, and light sensors, also has me thinking.
I am not sure why they didn't provide a lens on the front for the obvious video iChat possibilities.
I note that by supporting the dashboard widgets (and no doubt google widgets will work soon enough) I think this will provide alot of custom apps with internet backends.
I think folks who take the 8 gig max as too small for storage are unclear on the concept entirely. Is there a phone this small out there that has anything like that?
I can't wait to see about the development details. Will developers have an API to the random access voice mail? They say its true multitasking. but does that mean I can play an audio file to someone over the phone?
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Depending on how well the touch screen does, I wonder if this will generate that tablet...
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I notice no one really cares about AppleTV. Does anyone want one? Anyone?
I would assume providing tools that permit the access to this illegal content also are inside of the permitting or condoning the download of copyrighted material (which we agree is anything published anywhere really).
There is such a long list of why the Zune has a marketability problem in the mainstream consumer market.
#1. Wierd name: No really. Zune is wierd. iPod is wierd too but it has the advantage of approaching generic status. Even saying Zune feels funny. I would say it actually makes it hard for salespeople to talk about it.
#2. Accessories. Everything that is an mp3 accessory says 'iPod compatible'. A store is going to always try to bundle stuff, or otherwise get the secondary sale. They are going to try to sell some speakers, a dock, a case, a transmitter, and any number of things. None of these products say 'Zune' even if they aren't specifically iPod.
#3. One Tier vs Many Tier. If you want to buy someone an iPod, you can get a shuffle all the way to the 60 gig video. In between you have a range of Nano, and lower end Video. So as far as a store is concerned, any person coming in might be talked up a level, or 'Is there a smaller one?' It's true that a salesperson pushing a Zune could go to a Sansa or whatnot, but do you really see them Stepping their customer down away from the iPod premium brand which they have heavy stock in, to point to the competitors.
#4. Families that Pod together stay together: If you have iPod's in the house and all your music is in iTunes, then the Zune means a seperate store of files. Even if you are a CD ripping bunch, thats annoying at best. The Music store customers are even more locked in. And stores also know this. They are not going to push a product down a customers throat that is going to make them the blacksheep of the household.:) ALl that will do is give a 'Hey i need to trade in my 249 dollar zune for a 249 ipod, because this thing doesn't work with my stuff at home.'
#5. Not enough tie in to other Microsoft products. If you were offering a free mouse, or a Zune/Xbox bundle, I assure you there would be a stronger sales model. For a company legendary for leveraging market position, Microsoft really put the Zune out on its own. They didn't even support their own music store or their builtin software on their OS. If Zune worked BETTER than any other mp3 player in Windows (wifi syncing? easier music list generation? better support of podcasts?) then they might be able to muscle in. Even if it took Vista to make it all happen. Heck, Microsoft is going to essentially be supporting USB drives as extended memory, but the Zune doesn't seem to be built to be supported for THAT! Can you imagine how easy it would be to sell this if it included a small dictation feature or the capability to work with word documents in some new way? Tie in. Lock in. Businessmen buy the Zune with the excuse that they need it for work. Nope.
Windows XP-64 bit works fine for me. It seems alot more stable in many ways than the 32 bit xp. It definately starts up faster. I haven't had any driver issues, but I use obscure hardware by companies named NVidia and HP. I would check if you have anything strange. On occasion I have run into programs that acted up because I was in 64, but there are usually alternatives.
In Linux I have had 0 problems using Ubuntu. The packages are all built for my AMD64. There are occasional issues in terms of things like Flash where you need to run a 32 bit browser for that. Since browsing doesn't much care on the 64 bit front, I don't sweat it. Where it probably makes a real difference is if you are doing work with SQL or graphics where 64 bit integers are more common.
a) I think the nonsense about the 250 toaster is almost as bad as 0.002 cents=0.002 dollars. It assumes that the existence of said toaster is a validation of the argument, simply by saying 'i bet it sells well'. Does he own one? Does anyone he knows? And do people buying this toaster because it has more complexity speak to its quality design compared to say another toaster that allows the user the same level of control in a simpler way? My answer is that the existence of a complex thing to solve a problem does not relegate the simpler objects to obscelesence. And since he brought up cars:
b) Automatic transmissions. Fuel Injection. Anti-Lock breaks. Power Steering. Power Windows. Keyless entry. Do any of those concepts sound like they have made the interface to driving more complex? No. What they have done is taken the interface of driving, and cars and made improvements that maintained the concept of how driving works. Even though you may no longer have direct control of the mechanical, the interface is almost identical. Does standard transmission still exist (and infact is quite popular). Yes. It is more efficient and cheaper. And in 'performance' vehicles, even those interfaces are actually just as indirect as the automatic transmission.
c) Useability involves the relationship between the interface and the expected functionality in the context of the intended user. If the user expects certain things to happen in a certain way and they do, and the user can do all the things they expect they should be able to do, then the user does not really notice the interface. If on the other hand, the effect of a user action is either unpredictable or counter-intuitive, then we see a learning-curve, or mistakes. Side-effects that are unclear, business logic that is obscure, all tend to create unuseable systems. Sometimes this alone creates the requirement for an interface that is not ideal. Is it intuitive that the computer's interface is a desktop? At this point, yes. Is that thing you are looking at REALLY a window? Nope. Is there any other context in which an object shaped like a bar of soap is used to select, draw, point, or do anything besides erase?
d) QWERTY was designed to prevent jams in early typewriters. How does that relate to even the IBM Typewriter (with the ball) not to mention computers? It doesn't. But if you change the keyboard layout, people will consider that too difficult. What is simple is often what is familiar.
Microsoft has never really had a direct threat it its business that could actually compete at the same level.
I will give a fast list of companies. Some of them you may have heard of.
Apple
IBM (OS/2)
Novell (Netware)
Sun (Java, Solaris)
Lotus (Ever heard of Lotus 123?)
WordPerfect (I always thought that Microsoft DOS Word 3.0 was a brilliant WP. Very little interface. WordPerfect was clearly the big dog and it still has penetration in the legal field)
Netscape
It is true that many of these competitors were the #1 player and Microsoft managed to pass them. To suggest that none of them could compete with Microsoft seems to be based on the idea that if Microsoft won, then clearly the competitors were not even in the same league, whereas in most cases it has more to do with business cases. Google hasn't even started to compete against Microsoft in any meaningful way. While giving away software is a way to gain market penetration, (Microsoft gave away IE to beat Netscape), eventually you have to look at the way people make money. Microsoft does this through enterprise licensing, (wherein, they charge per user in environments that already have technical support staff so they have less to worry about as far as support), and through bundling their software on new PC's, where they charge less per copy but know that DELL will cover user support and software installation.
In any case to suggest Microsoft has never been in competition with companies with significant resources is nonsensical. The fact that their techniques of requiring PC manufacturers to sell their OS on every machine they ship or pay higher per machine licenses allowed them to shut out all other OS's (why buy two operating systems when I HAVE to buy windows) was unfair and predatory, or that their tradition of non-public API's allowed their own apps to have improved performance, or their tendency of announcing vaporware (did you put in 2006 or 2007 in your office pool for the release of longhorn?), and writing in specific code into windows to forbid it to run on top of DR-DOS. A company that had to cheat as much as Microsoft has, is not a company that hasn't faced competition. Rather it is a company that has used every resource it has to claw its way to the top.
The real question has more to do with whether Microsoft (or anyone) can constrain competition when the tools to create world-class applications are so inexpensive. I mean a pc for 300, linux for free, cheap broadband, cheap virtual hosting. Even Microsoft is giving away their development stuff for free. And with telephones becoming the new laptop, it just makes it even less clear how a big company gains. I mean it isn't going to be because of speed to release product if we are talking MSoft.
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As a preface, I spent some 10 years as an administrator at a LOTR based MUSH. With a time ratio of 3:1 It meant 3 years in Middle Earth (ME) went by in 1 year of real life. For you hobbits, that means that you give a birthday party every 4 months. Having started to play just a few years before the third age yr 3000, there was little real concern about what would happen in the 5 or so years when we had to actually stage the War of the Ring. Original founders had not really considered this an issue as the point was to create an environment for RP in the Tolkien world, not to play out the script of the books. However there was always some pressure from various philosophies of role play and game play in general, on whether we should in some way develop the long term story arc and whether to allow deviations from the general thread of events. This becomes pretty complicated as Tolkien had a sort of longer story arc than most, with events that occurred thousands of years before, in books some of the players had never read, having some impact. In fact, the more a player knew, and cared about Tolkien, the harder it was to play the game, knowing that on the one hand they might realisticly play their characters role, and on the other hand, they might run into situations where quality role play and story making conflicted with the actual plot in ways that only an expert might detect ahead of time.
This meant the typical uses of comic book/soap opera/RP retcon techniques (retroactive continuity...) which, ill used, creates a hostility so fierce that the term retcon in the MUSH gained the status of fighting words, i.e., if you did not intend to cause someone to freak out and begin an anti-fascist march at your home, you said things like 'we might want to adjust the outcome to match the theme a little more closely, and perhaps there is some backstory we could RP out to clarify why your character suddenly had to NOT slay Boromir as a 12 year old for kissing your pig. (That never happened... Or did it! Retcon!)
Anyway, the point is that, there were legitimate arguments to let things play out as if we got to year 3000 and let things diverge. There were others that said, lets get to year 3008 or so and then freeze until we figure things out, allowing the game clock to advance but maintaining the pre LOTR environment. Others wanted to move towards a sort of scripted version of the war, but of course focus also on the places that were not described, to explore how such a big event effected the other populations. (Places mentioned in a sentence have a whole life when you have 2000+ active players trying to play their favorite characters)
As an admin, alot of my effort was aimed towards providing guidance in resolving conflicts both operationally and thematically.
Now LOTR Online is not a MUSH. Players do not drive the content the same way. Most folks just want to see the sights and participate in the battles, and get that Tolkien feel. But the fact is that I won't be playing this game, having spent a decade of my life trying to combine fun, Tolkien, role play, and computers. I will never be real happy watching hordes of hobbits wandering around, making Frodo and Bilbo seem like homebodies, nor will Noldo elves dancing topless on mailboxes make me happy.
I prefer original works of fantasy. I love to read Tolkien. I first read the hobbit when I was 6, and was done with all the books (including Silmarilian which had just recently come out in soft cover) by the time I was 8.
I am glad more people are buying the books, and are excited by what I consider some of the greatest examples of story telling and most graceful uses of the English language. But to claim that knowing what will happen makes a game more playable, or that such an idea is new, is really quite absurd. There have been 100's of games in which we know the story. And if you really expect LOTR online to END for plot purposes, rather than because they are no longer making money, you are in the gardens of Lorien, dreaming away.
At work I like a nice stable environment, but I have traditionally used my home machine as a cutting edge tester. Using Beryl in that environment, I have crashed out of the window manager on a regular basis, have had the configuration become unusuable (as in either toss it or reload a saved config) for no clear reason, and certainly seen some performance degredation. That being said, I think its general functionality (once bugs get cleared out) is nifty. I love being able to see all my apps at once in context, love the fact that while I am moving things, and getting all those visual effects, windows are completely live (videos don't even jump). Since I rarely game anymore, it adds value to me having a decent video card.
.20 or whatever suggests one shouldn't run it with the idea that it is going to be rock stable. I look forward to it moving to that state. I think it is impressive enough as is.
The fact that it is
Didn't really read the article did we? The article blames Apple. I know that Apple's version of Vista has some compatibility with Microsoft or should I say OS X 10.4, but really, please stop whining about all the Vista Bashing, when the point of the article is a) that there is a user problem and when he goes to each company for support they pass the buck and b) the writer (probably erroneously since a BSOD is not really the fault of userland code) blames Apple for it.
:)
In any case..
READ
THE
FUCKING
ARTICLE.
I remember having marathon games of Carmaggedon and leaving the office to discover that just walking down the street without running over people was surprisingly difficult.
I can't see how driving afterwards would be unaffected.
Still I think people talking on their phones while driving probably outweighs any of it.
Not to mention the ones who are text messaging.
Again, as it has been pointed out clearly, if you promise something free upon purchase of something else that is not the same thing as simply offering to give something away for free, with a buyer beware, you get what you pay for.
Dell specifically offered to provide free upgrades to Vista for people who were buying Vista ready machines before the release, to get holiday sales.
We can assume that the reason really is the fact that they are shipping upgrades as fast as they can and the only folks who are going to be loud are the ones waiting. To suggest that they are really trying to hold off shipment until they can produce a disk with drivers that work for hardware they already certified as ready would be fraudulent (selling hardware they promise meets Microsofts criteria for whichever level of compatibility without it being true is a class action lawsuit, or a recall)
In any case the likeliest answer is that the release is less than 2 weeks old, we have had terrible winter weather over that time, and the number of people who idiotically were unable to wait to get a computer preloaded with their OS, probably is greater than expected, mostly because they have no idea what it really means to upgrade an OS, since its been some 5 years since there has been a major release.
I think if it is the Easter Bunny, then that DOES have bearing.
#1. Old news
#2. Apples and Oranges (IIS on Windows versus Apache on Linux? Which are we comparing?)
#3. Lack of detail: You can't see what system calls are really involved. No indication of configuration. No version numbers.
So that puts it in the realm of FUD, although the blogger does explain that its just a blog.
From my experience with Linux and Windows, the philosophical difference has to do with what is doing most of the work. In Windows a great deal of functionality is granted by the Windows API. As most programmers throughout the 90's know, Microsoft created their API around the functionality they needed for their own development, and then the rest of us had to buy the 'Secret' API manual with all the treats.
In Linux the Kernel where all those system calls go, is pretty limited compared to Windows. Where most functionality is added for developers is in shared libraries. Windows of course has the too, but its more a matter of where the real action is running. Is it in the kernel or in userspace. With Linux mostly its userspace, so there is less issues with software errors being capable of interfering with the machine itself. Still there are ways developers, especially of servers requiring some superuser priveleges (listening to ports under 1024) have provided security holes in basic interfaces (Sendmail and Bind for example). Still thats not reserved to Linux. Beyond that, we talk about the fact that Linux users don't run as root, but I have seen alot of irc session where the username of root is in the GID. So SOME folks do run as root. Whether the distributions now make that less necessary, that is also how Vista is going.
Apache is a bad project to compare other software too. It has been remarkably well developed both for stability and resisting sneaky security issues. Obviously one can muck up their configuration to reduce their security, but Apache itself (despite its initial moniker of being A patchy webserver) is a terrific example of well run coding projects.
IIS on the other hand is one of the posterchildren of security problems, with early versions not checking for navigation of parent directories, along with other trivial insecurites, based in some ways on permitting the developer to easily integrate IIS with other Microsoft tools.
So yes, IIS on Windows is more insecure than Apache on Linux. And Apache on Linux has always kicked IIS's ass in market share. I wonder if we compared Apache on Linux to Apache on Windows what we would find.
This is not really a rhetorical question: Why switch to Linux? I think if you have no answers for that question than the switch to Linux will be unsatisfying. If the answer has to do with 'i wanted to save money' well thats possibly valid, but I am pretty sure that the folks who don't want to pay for Linux are going to have the least impact on the economic driving forces.
(Note: I use whatever tools I have to use to satisfy job requirements. I try to use Linux when it is appropriate since I have been using it for 14 years, but i also use Windows, and MacOS)
So if the reason you are trying Linux because you want to evade paying Microsoft, then complaining because it doesn't integrate with your expensive Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is somewhat... backwards... There are solutions for shared calendars, shared address books, and e-mail. Whether or not you are prepared to integrate such a system instead of paying for Microsoft to do it is a question you can answer for your own situation.
Every operating system has issues. I have had hardware work BETTER in Linux than in Windows, as improbable as that sounds. It doesn't mean that I would 'give up on Microsoft' as I am bound by what my customer or employer wants. My ability to effectively implement solutions in Linux allows my customer or employer to use it effectively, and does create traction that allows Linux solutions to be taken seriously. But I don't try to make the Boss's secretary run it because then the Boss says 'I didn't get notified about my golf date because your damned Linux is broken'
Whereas, I do like the fact that my boss says 'We are going to switch over to Linux/MySQL as part of our backend standard... because I have answered the issues in THAT sort of environment'
It would be like saying I need a circular saw because I am trying to cut my toenails. How about not bitching that it isn't compatible and finding the right tool that solveS YOUR problem rather than just going with a tool because its hip.
(Circular Saws are ALWAYS hip)
There can be no doubt or argument that there should be only one open standard.
I believe that there IS doubt and argument on this topic. I personally am not even sure if you are suggesting that no one should argue for or against the idea of a single open standard.
Personally I see no reason that multiple standards should exist as long as they are open and maintained by independent bodies. The nature of file format standards which are clearly described and fully documented allow for translation between file formats as a relatively trivial effort. And when one finds this is not a trivial effort, then the standards diverge enough to suggest they have a real virtue as a seperate standard, perhaps by organizing the content in ways that have different purposes.
Beyond this, the idea of a single standard is attractive until the process of extending that standard becomes a competition for each affected party's primary concerns.
I am not sure why PDF and word processing documents have that much in common. PDF inherits from Postcript the idea that one can take the same language and describe a document for display or rendering on wide varities of devices. In many ways it is an output format.
Most word processing documents are designed to allow quick editing and organization of large documents. They are usually not optimized for display, except for a proliferation of markup which has a multiple personality disorder confusion as to whether it is content or layout.
I can see many reasons for multiple standards which are open. The idea of non-open standards make little sense to me. A standard needs to be open to be reliably standard. To suggest there is a standard and not communicate all details, nor allow others to use it without restriction is proprietary and not a true standard. Data formats which are proprietary have their purposes of course, but there are obviously benefits to encouraging standardization in an industry.
I just searched around on this, and was also disturbed by what I see which can be summed up by 'they tested it live, the developers fixed the bug based on the attack, the MOAB team posted a release with evidence of the attack, then removed it, then denied it happened, and denounced all potential proof as unreliable'
The parent shouldn't be modded flamebait, but thats not really important. Even the fact that they used it live was relatively minor (it wasn't infecting peoples computers as far as I could tell). What bothers me is that the lack of transparency they accuse Apple or other developers of, hardly seems valid in light of their own lack of honesty. This has been questioned before, and if they hadn't already made themselves look a bit foolish by targetting open source multiplatform tools, they certainly would have lost credibility based on this stunt.
I don't know that people posting exploits on a public site, and making press releases about it is the same as reporting bugs to a developer. I mean I am sure there are many people who have posted messages about exploiting bugs in some way in many forums, but mostly they aren't technically reporting those bugs to the developer. In the case of MOAB they explicitly have stated they were NOT reporting the bugs to the Apple, but were doing it a different way to force Apple to respond differently than their normal process. Now you accuse Apple of not treating this with their normal process.
Perhaps your expectations are the part that needs patching.
I was more troubled by the way they treated Omniweb, a small software company that has a good reputation for being responsive to users and released an update to the bug almost immediately. The workaround is to use Firefox (which has its own bugs) or wait for Omniweb to release a fix. They didn't bother to update their bug report to point to the fix.
I think in general they haven't got much press. People who argue that Apple's are no more secure than other OS's will continue to miss the point, which is that Microsoft intentionally designed their OS to allow their Email Reader or Word Processor to have the power to modify the OS. It wasn't a buffer overflow, improper validation of file formats. It was a feature designed to allow developers to create extensibility. The fix was to tell grandma not to open any email from anyone whose address she didn't recognize.
Yes it is true that diskutils and such is the kind of convenience that shields the user from understanding the repurcussions of permissions and other issues that can result in insecurity, but to suggest that someone who intentionally authenticates and authorizes System Administration tasks that overtly effects permissions on the box they are maintaining may effect security permissions on that machine is hard to justify as a security flaw. One may as well state that any machine that allows root access to anyone at all is inherently flawed. There ARE infact arguments that this is true, that there should be no root account, but that often just spreads the risk around to multiple accounts.
Similar flaws in devices in your home including chairs that can be used to hit people in the head, sharp knives, cars that allow the user to control the direction risking the possibility that they might drive into things, and lots of choking hazards such as doorknobs.
Yeah, it is hard to accuse Apple of dodging the project by explicitly highlighting their 'contribution'. I wonder what the author wanted to see.
"Oh Noez, W3 WUZ PWNED by the MO@B Kr3w!!!!"
Really pretty respectful to simply describe the bug, and describe the exploit that is specifically focussed on that bug, pointing the the source of it.
I think that MOAB did focus attention on some real issues although they had to stretch out some issues to multiple days (several DMG file structure errors which essentially were DOS at worst (a corrupt file shouldn't cause crashes it is true, but that can be one day worth of bugs since the fix is essentially 'validate file more effectively before loading it')
As far as the questions about things like diskutil restoring permissions on files that have lost their SUID bits due to being modified, thats a solid issue, although diskutil is run by administrative account from what I recall, and really points back to the question of how do you avoid having someone with an account on a machine they have in their home or office from getting root access, and then not doing stupid things to their machine. Basicly the same can be said about any system that allows someone root access. There is no OS that can stop SU from fraking things up as far as I know.
Anyway, I think the real truth is that there are no great showstoppers. Omniweb closed their security flaw the day it was released (and wondered why they couldn't have been contacted prior to the publicity. Any argument that 'Apple ignores bug reports' sort of goes to hell when talking about third party software issued). Even worse was day two's focus on VLC a project that has less relevance on Apple's OS than it does in the Linux world. I think they should have focused on things Apple needed to fix, rather than things that break on Apples, just like they break everywhere, without Apple having much to do with it at all, nor any real influence on the developers. I mean technically you could put any Window security issue into the Apple MOAB since Windows apps run on Macs these days. Is that helpful? Not really.
So I would say that Apple has shown a willingness to respond to a bug report, I have not really seen them creating negative press against the MOAB folks, and there hasn't really been a showstopper that was strong enough to get mainstream press.
I have had a second life account for over a year. I have some typical number of Lindon dollars. I have never bought more. I have never spent any. I have no real understanding of the economy, except that if I want to import a graphic image into the system it costs money, so I don't.
I am sure I am missing out, but lots of people have GIVEN me things that I assume cost someone money at some point. That of course dilutes the value of the investment. The pay back probably involves social status, similar to potlatch societies where whomever gives away more is the 'wealthiest'.
Clearly the actual issue is how to convert ANY of that into real value, in a way that economists can equate either directly or analogously to real world value, such as income or return on investment.
What this article does most effectively is highlight the lack of support for predictable commerce. The same is true in countries with unregulated financial systems, and the factors of anonymous commerce, no legal system, and essentially no reliable contract, means that the only commerce that is effective for most people involves commerce in which there is a low stake, which means that actual use and accumulation of wealth is both hindered, and less valuable.
This is a vending machine economy. Its based on a million players putting in a quarter in a slot machine, or buy a new outfit, face, body etc... Things that are specifically part of the online environment (playing with toys or enhancing your visual representation)...
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Second Life really is more interesting because it is the equivalent of a Graphical MUSH where all the users have the ability to create items. I can create any number of items, and give them away or clone them. A good item may be worth something but since any good item can be reverse engineered and distributed at no cost, there is little value to developing quality code except for social praise. Real designers and coders actually can earn good livings in the 'FIRST WORLD' so most of what you see is toys made by people for fun, which makes alot of sense.
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Last but not least, its a crappy environment for real development. It is harder to output text in any meaningful format. Thats an intentional crippling to force people who want to create content to have to pay to input graphics, rather than write code to actually draw graphics. Pretty regressive considering the direction of the web, which enables REAL commerce and has created a good amount of wealth.
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When SecondLife stops being a scam, and supports real internet technology and openness, perhaps it will also draw the kind of mindshare that will create real value and an honest marketplace, but that is a different economic model. For now, its mostly a place to play john and whore and part of that means paying, and if that happens to let your one dollar turn into 250, then the game seems more exciting. If a grown woman and parent of two actually believes that earning 185 dollars a month for being a whore and a mule for money laundering is good money, then I guess thats what she deems herself worth. Hard to argue with that sort of capitalism.
a) I think that the creative designers work on whatever platform they are hired to work on, or which best support their interest. I don't think they are limited to phones or desktop. The actual creative work there is the same. So I would say that as long as the platform supports the designers they will happily design for it.
b) The whole front being a touch screen isn't really original. I think the Newton was all touch screen. Original palms were almost entirely touch screen. What is original is a multi-touch interface. No Consumer product has one as far as I know. There is alot of interface research going on about this sort of technology but in general they work using a set of cameras or other sensors and are table top. So while not ENTIRELY original, the idea of an interface in which more than one finger can be used at once allows some metaphors that we haven't seen yet. Thats where the designers are really going to go nuts... And lets also note the fact that there is no stylus. That means the screen is engineered for fingers. That is new too. I am very interested to see what the actual useability will be like.
c) They made it REALLY clear that they have 200 patents on this. That touchscreen if it works out will become the only way to go, and Apple owns that technology lock stock and barrel. I don't doubt there will be an iMac, an iPod and maybe even MacBook's that will come with it. Again depending on how well it works, it probably will define the tablet, handheld market.
We will see...
I am more interested in what the multi-touch screen interface will do as far as interface development. I mean the Time article talks about this starting off as a 'tablet' prototype but the screen itself drove Jobs to push the project in this direction. I have seen some high-end multi-touch demonstrations on large scale panels, and its pretty major, moving away from the single cursor and the click,drag,double-click. The fact that there are motion sensors, proximity sensors, and light sensors, also has me thinking.
I am not sure why they didn't provide a lens on the front for the obvious video iChat possibilities.
I note that by supporting the dashboard widgets (and no doubt google widgets will work soon enough) I think this will provide alot of custom apps with internet backends.
I think folks who take the 8 gig max as too small for storage are unclear on the concept entirely. Is there a phone this small out there that has anything like that?
I can't wait to see about the development details. Will developers have an API to the random access voice mail? They say its true multitasking. but does that mean I can play an audio file to someone over the phone?
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Depending on how well the touch screen does, I wonder if this will generate that tablet...
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I notice no one really cares about AppleTV. Does anyone want one?
Anyone?
Bueller?
I would assume providing tools that permit the access to this illegal content also are inside of the permitting or condoning the download of copyrighted material (which we agree is anything published anywhere really).
Mozilla, Opera, Internet Explorer...
It seems we are on a slippery slope.
There is such a long list of why the Zune has a marketability problem in the mainstream consumer market.
#1. Wierd name: No really. Zune is wierd. iPod is wierd too but it has the advantage of approaching generic status. Even saying Zune feels funny. I would say it actually makes it hard for salespeople to talk about it.
#2. Accessories. Everything that is an mp3 accessory says 'iPod compatible'. A store is going to always try to bundle stuff, or otherwise get the secondary sale. They are going to try to sell some speakers, a dock, a case, a transmitter, and any number of things. None of these products say 'Zune' even if they aren't specifically iPod.
#3. One Tier vs Many Tier. If you want to buy someone an iPod, you can get a shuffle all the way to the 60 gig video. In between you have a range of Nano, and lower end Video. So as far as a store is concerned, any person coming in might be talked up a level, or 'Is there a smaller one?' It's true that a salesperson pushing a Zune could go to a Sansa or whatnot, but do you really see them Stepping their customer down away from the iPod premium brand which they have heavy stock in, to point to the competitors.
#4. Families that Pod together stay together: If you have iPod's in the house and all your music is in iTunes, then the Zune means a seperate store of files. Even if you are a CD ripping bunch, thats annoying at best. The Music store customers are even more locked in. And stores also know this. They are not going to push a product down a customers throat that is going to make them the blacksheep of the household.:) ALl that will do is give a 'Hey i need to trade in my 249 dollar zune for a 249 ipod, because this thing doesn't work with my stuff at home.'
#5. Not enough tie in to other Microsoft products. If you were offering a free mouse, or a Zune/Xbox bundle, I assure you there would be a stronger sales model. For a company legendary for leveraging market position, Microsoft really put the Zune out on its own. They didn't even support their own music store or their builtin software on their OS. If Zune worked BETTER than any other mp3 player in Windows (wifi syncing? easier music list generation? better support of podcasts?) then they might be able to muscle in. Even if it took Vista to make it all happen. Heck, Microsoft is going to essentially be supporting USB drives as extended memory, but the Zune doesn't seem to be built to be supported for THAT! Can you imagine how easy it would be to sell this if it included a small dictation feature or the capability to work with word documents in some new way? Tie in. Lock in. Businessmen buy the Zune with the excuse that they need it for work. Nope.
Windows XP-64 bit works fine for me. It seems alot more stable in many ways than the 32 bit xp. It definately starts up faster. I haven't had any driver issues, but I use obscure hardware by companies named NVidia and HP. I would check if you have anything strange.
On occasion I have run into programs that acted up because I was in 64, but there are usually alternatives.
In Linux I have had 0 problems using Ubuntu. The packages are all built for my AMD64. There are occasional issues in terms of things like Flash where you need to run a 32 bit browser for that. Since browsing doesn't much care on the 64 bit front, I don't sweat it. Where it probably makes a real difference is if you are doing work with SQL or graphics where 64 bit integers are more common.
If they did, then they would be accused of stifling a clearly important niche for development. Take hold of the opportunity and make your fortune!
a) I think the nonsense about the 250 toaster is almost as bad as 0.002 cents=0.002 dollars. It assumes that the existence of said toaster is a validation of the argument, simply by saying 'i bet it sells well'. Does he own one? Does anyone he knows? And do people buying this toaster because it has more complexity speak to its quality design compared to say another toaster that allows the user the same level of control in a simpler way? My answer is that the existence of a complex thing to solve a problem does not relegate the simpler objects to obscelesence. And since he brought up cars:
b) Automatic transmissions. Fuel Injection. Anti-Lock breaks. Power Steering. Power Windows. Keyless entry. Do any of those concepts sound like they have made the interface to driving more complex? No. What they have done is taken the interface of driving, and cars and made improvements that maintained the concept of how driving works. Even though you may no longer have direct control of the mechanical, the interface is almost identical. Does standard transmission still exist (and infact is quite popular). Yes. It is more efficient and cheaper. And in 'performance' vehicles, even those interfaces are actually just as indirect as the automatic transmission.
c) Useability involves the relationship between the interface and the expected functionality in the context of the intended user. If the user expects certain things to happen in a certain way and they do, and the user can do all the things they expect they should be able to do, then the user does not really notice the interface. If on the other hand, the effect of a user action is either unpredictable or counter-intuitive, then we see a learning-curve, or mistakes. Side-effects that are unclear, business logic that is obscure, all tend to create unuseable systems. Sometimes this alone creates the requirement for an interface that is not ideal. Is it intuitive that the computer's interface is a desktop? At this point, yes. Is that thing you are looking at REALLY a window? Nope. Is there any other context in which an object shaped like a bar of soap is used to select, draw, point, or do anything besides erase?
d) QWERTY was designed to prevent jams in early typewriters. How does that relate to even the IBM Typewriter (with the ball) not to mention computers? It doesn't. But if you change the keyboard layout, people will consider that too difficult. What is simple is often what is familiar.
I believe the new name is really going to be Nullity.
Or maybe Aquality.
Or Aquainess.
This could be the least content of any story I have read.
It's all related
So does that mean I can marry my hot cousin?
I will give a fast list of companies. Some of them you may have heard of.
Apple
IBM (OS/2)
Novell (Netware)
Sun (Java, Solaris)
Lotus (Ever heard of Lotus 123?)
WordPerfect (I always thought that Microsoft DOS Word 3.0 was a brilliant WP. Very little interface. WordPerfect was clearly the big dog and it still has penetration in the legal field)
Netscape
It is true that many of these competitors were the #1 player and Microsoft managed to pass them. To suggest that none of them could compete with Microsoft seems to be based on the idea that if Microsoft won, then clearly the competitors were not even in the same league, whereas in most cases it has more to do with business cases. Google hasn't even started to compete against Microsoft in any meaningful way. While giving away software is a way to gain market penetration, (Microsoft gave away IE to beat Netscape), eventually you have to look at the way people make money. Microsoft does this through enterprise licensing, (wherein, they charge per user in environments that already have technical support staff so they have less to worry about as far as support), and through bundling their software on new PC's, where they charge less per copy but know that DELL will cover user support and software installation.
In any case to suggest Microsoft has never been in competition with companies with significant resources is nonsensical. The fact that their techniques of requiring PC manufacturers to sell their OS on every machine they ship or pay higher per machine licenses allowed them to shut out all other OS's (why buy two operating systems when I HAVE to buy windows) was unfair and predatory, or that their tradition of non-public API's allowed their own apps to have improved performance, or their tendency of announcing vaporware (did you put in 2006 or 2007 in your office pool for the release of longhorn?), and writing in specific code into windows to forbid it to run on top of DR-DOS. A company that had to cheat as much as Microsoft has, is not a company that hasn't faced competition. Rather it is a company that has used every resource it has to claw its way to the top.
The real question has more to do with whether Microsoft (or anyone) can constrain competition when the tools to create world-class applications are so inexpensive. I mean a pc for 300, linux for free, cheap broadband, cheap virtual hosting. Even Microsoft is giving away their development stuff for free. And with telephones becoming the new laptop, it just makes it even less clear how a big company gains. I mean it isn't going to be because of speed to release product if we are talking MSoft.
Just as an aside, can you think of any object where this is not true?