Open source software, with a few exceptions, doesn't normally have the polish that commercial software has, for the most part. People can and DO pay for that polish. Same goes for certain operating systems. Jesus christ you'd think Slashdot was full of poor people who don't believe in making money or spending money to make one's life easier.
Who's up for guessing what the difference is between Windows 7 'Starter' and Windows 7 'Home Basic?'
Why guess? LOOK IT UP. If you're uncertain about Vista differences for example, there's plenty of info (Microsoft's site and wikipedia's entry for Vista) about what a certain version has or doesn't have. Yes some versions are useless (eg. starter), but Microsoft isn't trying to trick anyone, all the info is publically available. Has been for Vista and I'm sure Win 7.
Don't anyone bother doing a little googling before buying something? It's not that hard. One size doesn't always fit all.
Of course, perhaps a patent armageddon is just about due right now.
I don't think sending Bruce Willis to drill down into the heart of Apple HQ, plant a nuke and detonate it while still stuck inside is a worthwhile course of action.
It's 2009... I can't believe we're still dealing with this crap in 2009.
What makes 2009 a special year?
Worms like this are so valuable to organized crime that they cannot be stopped entirely. Particularly since this has all happened due to social engineering rather than technical reasons (ie. people not updating Windows for a variety of reasons).
Funny, it seems like programs in Linux just want to seg fault whenever they like. Linux doesn't even provide a means of knowing when something has seg faulted unless they are paying attention to console messages, which most people using GUIs are not. Seen it with exaile, pidgin, evolution, even firefox. Fucking disgusting and at a worse rate than Windows.
UK Judge Grants Extradition Review To Cracker Gary McKinnon Just because some geeks feel the term "hacker" has been misused in society doesn't mean a thing. The world recognizes malicious entry into a system as hacking, whether we want to accept this or not.
Society defines the language, not a small subset who doesn't understand how a language is able to change.
Sometimes I wonder if the RIAA (and for that matter the MPAA) will ever change.
Must we wait for the old fogies currently running the joint to die of old age before younger people, who've grown up with modern tech and know how futile the legal threats/proceedings are, finally get in charge?
Don't you think it would be even more popular if you could do anything you want with it, not just anything Apple wants you to do?
Unfortunately I'm shackled with a geek perspective on things so I honestly don't know. It SOUNDS like it should, but given how damn popular the thing, I'm kinda thinking Steve Jobs knows what he's doing by keeping it locked down.
On the other hand, what percentage of people who buy an iPhone jailbreak it? If we can find out these details and it's significant, then you might have a point.
I bet if the App store didn't exist we would at least have a beta version of FF for the iPhone now.
If the App store didn't exist the iPhone wouldn't be as popular as it is. By having total control, Apple can ensure applications on the store are up to their standards, conforming to certain specifications like the GUI. This ultimately provides a higher quality app selection (in theory).
Of course, you're a geek, so you don't think like a normal person (no offense, just how I differentiate). But Apple obviously doesn't care about this, and the iPhone is flourishing because they don't bother catering to the geek. If you are worried about competition being stifled, go with one of those Android-based phones.
It's not anymore, in Vista and Windows 7. Now it has its own dedicated application, as it should have from the beginning.
But people always keep complaining about update having to require IE, which it does in XP. It annoys me slightly because Microsoft DID improve this in Vista, but since Vista supposedly sucks, this fact is lost on the/. crowd. Not targeting you specifically though, just a general complaint.
100% correct, you can't trust pirated software. However from MY experience (emphasis on "my"), the odds of something bad happening are very low so long as you use some common sense. After using pirated software for so long, you don't really worry about such things happening because otherwise, you'd hear about them, read about them, etc.
Having said that, I'm trying to avoid pirating software these days, but the skills obtained from my younger years don't just fade.
Well to me, they're not hassles. They're as routine a skill as riding a bike. Heck if you use private trackers it's even more reliable that you'll get what you want (and working well). Using torrents and correctly obtaining what you want does come better with experience, but like everything else in life that requires effort, the payoff is generally worth it.
I still insist of having a copy of Office 2007 installed because there's that RARE occasion where something completely stuffs up in OpenOffice.
Late last year (after OpenOffice 3 was released), as part of my postgraduate enrollment I had to fill out a form detailing the work done during the year. The idea was for the student to fill out the form electronically and then print it out and submit it. The form was a.doc file and contained various interactive elements such as checkboxes, which I didn't even know Word supported. In Office 2003 and 2007, it loads up just fine. In OpenOffice 3, Writer HANGS INDEFINITELY. It doesn't even bother crashing, it just stays there using all the CPU for no obvious reason.
I suppose I could have printed it out, filled it in by hand and submitted it, but instead I took the easy way out and resorted to Office 2007. Now obviously the Uni should have supplied something like a PDF where I could fill in the details, which would have worked well and worked anywhere, but they didn't, because everyone uses Office right?
Now obviously such.doc files aren't that common, but when you absolutely positively need to read a.doc file the way it was meant to be seen, using MS Office is pretty much the only choice. It's not 100% guaranteed to show things perfectly (as people have already mentioned), but it's still the best chance, particularly for esoteric forms like I had.
And before someone points out that I should have submitted a bug report - (a) I couldn't work out how to, (b) It wouldn't have helped me at the time, and (c) The fact that only now a 2005 bug is going to be fixed in 3.1 shows that bug fixing isn't always a priority with Sun.
If you want Microsoft Office, go bite the bullet, pay the price, or deal with the hassles of your bootleg copy.
What hassles? My pirated version is pre-activated, which makes it more valuable than the legit version because I don't have to worry about hitting some arbitrary limit of installs if I reformat. Same with Vista/XP.
The only hassles of pirated software are when people don't have enough experience acquiring such software. If you get stuff through Limewire, then sure, things probably aren't going to be that pleasant. But looking for something like "microsoft office" on the pirate bay, sorting by seeders and skimming the comments ensures you'll get something of quality, for the most part.
Heh, it's funny. I actually bought a legit copy of Office 2007 since I'm a postgraduate student and hence qualify for that special promo where it costs AUD$79, far cheaper than normal. However, I felt so uncomfortable in having to activate it every time I reformatted than I just got the same version off the torrent sites, pre-activated. I figure, I've payed for the legit copy, so morally I've done nothing wrong. Have I?
Why do people keep referring to Win 7 as a service pack for Vista?
With that logic I could say XP is a service pack of 2000.
Operating systems don't need to be evolutionary, and in many cases it better they aren't. Incremental improvements from a (questionable) proven base are better than making too different and new.
I think people keep forgetting history when it comes to MS operating systems.
Concerns about privacy are FUD simply because privacy in the modern world is completely and utterly DEAD.
The notion of privacy died as soon as credit cards, search engines and social networking sites became so prominent. Accept this brave new world we live in, and life becomes less stressful.
Slashdot Mirror
What's wrong with buying an OS?
Open source software, with a few exceptions, doesn't normally have the polish that commercial software has, for the most part. People can and DO pay for that polish. Same goes for certain operating systems. Jesus christ you'd think Slashdot was full of poor people who don't believe in making money or spending money to make one's life easier.
Why guess? LOOK IT UP. If you're uncertain about Vista differences for example, there's plenty of info (Microsoft's site and wikipedia's entry for Vista) about what a certain version has or doesn't have. Yes some versions are useless (eg. starter), but Microsoft isn't trying to trick anyone, all the info is publically available. Has been for Vista and I'm sure Win 7.
Don't anyone bother doing a little googling before buying something? It's not that hard. One size doesn't always fit all.
I don't think sending Bruce Willis to drill down into the heart of Apple HQ, plant a nuke and detonate it while still stuck inside is a worthwhile course of action.
What makes 2009 a special year?
Worms like this are so valuable to organized crime that they cannot be stopped entirely. Particularly since this has all happened due to social engineering rather than technical reasons (ie. people not updating Windows for a variety of reasons).
Funny, it seems like programs in Linux just want to seg fault whenever they like. Linux doesn't even provide a means of knowing when something has seg faulted unless they are paying attention to console messages, which most people using GUIs are not. Seen it with exaile, pidgin, evolution, even firefox. Fucking disgusting and at a worse rate than Windows.
Hmm, in that case I revise my question?
How long until JEWS are no longer running these companies?
Sometimes I wonder if the RIAA (and for that matter the MPAA) will ever change.
Must we wait for the old fogies currently running the joint to die of old age before younger people, who've grown up with modern tech and know how futile the legal threats/proceedings are, finally get in charge?
Unfortunately I'm shackled with a geek perspective on things so I honestly don't know. It SOUNDS like it should, but given how damn popular the thing, I'm kinda thinking Steve Jobs knows what he's doing by keeping it locked down.
On the other hand, what percentage of people who buy an iPhone jailbreak it? If we can find out these details and it's significant, then you might have a point.
If the App store didn't exist the iPhone wouldn't be as popular as it is. By having total control, Apple can ensure applications on the store are up to their standards, conforming to certain specifications like the GUI. This ultimately provides a higher quality app selection (in theory).
Of course, you're a geek, so you don't think like a normal person (no offense, just how I differentiate). But Apple obviously doesn't care about this, and the iPhone is flourishing because they don't bother catering to the geek. If you are worried about competition being stifled, go with one of those Android-based phones.
It's not anymore, in Vista and Windows 7. Now it has its own dedicated application, as it should have from the beginning.
But people always keep complaining about update having to require IE, which it does in XP. It annoys me slightly because Microsoft DID improve this in Vista, but since Vista supposedly sucks, this fact is lost on the /. crowd. Not targeting you specifically though, just a general complaint.
100% correct, you can't trust pirated software. However from MY experience (emphasis on "my"), the odds of something bad happening are very low so long as you use some common sense. After using pirated software for so long, you don't really worry about such things happening because otherwise, you'd hear about them, read about them, etc.
Having said that, I'm trying to avoid pirating software these days, but the skills obtained from my younger years don't just fade.
Well to me, they're not hassles. They're as routine a skill as riding a bike. Heck if you use private trackers it's even more reliable that you'll get what you want (and working well). Using torrents and correctly obtaining what you want does come better with experience, but like everything else in life that requires effort, the payoff is generally worth it.
As for future updates, never had a problem.
I still insist of having a copy of Office 2007 installed because there's that RARE occasion where something completely stuffs up in OpenOffice.
Late last year (after OpenOffice 3 was released), as part of my postgraduate enrollment I had to fill out a form detailing the work done during the year. The idea was for the student to fill out the form electronically and then print it out and submit it. The form was a .doc file and contained various interactive elements such as checkboxes, which I didn't even know Word supported. In Office 2003 and 2007, it loads up just fine. In OpenOffice 3, Writer HANGS INDEFINITELY. It doesn't even bother crashing, it just stays there using all the CPU for no obvious reason.
I suppose I could have printed it out, filled it in by hand and submitted it, but instead I took the easy way out and resorted to Office 2007. Now obviously the Uni should have supplied something like a PDF where I could fill in the details, which would have worked well and worked anywhere, but they didn't, because everyone uses Office right?
Now obviously such .doc files aren't that common, but when you absolutely positively need to read a .doc file the way it was meant to be seen, using MS Office is pretty much the only choice. It's not 100% guaranteed to show things perfectly (as people have already mentioned), but it's still the best chance, particularly for esoteric forms like I had.
And before someone points out that I should have submitted a bug report - (a) I couldn't work out how to, (b) It wouldn't have helped me at the time, and (c) The fact that only now a 2005 bug is going to be fixed in 3.1 shows that bug fixing isn't always a priority with Sun.
What hassles? My pirated version is pre-activated, which makes it more valuable than the legit version because I don't have to worry about hitting some arbitrary limit of installs if I reformat. Same with Vista/XP.
The only hassles of pirated software are when people don't have enough experience acquiring such software. If you get stuff through Limewire, then sure, things probably aren't going to be that pleasant. But looking for something like "microsoft office" on the pirate bay, sorting by seeders and skimming the comments ensures you'll get something of quality, for the most part.
Heh, it's funny. I actually bought a legit copy of Office 2007 since I'm a postgraduate student and hence qualify for that special promo where it costs AUD$79, far cheaper than normal. However, I felt so uncomfortable in having to activate it every time I reformatted than I just got the same version off the torrent sites, pre-activated. I figure, I've payed for the legit copy, so morally I've done nothing wrong. Have I?
Why do people keep referring to Win 7 as a service pack for Vista?
With that logic I could say XP is a service pack of 2000.
Operating systems don't need to be evolutionary, and in many cases it better they aren't. Incremental improvements from a (questionable) proven base are better than making too different and new.
I think people keep forgetting history when it comes to MS operating systems.
Concerns about privacy are FUD simply because privacy in the modern world is completely and utterly DEAD.
The notion of privacy died as soon as credit cards, search engines and social networking sites became so prominent. Accept this brave new world we live in, and life becomes less stressful.