We have them over here as well. Our national pasttime seems to be to wreck them, so they're now starting to put up cameras to watch the speeding cameras.
Chirac a leftie? Uhm, no. Someone, I don't remember who, put it thus: 'Right now, the people of France have a choice between the corrupt right and the fascist right'.
The original poster did have a point, btw. In Belgium, citizens are *required* to vote. All those people who don't really want to vote but have to, vote Vlaams Blok (=extreme right).
Bad management aside, TW has tangible assets. They sell *stuff*, mostly, and 'stuff' is worth money. I agree with you that it's managed very badly, but I was talking about how AOL used the money investors gave them for their *idea* to buy *stuff*, which in my opinion was a smart thing to do.
This is different, though. HP vs. Compaq is about two similar companies merging to reap the (perceived) benefits of increasing scale. AOL vs. TimeWarner, on the other hand, I've always felt to be about an overpriced dotcompany doing the smart thing and taking all that investor money to buy something that was actually worth something. Yahoo should've done the same thing and bought Disney back when they could.
As far as the flames you direct against AMD, I'd say they're mostly, uhm, bullshit, I think the term is.
But you have brought up an interesting point. Know the old adagium 'no one's ever been fired for buying IBM'? Well, it's still around today and it's called 'no one's ever been fired for buying Intel'.
If your AMD craps out, your boss will be all over you for choosing a 'non standard CPU'. If your Intel craps out, it's just bad luck (which it is if your AMD craps out as well, but your boss doesn't know that).
Have you ever tried using even DreamWeaver on a 400MHz machine
Yes I have. A 400MHz Celeron, in fact. Runs just fine.
Audio apps were doing great on that same machine as well, until Fruityloops 3.4 came out (january this year) and I discovered I wanted to run 30 VSTs simultaneously. Only now am I thinking of upgrading that machine's CPU.
My main PC, of course, has 256MB of RAM, which helps a lot, but even when it had a mere 128, Dreamweaver, CuBase, SoundForge etc were running like a dream.
...in another country, the speed cams posted at intersections were being stolen, so they had to install spy cams to monitor the speed cams....too funny.
Yes, and that country would be the Netherlands. Only the speed cams weren't stolen, they were demolished.
Nope, I agree that older versions of Photoshop had useful features, but the other day I was reading the specs for PS7 with a graphically oriented friend of mine and we both felt the update had nothing of worth to offer. Photoshop shouldn't add all those crappy effects and claim it's a worthwhile update - it isn't.
I don't know what version of Mozilla you're running, but none of those bugs sound familiar to me (running 0.9.9). Sure, for some things, you'll need to have IE handy, but most of the time I can surf happily and carefree in Mozilla (the browser where hitting the back button doesn't compromise your system;-) ).
C'mon, how beta is Mozilla exactly (except in name)? Lots of people, including myself, use it for day to day browsing, both on Windows (where there's a superb alternative available called IE) and on Linux. Not all of them are doing it because they hate Microsoft, but because the damn thing actually works (and comes with a bunch of nifty features IE doesn't have). It doesn't crash (no more than IE, probably less), it renders most pages flawlessly (except the ones that use IE specific code) and it's pretty fast (once it's started up).
Face it, Mozilla is no longer the promising piece of perennial betaware it was even six months ago - it's a damn fine displayer of webpages (browser) with some extra icing that promises to make it a hell of a lot more.
I agree with you that Netscape 4.x was a bug ridden piece of shit and every web designer's nightmare back in the day, but in 2002 we've got this thing called Mozilla that actually works ninety percent of the time and that is practically nothing like Netscape, not even Netscape 6, which sucks almost as bad as its predecessor. Mozilla 0.9.99999999999 is a great browser and if you're not indulging on IE-centric JavaScript, you'll have no problems with it whatsoever. Well, a few, but nothing serious.
He wasn't talking about spreadsheets and PowerPoint, he was talking about custom made software for which there *isn't* an alternative handy on linux. So if what he's saying is true and *those* apps *do* tend to work with unmodified Windows 95 (a statement that is somewhat debatable, as it's fairly easy to make sure that a limited number of company desktops feature at least Windows patch X, and I'm pretty sure that happens every now and then), getting big companies to migrate to linux will be easier once WINE can do the Win95 API well. StarOffice will handle the rest for them.
Off the top of my head, USB support comes to mind, as well as the networking stack (I may be wrong about that one, though). Since I'm not a Windows developer, I can't name specific API's however, so you've got me there.
I'm basing my statement solely on the fact that there's a ton of updates for Windows since 95. Often these updates affect core OS functions. Also, every time you install a new version of a Microsoft app, such as Office or Internet Explorer, you're in reality updating half of your operating system (Win98 w/ windowsupdates applied dilligently, Office2k and Explorer 5.5 is basically the same thing as WinME, for example). Then there's DirectX, that isn't a part of vanilla Win95. Without a recent version of it, your games won't run (mostly). Finally, though I admit I'm threading on developer territory here where maybe I shouldn't (flame away), I know MFCxx.DLL has seen a few updates, almost every Windows app depends on this DLL and recent ones (those that were made with VisualStudio 6, say) depend on the latest version of it being present. There's probably quite a few people here who can shed light on exactly how fundamental the latest changes in this API library are. As a Windows user, I can only attest to the fact that nearly every app you install will make sure 4.2 is present. Since this DLL provides a lot of the core functions of Windows, this alone means that the WINE developers can't just aim for Win95 compatibility and leave it at that.
My point is that there is no such thing as 'vanilla Windows 95' in use today (except on a, I imagine, very limited number of glorified typewriters that run nothing more recent than Office 95 or whatever it's called). I *seriously* doubt that what this guy says is true, about developers making sure their apps will run on 'vanilla Windows 95'. I, for one, can't think of a single app that does.
I doubt that it will be enough for WINE developers to catch up with Win95. No one uses the out-of-the-box version of Win95 anymore, do they? There's all sorts of updates you need to get your software running and, yes, those updates include additions/changes to the API.
I do the same thing, at least for internet services I don't really care to much about. I'll use the same, really stupid, password for things like audiogalaxy and other services where I don't really care if my 'account' gets 'hacked'. To log into my provider's network, however, I have a fairly decent password.
I don't think this is a terribly stupid thing to do, just convenient is all.
Of course they are to blame and of course static linking isn't always a smart thing to do, I was just saying that because they design their software to be easy to use (not such a bad decision IMHO - I'd hate to have my dad run linux), getting patches out the door is going to be a little more difficult for them to do than it is for Linux distros.
I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. Not much will be lost, really. 90 percent of what constitutes music these days is a hack job done on antiquated ADAT or harddisk recorders by engineers who've pretty much forgotten the fine old art of miking things. Then it gets slammed through some extremely damaging compressor presets to 'make it as loud as possible' repeatedly.
MP3-ing this kind of music doesn't make it sound any worse than it already does.
Old music, you say? Well, maybe 'tube (pre)amps have warmth' and 'tape saturation makes instruments sink into the mix in a pleasant fashion', but analog technology also has the drawback of introducing a lot of signal distortion and noise 'true audiophiles' probably aren't interested in. I'll grant you, however, that MP3 encoding isn't terribly nice to such material.
On a positive note, the techniques (or factory presets) sound engineers use are geared towards optimizing the output for whatever the material is most likely to be played on. So if MP3s become the norm, expect music to be produced specifically for this format. You're right: this does make 'really excellent audio equipment pointless', but no more pointless than it is now, with music being produced in such a way that it sounds good on tv or FM radio.
I've built a number of Win2k boxes in my time, and Win2k installation and setup is a breeze. I cannot say that for my experiences with installing Linux.
Maybe, just out of curiosity, you should try one of the newer distros - SuSE or Mandrake are laughably easy to setup nowadays. Pop in the cd, tell it what kind of hardware you have, done. Although I must say I agree with you that if you're looking for a platform to do 3D, image processing, video or audio on, Win2K is probably a better choice.
They're not dealing with a fairly small number of reasonably savvy users who go to read slashdot, discover that zlib has a bug and decide to go fix their systems. MS deals with millions upon millions of 'ordinary users' who run dozens of programs that have zlib linked statically (we've just been told) and who have absolutely no idea what zlib is, what their systems use it for or how to patch it (well, they can't, because it's statically linked). So it makes sense for MS to determine first which apps are affected, in what way (is DirectX ever going to run into this problem? if yes, what are the consequences? if no, or if the consequences aren't serious enough, getting millions upon millions of clueless users to download a DirectX patch ASAP isn't worth the trouble). I agree with you that they should have information handy on which of their apps link to zlib, but who's to say they don't and they're just taking this time to conduct a risk inventory (they're a big ass bureaucratic monstrosity after all)?
You don't need it, though. The latest milestone (don't know about previous versions) has a search button. Type your search terms in the address bar et voila! You can configure which search engine you want to use for this.
In that case you should check your mobo. I've been told bad mobo's lead to all sorts of interference on sound cards. But of course if you've got your sound card placed right next to your video card, I'd fix that problem first...
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We have them over here as well. Our national pasttime seems to be to wreck them, so they're now starting to put up cameras to watch the speeding cameras.
Chirac a leftie? Uhm, no. Someone, I don't remember who, put it thus: 'Right now, the people of France have a choice between the corrupt right and the fascist right'.
The original poster did have a point, btw. In Belgium, citizens are *required* to vote. All those people who don't really want to vote but have to, vote Vlaams Blok (=extreme right).
It is, actually. Fat people preserve energy (fat) to sustain them when food is scarce.
Yeah, so you can piss on the latest Microsoft ad.
Bad management aside, TW has tangible assets. They sell *stuff*, mostly, and 'stuff' is worth money. I agree with you that it's managed very badly, but I was talking about how AOL used the money investors gave them for their *idea* to buy *stuff*, which in my opinion was a smart thing to do.
This is different, though. HP vs. Compaq is about two similar companies merging to reap the (perceived) benefits of increasing scale. AOL vs. TimeWarner, on the other hand, I've always felt to be about an overpriced dotcompany doing the smart thing and taking all that investor money to buy something that was actually worth something. Yahoo should've done the same thing and bought Disney back when they could.
As far as the flames you direct against AMD, I'd say they're mostly, uhm, bullshit, I think the term is.
But you have brought up an interesting point. Know the old adagium 'no one's ever been fired for buying IBM'? Well, it's still around today and it's called 'no one's ever been fired for buying Intel'.
If your AMD craps out, your boss will be all over you for choosing a 'non standard CPU'. If your Intel craps out, it's just bad luck (which it is if your AMD craps out as well, but your boss doesn't know that).
Have you ever tried using even DreamWeaver on a 400MHz machine
Yes I have. A 400MHz Celeron, in fact. Runs just fine.
Audio apps were doing great on that same machine as well, until Fruityloops 3.4 came out (january this year) and I discovered I wanted to run 30 VSTs simultaneously. Only now am I thinking of upgrading that machine's CPU.
My main PC, of course, has 256MB of RAM, which helps a lot, but even when it had a mere 128, Dreamweaver, CuBase, SoundForge etc were running like a dream.
Yes, and that country would be the Netherlands. Only the speed cams weren't stolen, they were demolished.
Nope, I agree that older versions of Photoshop had useful features, but the other day I was reading the specs for PS7 with a graphically oriented friend of mine and we both felt the update had nothing of worth to offer. Photoshop shouldn't add all those crappy effects and claim it's a worthwhile update - it isn't.
I don't know what version of Mozilla you're running, but none of those bugs sound familiar to me (running 0.9.9). Sure, for some things, you'll need to have IE handy, but most of the time I can surf happily and carefree in Mozilla (the browser where hitting the back button doesn't compromise your system ;-) ).
C'mon, how beta is Mozilla exactly (except in name)? Lots of people, including myself, use it for day to day browsing, both on Windows (where there's a superb alternative available called IE) and on Linux. Not all of them are doing it because they hate Microsoft, but because the damn thing actually works (and comes with a bunch of nifty features IE doesn't have). It doesn't crash (no more than IE, probably less), it renders most pages flawlessly (except the ones that use IE specific code) and it's pretty fast (once it's started up).
Face it, Mozilla is no longer the promising piece of perennial betaware it was even six months ago - it's a damn fine displayer of webpages (browser) with some extra icing that promises to make it a hell of a lot more.
I agree with you that Netscape 4.x was a bug ridden piece of shit and every web designer's nightmare back in the day, but in 2002 we've got this thing called Mozilla that actually works ninety percent of the time and that is practically nothing like Netscape, not even Netscape 6, which sucks almost as bad as its predecessor. Mozilla 0.9.99999999999 is a great browser and if you're not indulging on IE-centric JavaScript, you'll have no problems with it whatsoever. Well, a few, but nothing serious.
Nope, I think piracy pretty much makes up for the fact that people aren't streaming video as much as pundits and telcos expected they would.
He wasn't talking about spreadsheets and PowerPoint, he was talking about custom made software for which there *isn't* an alternative handy on linux. So if what he's saying is true and *those* apps *do* tend to work with unmodified Windows 95 (a statement that is somewhat debatable, as it's fairly easy to make sure that a limited number of company desktops feature at least Windows patch X, and I'm pretty sure that happens every now and then), getting big companies to migrate to linux will be easier once WINE can do the Win95 API well. StarOffice will handle the rest for them.
Off the top of my head, USB support comes to mind, as well as the networking stack (I may be wrong about that one, though). Since I'm not a Windows developer, I can't name specific API's however, so you've got me there.
I'm basing my statement solely on the fact that there's a ton of updates for Windows since 95. Often these updates affect core OS functions. Also, every time you install a new version of a Microsoft app, such as Office or Internet Explorer, you're in reality updating half of your operating system (Win98 w/ windowsupdates applied dilligently, Office2k and Explorer 5.5 is basically the same thing as WinME, for example). Then there's DirectX, that isn't a part of vanilla Win95. Without a recent version of it, your games won't run (mostly). Finally, though I admit I'm threading on developer territory here where maybe I shouldn't (flame away), I know MFCxx.DLL has seen a few updates, almost every Windows app depends on this DLL and recent ones (those that were made with VisualStudio 6, say) depend on the latest version of it being present. There's probably quite a few people here who can shed light on exactly how fundamental the latest changes in this API library are. As a Windows user, I can only attest to the fact that nearly every app you install will make sure 4.2 is present. Since this DLL provides a lot of the core functions of Windows, this alone means that the WINE developers can't just aim for Win95 compatibility and leave it at that.
My point is that there is no such thing as 'vanilla Windows 95' in use today (except on a, I imagine, very limited number of glorified typewriters that run nothing more recent than Office 95 or whatever it's called). I *seriously* doubt that what this guy says is true, about developers making sure their apps will run on 'vanilla Windows 95'. I, for one, can't think of a single app that does.
I doubt that it will be enough for WINE developers to catch up with Win95. No one uses the out-of-the-box version of Win95 anymore, do they? There's all sorts of updates you need to get your software running and, yes, those updates include additions/changes to the API.
I do the same thing, at least for internet services I don't really care to much about. I'll use the same, really stupid, password for things like audiogalaxy and other services where I don't really care if my 'account' gets 'hacked'. To log into my provider's network, however, I have a fairly decent password.
I don't think this is a terribly stupid thing to do, just convenient is all.
Of course they are to blame and of course static linking isn't always a smart thing to do, I was just saying that because they design their software to be easy to use (not such a bad decision IMHO - I'd hate to have my dad run linux), getting patches out the door is going to be a little more difficult for them to do than it is for Linux distros.
I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. Not much will be lost, really. 90 percent of what constitutes music these days is a hack job done on antiquated ADAT or harddisk recorders by engineers who've pretty much forgotten the fine old art of miking things. Then it gets slammed through some extremely damaging compressor presets to 'make it as loud as possible' repeatedly.
MP3-ing this kind of music doesn't make it sound any worse than it already does.
Old music, you say? Well, maybe 'tube (pre)amps have warmth' and 'tape saturation makes instruments sink into the mix in a pleasant fashion', but analog technology also has the drawback of introducing a lot of signal distortion and noise 'true audiophiles' probably aren't interested in. I'll grant you, however, that MP3 encoding isn't terribly nice to such material.
On a positive note, the techniques (or factory presets) sound engineers use are geared towards optimizing the output for whatever the material is most likely to be played on. So if MP3s become the norm, expect music to be produced specifically for this format. You're right: this does make 'really excellent audio equipment pointless', but no more pointless than it is now, with music being produced in such a way that it sounds good on tv or FM radio.
I've built a number of Win2k boxes in my time, and Win2k installation and setup is a breeze. I cannot say that for my experiences with installing Linux.
Maybe, just out of curiosity, you should try one of the newer distros - SuSE or Mandrake are laughably easy to setup nowadays. Pop in the cd, tell it what kind of hardware you have, done. Although I must say I agree with you that if you're looking for a platform to do 3D, image processing, video or audio on, Win2K is probably a better choice.
Bullshit. The zlib MS uses is just as open source as the one on linux.
They're not dealing with a fairly small number of reasonably savvy users who go to read slashdot, discover that zlib has a bug and decide to go fix their systems. MS deals with millions upon millions of 'ordinary users' who run dozens of programs that have zlib linked statically (we've just been told) and who have absolutely no idea what zlib is, what their systems use it for or how to patch it (well, they can't, because it's statically linked). So it makes sense for MS to determine first which apps are affected, in what way (is DirectX ever going to run into this problem? if yes, what are the consequences? if no, or if the consequences aren't serious enough, getting millions upon millions of clueless users to download a DirectX patch ASAP isn't worth the trouble). I agree with you that they should have information handy on which of their apps link to zlib, but who's to say they don't and they're just taking this time to conduct a risk inventory (they're a big ass bureaucratic monstrosity after all)?
You don't need it, though. The latest milestone (don't know about previous versions) has a search button. Type your search terms in the address bar et voila! You can configure which search engine you want to use for this.
In that case you should check your mobo. I've been told bad mobo's lead to all sorts of interference on sound cards. But of course if you've got your sound card placed right next to your video card, I'd fix that problem first ...