I like seeing such a dedicated description of how bugs can remain.. This line:
"Why did it take so long to figure out what was up with this?" Well, you might as well ask why police departments continue to have a large number of unsolved crimes on the books. The issue is the same: the investigation stalls for the lack of any further leads to follow.
Describes a huge chunk of my life in Software QA. It's an example of what is great about MS software and what is awful:
Great: dedicated test resources to chase down corner cases/non-obvious scenarios, accountability for broken scenarios, etc Awful: Iterations of releases built on legacy code means no one (or two, or three) people can understand the problem or scope the fix.
For all the complaints here about MS code I wonder that no one has noticed the Windows weakness that is not getting exploited..? If MS software is really as bad as everyone here makes out then why doesn't someone do it better? Blah blah Linux blah blah... Build software for Windows that people can use without rebuilding their systems. If you do it well enough tell them it's even better on Platform X.
Ed Fries: This is really a new thing. We're going to try and keep the Bungie guys together, and keep it branded, and really keep it as a studio within my [Microsoft Games] group. It's really more the direction I want to go, with a collection of studios, rather than one big group.
They're safe. The reality here isn't quite as bad as it sounds. Yes, they've tanked the studio but did anyone care about those games? I know I gave away my copy of NFL Fever 200? and never missed it. They really weren't capturing a market -- nobody was waiting with baited breath for the latest Fever release like they do for Madden, EA titles, etc..
I don't think that the FASA guys or RARE (both MS-owned now) are up nights wondering if they might be in the same boat... they know what they bring to the table.
...And the employees aren't getting tossed out the door either -- there are ~30,000 MS employees in the same region (pacific northwest) and these ~200 people can get absorbed by turnover/open positions inside the company.
That would really restrict your field of view though. I think it is better to see more left and right, than it is to see more up and down.
But playing multiplayer on a widescreen TV is just weird with only a top/bottom split. You feel like you're in a very narrow panoramic view.:) And (my experience) you constantly get owned from above because looking up takes too long.
We play radar disabled as well -- the only way to go.:)
On a personal note: I can't understand why someone would vote for this president. I would love it if someone could convince me to vote for him in terms that don't include God or Guns.
as far as I know there is no tool bundled with Windows to allow you to edit the registry from the command line
In Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 products "reg.exe" is provided for command line registry manipulations.
Ex: reg query HKLM\Software\Microsoft\
To repair the registry:
- Boot to safemode (bang on f8 post-post and before the windows flag pops up, the menu options are there. This loads a minimal system, usually bypassing any badness you've perpetrated and allowing you to prune and update to your hearts content. You can even use System Restore to reteat to a prior (known good) configuration. - Boot to the recovery console (minor recovery support -- mostly enable/disable services, really). -...and the big easy:Insert your OS cd and (when prompted) "press any key". Select the "Repair Installation" option from the second screen to rebuild the registry and system files-- comparable to running an upgrade of Windows from the same version of Windows. It's the most complete solution for repairing your windows installation.
if convergance is not desired.... why then do people mod x-boxes and add all sorts of cool functionality (like media centers, file shares, web browsers, etc etc etc)?
"people" don't. "Slashdot readers" do.:) Best not to get the demographics confused.
I don't want convergence because I cant' afford it -- the same basic idea decides each of my technology purchases... What's the cheapest handheld game system? Nintendo GBA-- What's the (projected) cheapest next-gen handheld? Nintendo DS...
The PS? is cool, I just can't afford that much functionality.:)
With the Dual-Screen, they're actually making it much harder for them to go cross-platform on any of the games which use the touch-screen, as equivalents don't exist on other platforms.
I see this as Nintendo drawing a line in the sand... Say you're developing a game for a portable system -- DS is the cool new thing, but you'll be limited for portability... that has got to be exactly what Nintendo wants. After all these years I think you'd be a fool to bet on a contender taking down a Nintendo handheld. Developers will make the obvious choice -- Go with the safe bet.
Ultimately, I think this round of the handheld console wars will be inconclusive, with neither platform emerging as a clear victor.
Nintendo is doing something new and cool... and they're doing it at the lower pricepoint again... and they're doing it with backward compatibility. If you get a PSP it's a whole new console -- no old game support for you, nothing to play, no movies to watch because it's all new and it's all proprietary.
The DS will support the GBA titles out the gate -- if you get bored with the launch titles you can still whip out Golden Sun.
No one is learning this lesson:
-- Gameboy wins because it's cheaper
-- Nintendo can make it cheaper because they pump out the software to make back their h/w losses
-- They can pump out the titles because everyone has one
-- Everyone has one because it's cheaper.
As long as they maintain their backwards compatibility (at least one level) they're going to rule the roost.
Re:World domination - not a joke, really
on
Linux vs. Windows
·
· Score: 0
So Linux becomes the cathedral? Are you sure you weren't joking?
Would you even want that? Share the pulpit -- I don't want to be trapped in a Linux shell (and documentation... ~shudder~) any more than I want to trapped with the other guys' backend...
Always interesting to see how these things get rated -- the above gets "Insightful"? The bar is (apparently) low.
Has it added anything to the conversation? Am I bettered for having read it?
Insightful might be:
-Analyzing the spin of the article (haha microsoft misses a date)... sidenote -- is this news?
-Asking for information clearly absent (no mention of how much of a delay? Is it a few hours? weeks?)
-Attempting to divine the reasons behind the slip (no data there either).
Lets see if we can meet the bar here. To review, the article says:
A software company delayed a software release. This has happened before.
Here's another take on it -- someone got paid to put this up, and thousands of eyes have now wasted blinks peering at this. Many readers here work for software companies -- we can get this just by reading the mail in our inboxes. Must be a slow tech week...
The PSP has some cool factor... but when people start looking at what they're going to spend their $$$ on I think the DS is the runaway winner.
DS will be cheaper
DS will have a larger library
DS is enabling something new
...the difference is focus. The DS is a gaming machine... the PSP is overreaching with their new media-type, hopes to be a movie player (of whose movies?) etc...
Ebay has them listed ~$1300.. they're gorgeous. I've got a viewsonic 21" CRT that's really nice, but the flatpanel just blows it away. http://www.sgi.com/peripherals/flatpanel/
Slashdot Mirror
Describes a huge chunk of my life in Software QA. It's an example of what is great about MS software and what is awful:
Great: dedicated test resources to chase down corner cases/non-obvious scenarios, accountability for broken scenarios, etc
Awful: Iterations of releases built on legacy code means no one (or two, or three) people can understand the problem or scope the fix.
For all the complaints here about MS code I wonder that no one has noticed the Windows weakness that is not getting exploited..? If MS software is really as bad as everyone here makes out then why doesn't someone do it better? Blah blah Linux blah blah... Build software for Windows that people can use without rebuilding their systems. If you do it well enough tell them it's even better on Platform X.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/081/081081p1.html?from
They're safe. The reality here isn't quite as bad as it sounds. Yes, they've tanked the studio but did anyone care about those games? I know I gave away my copy of NFL Fever 200? and never missed it. They really weren't capturing a market -- nobody was waiting with baited breath for the latest Fever release like they do for Madden, EA titles, etc..
I don't think that the FASA guys or RARE (both MS-owned now) are up nights wondering if they might be in the same boat... they know what they bring to the table.
But playing multiplayer on a widescreen TV is just weird with only a top/bottom split. You feel like you're in a very narrow panoramic view.
We play radar disabled as well -- the only way to go.
This could only make it more so. My only gripe: I can't setup the game to split the screen vertically for 2 players...
:)
If you haven't tried it: the Halo campaign is fantastic, but multiplayer halo is unbelievable.
Even with the limited map selection the plethora of game type changes you can make produce a game that never gets old.
I wonder if I can convince a local movie theatre to try this out...
ps: halo2 comes out 11/9
pps: http://www.ilovebees.com/ Yes it's related.
re: Jeb bush disqualifying valid black votes? SearchID=73181140138431&Avis=GS&Dato=20040721&Kate gori=LOCAL&Lopenr=207210328&Ref=AR
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel
re: Bush administration pushing for politically-timed terrorist catches
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/
re: latest on bush administration getting revenge via outting a US agent3 8-2004Aug15.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40
On a personal note: I can't understand why someone would vote for this president. I would love it if someone could convince me to vote for him in terms that don't include God or Guns.
as far as I know there is no tool bundled with Windows to allow you to edit the registry from the command line
...and the big easy:Insert your OS cd and (when prompted) "press any key". Select the "Repair Installation" option from the second screen to rebuild the registry and system files-- comparable to running an upgrade of Windows from the same version of Windows. It's the most complete solution for repairing your windows installation.
In Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 products "reg.exe" is provided for command line registry manipulations.
Ex: reg query HKLM\Software\Microsoft\
To repair the registry:
- Boot to safemode (bang on f8 post-post and before the windows flag pops up, the menu options are there. This loads a minimal system, usually bypassing any badness you've perpetrated and allowing you to prune and update to your hearts content. You can even use System Restore to reteat to a prior (known good) configuration.
- Boot to the recovery console (minor recovery support -- mostly enable/disable services, really).
-
The interesting thing is the categories -- that "mobile gamer" (cellphone gaming) is now prevalent enough to be a category is news.
Not really news that all the geeky gadget/console-gamers are men though.
I wonder where they got their list of survey candidates as well... the article does mention that there was an "over-sampling of males".
I don't want convergence because I cant' afford it -- the same basic idea decides each of my technology purchases... What's the cheapest handheld game system? Nintendo GBA-- What's the (projected) cheapest next-gen handheld? Nintendo DS...
The PS? is cool, I just can't afford that much functionality. :)
I'm an enabler... Along with Channel 9, here's the official MS collection of xpsp2 technical resources:
; ln;windowsxpsp2it ...and here is the stuff they have for developers (security-feature oriented, mostly)
S P2/default.aspx ...and here is one of the MS hosted communities where you can read/post/enjoy xpsp2 dialog.
l t.asp?icp=xpsp2&s
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh
http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/productinfo/XP
http://communities.microsoft.com/newsgroups/defau
Monolith has it's own game engine (called LithTech) that they've been licensing (or trying to license) to other folks..
t htech/tutorials/lithtech_primer.shtml/
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/resources/li
The DS will support the GBA titles out the gate -- if you get bored with the launch titles you can still whip out Golden Sun.
No one is learning this lesson:
-- Gameboy wins because it's cheaper
-- Nintendo can make it cheaper because they pump out the software to make back their h/w losses
-- They can pump out the titles because everyone has one
-- Everyone has one because it's cheaper.
As long as they maintain their backwards compatibility (at least one level) they're going to rule the roost.
So Linux becomes the cathedral? Are you sure you weren't joking?
Would you even want that? Share the pulpit -- I don't want to be trapped in a Linux shell (and documentation... ~shudder~) any more than I want to trapped with the other guys' backend...
>How exactly could you be locked into the Linux platform
:)
Trapped in a world were you have a document to print and CUPS stands between you and your goal...
Fear this.
That this is still a "5" says something interesting about Slashdot today.. :)
Maybe once the sp2 migration is complete we should fix a pane in that broken-windows icon?
They're not shooting the kids -- they're keeping them in bed.
As soon as they're over the cold they can go play again.
Has it added anything to the conversation? Am I bettered for having read it?
Insightful might be:
-Analyzing the spin of the article (haha microsoft misses a date)... sidenote -- is this news?
-Asking for information clearly absent (no mention of how much of a delay? Is it a few hours? weeks?)
-Attempting to divine the reasons behind the slip (no data there either).
Lets see if we can meet the bar here. To review, the article says:
Here's another take on it -- someone got paid to put this up, and thousands of eyes have now wasted blinks peering at this. Many readers here work for software companies -- we can get this just by reading the mail in our inboxes. Must be a slow tech week...
DS will be cheaper
DS will have a larger library
DS is enabling something new
Ebay has them listed ~$1300.. they're gorgeous. I've got a viewsonic 21" CRT that's really nice, but the flatpanel just blows it away. http://www.sgi.com/peripherals/flatpanel/