At the end of the day, I cannot think of a single website that uses IE specific DHTML in a way that makes me yearn for support for it in Moz.
I agree 100%. I've been using Mozilla and Firebird as my primary browsers for several years... never do I hit sites that make me "need" Internet Explorer.
Occaisionally I'll hit a site with DHTML menus that render a little funky in Mozilla because they weren't coded right, but I never hit any sites that "need" IE.
If the "compatibility" thing is what's holding anybody back from trying Mozilla or Firebird, then... by all means... you're really not missing anything, guys!
I'm glad you mentioned Disgaea. That game had the most brilliant and engaging writing I've seen in a game in ages. There were a lot of "in-jokes", and the plot was more linear than something like a Black Isle RPG, but it proved that you can have great writing in a console RPG.
I'm not comparing Japanese RPG's to North American PC RPG's and saying one is superior; that's like comparing apples and oranges. A lot of people will like one and hate the other. But a game like Disgaea proves that it really is possible to have great storytelling in a console game...
be realistic, people. This game is 25 years old. You can play it on one of those joysticks you plug directly into your TV that costs $20
One of the reasons the arcade industry died out in America is because the games simply got too complicated. The games with whiz-bang-ultra-3D-photo-realistic-graphics and 27-button controllers that impress HARDCORE games are a big turn-off to a large majority of the audience. Most people don't want to have to figure out something complicated in the arcade. They want something they can have fun playing for 10 minutes while they're waiting at the laundromat or the movie theater or for their friend to finish taking a leak at the highway rest stop.
I think this is especially true now that home games match (or outshine) arcade games and offer much more depth and complexity. No longer do hardcore gamers spend hours in arcades- they have game consoles for that at home. The market for more complex arcade games simply does not exist any more.
In the year 2003, arcade games need to offer quick, short, simple bursts of fun. And nothing fits the bill better than the games of 20-25 years ago.
And of course a game that cost 25 cents in 1980 is gonna cost 50 cents now. Have you ever heard of inflation? Relatively-speaking, it's probably cheaper now.
As Eben Moglen has said, you can't bring a copyright infringement suit against someone for using something, only for copying it. They would have to go after whoever Google got their software from (or the case would be thrown out.)
If they couldn't sue Google per se, could they pursue some sort of injunction against them to stop using what SCO claims is "their" technology? That would definitely screw Google over to a huge extent- they'd have to either pay up to SCO for a "license", or port their entire operation to some non-infringing OS.
Of course, that's all contingent on SCO being able to prove they "own" Linux, which is far from a given considering that their claims seem like horseshit so far. Their ability to pursue injunctions like a theoretical one against Google would probably hinge on the success of their suit against IBM. I'm just saying that even if they can't sue Google, SCO may still have means to try and extract cash from Google.
I'm far from a lawyer; that's just my layman's understanding of it. Corrections welcome.:D
"Dude, ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you."
(much faster voice)"Possible side effects include extreme flatulence, delusions, uncontrollable swearing, and growth of a third arm.
Third arm? I think Viagra only gives you a third leg. But that's not a side effect; that just means it's working.:-)
...hopefully they purchased the extended version of the warranty on their web server as well, now that Slashdot's melted it as if it were dropped directly into the Crack of Doom!
In reality companies either grow or shrink, it's next to impossible to keep them at a steady profit. But that's beside the point - why wouldn't you want your company to grow?
Of course you want your company to grow, but growing too quickly can be a very bad thing- that's the only concern. It happens a lot, with or without outside investment. We had a local chain of pharmacies around here. They were around for years and years, so I assume they were in the black. At some point they got too ambitious and started expanding their stores in questionable ways and building a bunch of new ones in questionable locations. The result? They were out of business in a year.
Now it's certainly true that you can't get anywhere in business without taking some risks. Lots of companies have flourished after expansion or IPO's. But taking bad risks is one of the quickest ways to get OUT of business.:P
A more interesting question is: why do they want to float? This is normally because the business needs massive capital investment in order to achieve it's objectives, but it seems that google already has sufficient infrastructure, market share and R&D capability. If it's making good profits, why share them with other people? Could it be that the owners aren't too optimistic about the future, and want to cash in while the going's good?
I'm responding to this post [slashdot.org] as well, since they're a bit contradictory.
* By becoming public, google loses the ability to continue with constant steady growth and innovative R&D
* your company is worthless to investors unless you continually grow and grow and grow
So, which is it?
They're not quite contradictory- the thing is, with outside investment, there's a lot of pressure for QUICK growth. The investors have just poured X million dollars into your company, they want results, and you are under pressure to deliver those results quickly.
When you don't have outside investment, you can go the "slow and steady" route... concentrating on turning a profit... slow, sustainable growth. You have only yourself to please with your company's progres, not outside investors.
One's not necessarily better than the other. Often you *need* that outside investment to get to the "next level". But outside investment is often damning, as often companies put themselves out of business by trying to grow too quickly, too soon and falling on their faces (financially-speaking) instead.
When you open up your company for outside investment, that's when a lot of companies go to shit. When you're privately-owned, you can be content to simply turn a nice profit every year.
When you have an IPO, though, your company is worthless to investors unless you continually grow and grow and grow.
Google could continue doing what they're doing right now and maintain a constant level of profit (assuming they're profitable right now, which they supposedly are). But if they hae an IPO they're going to have to try more and more ways to wring more and more money out of investors and users. Get ready for what may be the slow degradation of one of the last "pure" and amazing things on the web...
Your cookie-paranoia is simply ridiculous. Those cookies can't track you on a personally-identifiable level. No wonder your girlfriend hated Mozilla... she had cookie-warning popups in her face every five seconds.
If you act sensibly, and disable cookies for known banner-ad serving domains (double-click, etc) you'll knock out cross-site tracking... what the heck do you think other sites are tracking that you're so afraid of/opposed to?
As a web designer... I use cookies for things like sessionID's and user preferences (such as automatically logging the user in next time they visit, if they have indicated they wish to do so) and basic user-tracking (ie, how many times has this user visited this site before?). If you're worried about that sort of tracking... I guess you wear tinfoil on your head so that the aliens can't broadcast messages into your head, too.
I assume that if one was using iTunes for Windows, one would be able to run other Windows applications. Is it possible that iTunes runs under WINE, but the Sysinternals tools don't? That seems odd.
iTunes Music Store "pages" are really text/XML streams, if I recall correctly.
Anyone got a good link for more info?
Sure!
http://www.ethereal.com/download.html:P
I just realized that when you said that iTMS was "contained" within the application, you were probably speaking from a functional point of view and not a technical one and my post was therefore totally superfluous.
Nope, they don't have any web version of their catalog available. I suppose iTunesMS is a bit of a download, but the entire store really is contained within the application.
Haha, not quite. The iTunes music store is actually just regular web pages. If you use a tool like netstat (or better yet, TCPView from www.sysinternals.com) you can watch iTunes make a bunch of HTTP requests to Apple's servers when you browse each page in the store. If you use something like Process Explorer (this is turning into a Sysinternals commercial!) you can see that iTunes references the standard Internet Explorer HTML rendering engine to render the pages.
Apple presumably has something in place on the pages to ensure that only iTunes can access them. iTunes probably just sends some encrypted header doo-dad along with the normal HTTP request headers so that their webservers know that it's iTunes who's requesting the pages and not another web browser. If I wasn't lazy I'd fire up Etherreal and see exactly what's going on.
I'm sure with a little effort and header spoofing you could fairly easily access those pages with the web browser of your choice, although I can't think of any possible benefit to doing so.:P
What Linux needs is innovation. They need something that only they have (at least for a little while) that everyone else wants. That is how it will build mind share, not by saying "look, we can do it too (if you're only willing to wait a while)"
What really makes iTunes (and many Apple applications) special is the interface. Building a really great interface is a real multidisciplanry task, in a lot of cases. You need great code engineers *and* great user interface designers, and you also need to spend a lot of time getting the interface right by testing it on users. That takes time, money, and a set of skills that most "pure" coders just don't have.
It's not a knock on Linux coders- when the community puts their mind to it, they can produce some great, user-friendly interfaces. It's just not fair, though, to expect a bunch of coders to consistantly produce interfaces on par with professional user interface designers. Hell... most professional software houses like Microsoft can't even produce a decent interface. Look at Windows Media Player... it's an absolute freaking trainwreck of an interface. If you ate iTunes and threw it up, it would look like Windows Media Player.
The machines that beat out the G5 in *SOME* areas (not all) are running twice the graphics memory and RAID.
Did you read the article? Like... you know, the benchmarks at the end? The system that won the most benchmarks, the "Polywell Polystation Two", had "only" 128MB of graphics memory and no RAID, just like the Apple.
If you read the article you'd also see that they tested the Aurora system with 256mb vid mem/RAID *and* with 128mb vid mem and no RAID. The difference in results was very small.
Also, the extra video memory won't help in most of the benchmarks. The only benchmark it would possibly help in would be a gaming benchmark, but Quake3 is not going to show any improvement moving from 128MB-->256MB. That's a 3 or 4-year old game designed to run with about 32MB of video memory... it doesn't benefit from 128MB of video memory, much less 256MB.
Try to read the article more thoroughly before posting...
Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites, the people who run them could be denied U.S. visas and U.S. banks must block their funds. The State Department said it was yet clear how this would work in practice.
What if I were visit their website, and discover they have pay-per-impression banner ads? Since I just put 0.00001 cents or whatever into their pocket, would the Justice Department be able to seize my belongings in the name of "freedom"?:P
Was the article really a joke? It's hard to tell. One one way, it would make a good parody of some Windows users' remarks about Linux.
On the other hand, it's not funny, which is usually one of the marks of a parody. Second, there are also a lot of very valid points in there, such as the Outlook/IE-bashing... it's just hard to tell if/when he's being "funny". Lastly, it's not like Roblimo is a known satirist. If Dave Barry (or his computer geek equivalent) wrote that article, you'd know it was parody. Coming from Roblimo, who knows?
Whatever he was aiming for, be it seriousness or parody... miserable failure.
If he's that annoyed, he could easily turn off the automatic updates too:
Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Automatic Updates > Uncheck "Keep my computer up to date..."
Yeah. If he wants to bitch that the configuration options for this service are not in an intuitive place, fine. I agree- I mean, couldn't *everything* go under system? Automatic Updates should have their own Control Panel icon, IMO. If he wants to make some principled stand against Windows Update being activitated by default, fine. I'd disagree, but that would be a valid point at least.
But for him to simply get the facts wrong... when ALL of his questions could have easily been answered via Windows' built-in help function, or thirty seconds of Googling... he just makes himself look like a joke.
My copy of Windows XP Pro seems to have a program included with it called 'Windows Messenger' that, as far as I can tell, is some sort of ad delivery mechanism. I haven't figured out how to turn it off. It is very annoying. Linux doesn't have anything like this program, or if it does I've never installed or used it. In any case, I lived for many years without being bombarded by 'Windows Messenger' ads that pop up in the middle of whatever I'm trying to do, and I won't miss them when I go back to Linux.
Okay... Windows Messenger is a horrible, horrible feature and I hate how it's enabled by default. Still, Control Panel-->Admin Tools-->Services-->Windows Messnger. Then pick "disable". Not terribly intuitive, but incredibly easy to do... and if you type "disable Windows Messenger" in Google there are ZILLIONS of results telling you how to do this.
If he wants to bash Windows for including this feature, fine. Agreed. But to say he couldn't figure out how to do it is complete nonsense. Has he heard of Google?
Not only that, I found the program much harder to use and less intuitive than XChat. Even after a week, I still haven't figured out how to add a new network to it easily, a function that is simple as pie in XChat. Given a choice, I'd rather pay for XChat than for mIRC. It's better software.
Is he joking? You can add new networks to mIRC right from the dialog box you use to connect to a server, unless they've radically changed it in the last year or so. It also has a nice online help file. Saying "he couldn't figure it out in a week" makes me wonder how he learned how to *breathe*, much less *run an operating system*.
As for XChat simply being "better" than mIRC, that's highly subjective and I won't come down on one side or the other from lack of experience with XChat. However, mIRC has some incredibly deep features such as an extremely powerful built-in programming language. To say "XChat>mIRC" right off the bat, when you haven't even figured out how to add a server, is ridiculous.
One of the worst articles I've read from the Slashdot crew, and that's saying a lot. He makes a lot of good points (bashing IE/Outlook) but they're lost in the din of his obnoxious cluelessness.
The first thing that happened after I fired up Windows XP is that it virtually ordered me to download a series of patches. I did so, but it wasn't like a SuSE update where you see every patch available and can say "yes" or "no" to each one if you like. The Windows update process told me nothing except that it was happening, and that I needed to reboot when it was over. A Windows-using friend said, "Yes, that's the way it works, and if you don't do the updates your computer keeps annoying you, so you have to do them even if they take hours like they sometimes do."
I don't know what he's talking about. By default (a stock Windows XPPro install) Windows will download updates in the background, and let you know when they're ready to install. You then have the option of saying "yes, install them now", "no, install them later", or you can click a button (labeled "Details...", I think) to see exactly which updates have been downloaded, and choose precisely which ones you'd like to install. I don't often give a lot of love to Microsoft, but I actually like the way they've handled the Windows Update thing- it's automatic and painless by default but you can have fine-grained control (or disable it totally) if you like.
So I find his claims really false- it sounds like he missed the "Details..." button. It's possible that the pre-installed copy of XP on his laptop was configured by the OEM (Toshiba) to work differently than a "stock" WinXP install, but if he's gonna write an article (and presumably get paid for it) then it's really his duty to figure that out.
I don't know if that's the case, just saying it's possible. In my opinion, anybody who is going to review an OS should really be reviewing a stock install, not some pre-configured OEM install that might differ from the "standard" experience.
At any rate, I'm only a couple of paragraphs into his review, and already I can't take anything he says seriously because there's such a glaring error right off the bat. Nice job.
I love how people are making all of these under-modded, but very humorous posts *one day* after my mod points expired. Bastards!
Just to stay on-topic, I'll chime in and say that multiple monitors are super, super great for any job that requires a lot of screen real estate, or any situation where you're looking at several apps at once. When you go from dual setup back to a single setup, that's when you realize that you have to spend inordinate amounts of time simply cycling through and rearranging windows.
It doesn't even have to be an expensive proposition. If gaming performance isn't a concern, you can get an ATI Radeon 7000 VE for about $35 from NewEgg that has dual outputs; one DVI and one VGA. And I think we all know how cheap monitors are these days...
IE has one advantage over the rest, but I've learned to deal without it (why, Google, WHY?).
I guess you're referring to the Google Toolbar? Yep, I can't live without that either. Both Opera and Mozilla/Firebird have a basic version of this built-in, and there is a full-fledged workalike available for Mozilla/Firebird. So you don't need to do without any longer.:D
Slashdot Mirror
At the end of the day, I cannot think of a single website that uses IE specific DHTML in a way that makes me yearn for support for it in Moz.
I agree 100%. I've been using Mozilla and Firebird as my primary browsers for several years... never do I hit sites that make me "need" Internet Explorer.
Occaisionally I'll hit a site with DHTML menus that render a little funky in Mozilla because they weren't coded right, but I never hit any sites that "need" IE.
If the "compatibility" thing is what's holding anybody back from trying Mozilla or Firebird, then... by all means... you're really not missing anything, guys!
I've heard good things about Rhapsody. I'm definitely in favor of any game where you can attack people with giant stacks of pancakes! :P
I have a friend who was working on a Marjoly Cookie costume...
I'm glad you mentioned Disgaea. That game had the most brilliant and engaging writing I've seen in a game in ages. There were a lot of "in-jokes", and the plot was more linear than something like a Black Isle RPG, but it proved that you can have great writing in a console RPG.
I'm not comparing Japanese RPG's to North American PC RPG's and saying one is superior; that's like comparing apples and oranges. A lot of people will like one and hate the other. But a game like Disgaea proves that it really is possible to have great storytelling in a console game...
be realistic, people. This game is 25 years old. You can play it on one of those joysticks you plug directly into your TV that costs $20
One of the reasons the arcade industry died out in America is because the games simply got too complicated. The games with whiz-bang-ultra-3D-photo-realistic-graphics and 27-button controllers that impress HARDCORE games are a big turn-off to a large majority of the audience. Most people don't want to have to figure out something complicated in the arcade. They want something they can have fun playing for 10 minutes while they're waiting at the laundromat or the movie theater or for their friend to finish taking a leak at the highway rest stop.
I think this is especially true now that home games match (or outshine) arcade games and offer much more depth and complexity. No longer do hardcore gamers spend hours in arcades- they have game consoles for that at home. The market for more complex arcade games simply does not exist any more.
In the year 2003, arcade games need to offer quick, short, simple bursts of fun. And nothing fits the bill better than the games of 20-25 years ago.
And of course a game that cost 25 cents in 1980 is gonna cost 50 cents now. Have you ever heard of inflation? Relatively-speaking, it's probably cheaper now.
As Eben Moglen has said, you can't bring a copyright infringement suit against someone for using something, only for copying it. They would have to go after whoever Google got their software from (or the case would be thrown out.)
:D
If they couldn't sue Google per se, could they pursue some sort of injunction against them to stop using what SCO claims is "their" technology? That would definitely screw Google over to a huge extent- they'd have to either pay up to SCO for a "license", or port their entire operation to some non-infringing OS.
Of course, that's all contingent on SCO being able to prove they "own" Linux, which is far from a given considering that their claims seem like horseshit so far. Their ability to pursue injunctions like a theoretical one against Google would probably hinge on the success of their suit against IBM. I'm just saying that even if they can't sue Google, SCO may still have means to try and extract cash from Google.
I'm far from a lawyer; that's just my layman's understanding of it. Corrections welcome.
"Dude, ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you." (much faster voice)"Possible side effects include extreme flatulence, delusions, uncontrollable swearing, and growth of a third arm.
:-)
Third arm? I think Viagra only gives you a third leg. But that's not a side effect; that just means it's working.
It sort of depends on the size of the bag.... And the size of your cellmate! :P
...hopefully they purchased the extended version of the warranty on their web server as well, now that Slashdot's melted it as if it were dropped directly into the Crack of Doom!
In reality companies either grow or shrink, it's next to impossible to keep them at a steady profit. But that's beside the point - why wouldn't you want your company to grow?
:P
Of course you want your company to grow, but growing too quickly can be a very bad thing- that's the only concern. It happens a lot, with or without outside investment. We had a local chain of pharmacies around here. They were around for years and years, so I assume they were in the black. At some point they got too ambitious and started expanding their stores in questionable ways and building a bunch of new ones in questionable locations. The result? They were out of business in a year.
Now it's certainly true that you can't get anywhere in business without taking some risks. Lots of companies have flourished after expansion or IPO's. But taking bad risks is one of the quickest ways to get OUT of business.
A more interesting question is: why do they want to float? This is normally because the business needs massive capital investment in order to achieve it's objectives, but it seems that google already has sufficient infrastructure, market share and R&D capability. If it's making good profits, why share them with other people? Could it be that the owners aren't too optimistic about the future, and want to cash in while the going's good?
Excellent point, and worrisome indeed.
I'm responding to this post [slashdot.org] as well, since they're a bit contradictory.
* By becoming public, google loses the ability to continue with constant steady growth and innovative R&D
* your company is worthless to investors unless you continually grow and grow and grow
So, which is it?
They're not quite contradictory- the thing is, with outside investment, there's a lot of pressure for QUICK growth. The investors have just poured X million dollars into your company, they want results, and you are under pressure to deliver those results quickly.
When you don't have outside investment, you can go the "slow and steady" route... concentrating on turning a profit... slow, sustainable growth. You have only yourself to please with your company's progres, not outside investors.
One's not necessarily better than the other. Often you *need* that outside investment to get to the "next level". But outside investment is often damning, as often companies put themselves out of business by trying to grow too quickly, too soon and falling on their faces (financially-speaking) instead.
When you open up your company for outside investment, that's when a lot of companies go to shit. When you're privately-owned, you can be content to simply turn a nice profit every year.
When you have an IPO, though, your company is worthless to investors unless you continually grow and grow and grow.
Google could continue doing what they're doing right now and maintain a constant level of profit (assuming they're profitable right now, which they supposedly are). But if they hae an IPO they're going to have to try more and more ways to wring more and more money out of investors and users. Get ready for what may be the slow degradation of one of the last "pure" and amazing things on the web...
Your cookie-paranoia is simply ridiculous. Those cookies can't track you on a personally-identifiable level. No wonder your girlfriend hated Mozilla... she had cookie-warning popups in her face every five seconds.
If you act sensibly, and disable cookies for known banner-ad serving domains (double-click, etc) you'll knock out cross-site tracking... what the heck do you think other sites are tracking that you're so afraid of/opposed to?
As a web designer... I use cookies for things like sessionID's and user preferences (such as automatically logging the user in next time they visit, if they have indicated they wish to do so) and basic user-tracking (ie, how many times has this user visited this site before?). If you're worried about that sort of tracking... I guess you wear tinfoil on your head so that the aliens can't broadcast messages into your head, too.
I assume that if one was using iTunes for Windows, one would be able to run other Windows applications. Is it possible that iTunes runs under WINE, but the Sysinternals tools don't? That seems odd.
iTunes Music Store "pages" are really text/XML streams, if I recall correctly. Anyone got a good link for more info? Sure! http://www.ethereal.com/download.html :P
I just realized that when you said that iTMS was "contained" within the application, you were probably speaking from a functional point of view and not a technical one and my post was therefore totally superfluous.
Nope, they don't have any web version of their catalog available. I suppose iTunesMS is a bit of a download, but the entire store really is contained within the application.
:P
Haha, not quite. The iTunes music store is actually just regular web pages. If you use a tool like netstat (or better yet, TCPView from www.sysinternals.com) you can watch iTunes make a bunch of HTTP requests to Apple's servers when you browse each page in the store. If you use something like Process Explorer (this is turning into a Sysinternals commercial!) you can see that iTunes references the standard Internet Explorer HTML rendering engine to render the pages.
Apple presumably has something in place on the pages to ensure that only iTunes can access them. iTunes probably just sends some encrypted header doo-dad along with the normal HTTP request headers so that their webservers know that it's iTunes who's requesting the pages and not another web browser. If I wasn't lazy I'd fire up Etherreal and see exactly what's going on.
I'm sure with a little effort and header spoofing you could fairly easily access those pages with the web browser of your choice, although I can't think of any possible benefit to doing so.
What Linux needs is innovation. They need something that only they have (at least for a little while) that everyone else wants. That is how it will build mind share, not by saying "look, we can do it too (if you're only willing to wait a while)"
What really makes iTunes (and many Apple applications) special is the interface. Building a really great interface is a real multidisciplanry task, in a lot of cases. You need great code engineers *and* great user interface designers, and you also need to spend a lot of time getting the interface right by testing it on users. That takes time, money, and a set of skills that most "pure" coders just don't have.
It's not a knock on Linux coders- when the community puts their mind to it, they can produce some great, user-friendly interfaces. It's just not fair, though, to expect a bunch of coders to consistantly produce interfaces on par with professional user interface designers. Hell... most professional software houses like Microsoft can't even produce a decent interface. Look at Windows Media Player... it's an absolute freaking trainwreck of an interface. If you ate iTunes and threw it up, it would look like Windows Media Player.
The machines that beat out the G5 in *SOME* areas (not all) are running twice the graphics memory and RAID.
Did you read the article? Like... you know, the benchmarks at the end? The system that won the most benchmarks, the "Polywell Polystation Two", had "only" 128MB of graphics memory and no RAID, just like the Apple.
If you read the article you'd also see that they tested the Aurora system with 256mb vid mem/RAID *and* with 128mb vid mem and no RAID. The difference in results was very small.
Also, the extra video memory won't help in most of the benchmarks. The only benchmark it would possibly help in would be a gaming benchmark, but Quake3 is not going to show any improvement moving from 128MB-->256MB. That's a 3 or 4-year old game designed to run with about 32MB of video memory... it doesn't benefit from 128MB of video memory, much less 256MB.
Try to read the article more thoroughly before posting...
Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites, the people who run them could be denied U.S. visas and U.S. banks must block their funds. The State Department said it was yet clear how this would work in practice.
:P
What if I were visit their website, and discover they have pay-per-impression banner ads? Since I just put 0.00001 cents or whatever into their pocket, would the Justice Department be able to seize my belongings in the name of "freedom"?
Was the article really a joke? It's hard to tell. One one way, it would make a good parody of some Windows users' remarks about Linux.
/when he's being "funny". Lastly, it's not like Roblimo is a known satirist. If Dave Barry (or his computer geek equivalent) wrote that article, you'd know it was parody. Coming from Roblimo, who knows?
On the other hand, it's not funny, which is usually one of the marks of a parody. Second, there are also a lot of very valid points in there, such as the Outlook/IE-bashing... it's just hard to tell if
Whatever he was aiming for, be it seriousness or parody... miserable failure.
If he's that annoyed, he could easily turn off the automatic updates too: Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Automatic Updates > Uncheck "Keep my computer up to date..."
Yeah. If he wants to bitch that the configuration options for this service are not in an intuitive place, fine. I agree- I mean, couldn't *everything* go under system? Automatic Updates should have their own Control Panel icon, IMO. If he wants to make some principled stand against Windows Update being activitated by default, fine. I'd disagree, but that would be a valid point at least.
But for him to simply get the facts wrong... when ALL of his questions could have easily been answered via Windows' built-in help function, or thirty seconds of Googling... he just makes himself look like a joke.
More problems with the review.
My copy of Windows XP Pro seems to have a program included with it called 'Windows Messenger' that, as far as I can tell, is some sort of ad delivery mechanism. I haven't figured out how to turn it off. It is very annoying. Linux doesn't have anything like this program, or if it does I've never installed or used it. In any case, I lived for many years without being bombarded by 'Windows Messenger' ads that pop up in the middle of whatever I'm trying to do, and I won't miss them when I go back to Linux.
Okay... Windows Messenger is a horrible, horrible feature and I hate how it's enabled by default. Still, Control Panel-->Admin Tools-->Services-->Windows Messnger. Then pick "disable". Not terribly intuitive, but incredibly easy to do... and if you type "disable Windows Messenger" in Google there are ZILLIONS of results telling you how to do this.
If he wants to bash Windows for including this feature, fine. Agreed. But to say he couldn't figure out how to do it is complete nonsense. Has he heard of Google?
Not only that, I found the program much harder to use and less intuitive than XChat. Even after a week, I still haven't figured out how to add a new network to it easily, a function that is simple as pie in XChat. Given a choice, I'd rather pay for XChat than for mIRC. It's better software.
Is he joking? You can add new networks to mIRC right from the dialog box you use to connect to a server, unless they've radically changed it in the last year or so. It also has a nice online help file. Saying "he couldn't figure it out in a week" makes me wonder how he learned how to *breathe*, much less *run an operating system*.
As for XChat simply being "better" than mIRC, that's highly subjective and I won't come down on one side or the other from lack of experience with XChat. However, mIRC has some incredibly deep features such as an extremely powerful built-in programming language. To say "XChat>mIRC" right off the bat, when you haven't even figured out how to add a server, is ridiculous.
One of the worst articles I've read from the Slashdot crew, and that's saying a lot. He makes a lot of good points (bashing IE/Outlook) but they're lost in the din of his obnoxious cluelessness.
The first thing that happened after I fired up Windows XP is that it virtually ordered me to download a series of patches. I did so, but it wasn't like a SuSE update where you see every patch available and can say "yes" or "no" to each one if you like. The Windows update process told me nothing except that it was happening, and that I needed to reboot when it was over. A Windows-using friend said, "Yes, that's the way it works, and if you don't do the updates your computer keeps annoying you, so you have to do them even if they take hours like they sometimes do."
I don't know what he's talking about. By default (a stock Windows XPPro install) Windows will download updates in the background, and let you know when they're ready to install. You then have the option of saying "yes, install them now", "no, install them later", or you can click a button (labeled "Details...", I think) to see exactly which updates have been downloaded, and choose precisely which ones you'd like to install. I don't often give a lot of love to Microsoft, but I actually like the way they've handled the Windows Update thing- it's automatic and painless by default but you can have fine-grained control (or disable it totally) if you like.
So I find his claims really false- it sounds like he missed the "Details..." button. It's possible that the pre-installed copy of XP on his laptop was configured by the OEM (Toshiba) to work differently than a "stock" WinXP install, but if he's gonna write an article (and presumably get paid for it) then it's really his duty to figure that out.
I don't know if that's the case, just saying it's possible. In my opinion, anybody who is going to review an OS should really be reviewing a stock install, not some pre-configured OEM install that might differ from the "standard" experience.
At any rate, I'm only a couple of paragraphs into his review, and already I can't take anything he says seriously because there's such a glaring error right off the bat. Nice job.
I love how people are making all of these under-modded, but very humorous posts *one day* after my mod points expired. Bastards!
Just to stay on-topic, I'll chime in and say that multiple monitors are super, super great for any job that requires a lot of screen real estate, or any situation where you're looking at several apps at once. When you go from dual setup back to a single setup, that's when you realize that you have to spend inordinate amounts of time simply cycling through and rearranging windows.
It doesn't even have to be an expensive proposition. If gaming performance isn't a concern, you can get an ATI Radeon 7000 VE for about $35 from NewEgg that has dual outputs; one DVI and one VGA. And I think we all know how cheap monitors are these days...
IE has one advantage over the rest, but I've learned to deal without it (why, Google, WHY?).
:D
I guess you're referring to the Google Toolbar? Yep, I can't live without that either. Both Opera and Mozilla/Firebird have a basic version of this built-in, and there is a full-fledged workalike available for Mozilla/Firebird. So you don't need to do without any longer.