Disclaimer: I despise Macrosoft as much as anyone else for making bloated software and engaging in illegal anticompetitive activity.
Think about it, though. This company is putting entire encyclopedia sets and other information-intensive information like map software on cd's and saving thousands of sheets of paper in the process. By popularizing (regardless of their corporate elbowing) this kind of approach to information, they are environmentally friendly and people are losing sight of the big picture. Now I realize that this may be symbolism over substance being that this type of software is not popular enough to actually make a difference in our habitually polluting ways. But, it does lay the groundwork for the results of this type of information to have a significant impact in the next ten years. This type of software is in its early infancy (only a few years old). This will do for the environment what databases did for office paper use over the course of the last 10 years.
The fingerpointing above is somewhat akin to the media pointing to singular isolated instances of overagressive policing in the face of the fact that crime is statistically down in the quantities of thousands.
Take a step back and look at the big picture.
Goodbye Customization- A balanced view
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
The real issue is HARDWARE choice, not software Think about this... acmeOEM basically offers 3 or 4 hard drives with new systems. With 3 or 4 video card choices. With 2 sound card options With/without an ethernet card With a faxmodem or voice/fax modem. 3-4 X 3-4 X 2 X 2 X 2 options This is between 72 and 128 recovery cd's for HD burn images. You will not see this happen with retail computers AND you will never see driver updates and patches on these cds either. You will see fewer and fewer choices. You will need another hard drive to experiment with OS's if you receive a recovery CD. Restoration cd's are a little better, offering upgraded driver possibilities, but still taking a long time to load. They can cover more product lines and pre-partitioning your drive can lead to the ability for multiple OS's. THE TREND TOWARD INTEGRATION is stronger than ever, indirectly TAKING AWAY CONSUMER CHOICE IN HARDWARE as well. This is extremely bad news for choice. However, this engineering decision will greatly reduce the burden for technical support for novice users. Those of us who like to dink around with (and legitimately use) other OS's will be hurt, but this will reduce call times and make technical support more limited to qualified people. This will be good in the long run for the vast majority of the computing public. When I did desktop support, a Pentium II 233 used to take an hour to reload properly with OS and drivers. Now with a system restoration CD a Pentium III 700 computer can take about 15 minutes with drivers automatically loaded. This increases the likelihood that your problems will ultimately be resolved and allows a technician to significantly reduce software troubleshooting in order to prevent (what used to be the god-awful) format/reinstall. This will end up saving a lot of people's time at the expense of choice. I believe the OEM's have as much to do with this as Microsoft. I took many calls where people could not find their Certificate of Authenticity (legitimately, and a few fakers, too) or the Windows CD. This ultimtately made it harder for the consumer. In addition, if your Windows cd arrived or became damaged, your OEM could not replace it for you. You were shit out of luck unless you decided to send the system in for service. Now OEM's are actually responsible for getting the OS up and running and can't hide behind the fact that you can't find your COA or may have received a damaged CD and hadn't needed to use it yet. There may be some good in this too. Ultimately less hassle in case of the bad happening, but less choice on the front end of hardware selection and software selection too.
What if I bought a tape or record and already paid you guys? You later release your art in a format (CD) that is technologically superior. I shouldn't have to pay you twice, but I did. My Metallica CD "And Justice for All" was stolen my freshman year in college. I even filed a formal police report about it to the college I was going to. Now all I have is the tape. Now, I could choose to listen to the tape and even convert it to MP3 file format OR get an improved quality above tape via Napster. The only difference between my Kill 'em All tape and CD is quality. Now, you have to pay for increased quality of recording between tape and the available CD. That makes the cd more valuable (which I begrudgingly understand). There is an obvious value attatched to that discrepancy. Since, however, MP3 files are not distributed by the record companies, there is not value. That's right. NO VALUE. You can extrapolate that the value would between the quality difference of the cd (whatever that dollar value is) and 0 (which is the quality of the tape to the person who has already purchased the tape). Since that value has not been determined (totally indefinite), no value can be attatched to the recording to the user.
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Disclaimer: I despise Macrosoft as much as anyone else for making bloated software and engaging in illegal anticompetitive activity.
Think about it, though. This company is putting entire encyclopedia sets and other information-intensive information like map software on cd's and saving thousands of sheets of paper in the process. By popularizing (regardless of their corporate elbowing) this kind of approach to information, they are environmentally friendly and people are losing sight of the big picture. Now I realize that this may be symbolism over substance being that this type of software is not popular enough to actually make a difference in our habitually polluting ways. But, it does lay the groundwork for the results of this type of information to have a significant impact in the next ten years. This type of software is in its early infancy (only a few years old). This will do for the environment what databases did for office paper use over the course of the last 10 years.
The fingerpointing above is somewhat akin to the media pointing to singular isolated instances of overagressive policing in the face of the fact that crime is statistically down in the quantities of thousands.
Take a step back and look at the big picture.
The real issue is HARDWARE choice, not software Think about this... acmeOEM basically offers 3 or 4 hard drives with new systems. With 3 or 4 video card choices. With 2 sound card options With/without an ethernet card With a faxmodem or voice/fax modem. 3-4 X 3-4 X 2 X 2 X 2 options This is between 72 and 128 recovery cd's for HD burn images. You will not see this happen with retail computers AND you will never see driver updates and patches on these cds either. You will see fewer and fewer choices. You will need another hard drive to experiment with OS's if you receive a recovery CD. Restoration cd's are a little better, offering upgraded driver possibilities, but still taking a long time to load. They can cover more product lines and pre-partitioning your drive can lead to the ability for multiple OS's. THE TREND TOWARD INTEGRATION is stronger than ever, indirectly TAKING AWAY CONSUMER CHOICE IN HARDWARE as well. This is extremely bad news for choice. However, this engineering decision will greatly reduce the burden for technical support for novice users. Those of us who like to dink around with (and legitimately use) other OS's will be hurt, but this will reduce call times and make technical support more limited to qualified people. This will be good in the long run for the vast majority of the computing public. When I did desktop support, a Pentium II 233 used to take an hour to reload properly with OS and drivers. Now with a system restoration CD a Pentium III 700 computer can take about 15 minutes with drivers automatically loaded. This increases the likelihood that your problems will ultimately be resolved and allows a technician to significantly reduce software troubleshooting in order to prevent (what used to be the god-awful) format/reinstall. This will end up saving a lot of people's time at the expense of choice. I believe the OEM's have as much to do with this as Microsoft. I took many calls where people could not find their Certificate of Authenticity (legitimately, and a few fakers, too) or the Windows CD. This ultimtately made it harder for the consumer. In addition, if your Windows cd arrived or became damaged, your OEM could not replace it for you. You were shit out of luck unless you decided to send the system in for service. Now OEM's are actually responsible for getting the OS up and running and can't hide behind the fact that you can't find your COA or may have received a damaged CD and hadn't needed to use it yet. There may be some good in this too. Ultimately less hassle in case of the bad happening, but less choice on the front end of hardware selection and software selection too.
What if I bought a tape or record and already paid you guys? You later release your art in a format (CD) that is technologically superior. I shouldn't have to pay you twice, but I did. My Metallica CD "And Justice for All" was stolen my freshman year in college. I even filed a formal police report about it to the college I was going to. Now all I have is the tape. Now, I could choose to listen to the tape and even convert it to MP3 file format OR get an improved quality above tape via Napster. The only difference between my Kill 'em All tape and CD is quality. Now, you have to pay for increased quality of recording between tape and the available CD. That makes the cd more valuable (which I begrudgingly understand). There is an obvious value attatched to that discrepancy. Since, however, MP3 files are not distributed by the record companies, there is not value. That's right. NO VALUE. You can extrapolate that the value would between the quality difference of the cd (whatever that dollar value is) and 0 (which is the quality of the tape to the person who has already purchased the tape). Since that value has not been determined (totally indefinite), no value can be attatched to the recording to the user.
to bring up the 'special' internet cleaning console.