In my previous job, I was spending more time helping other people fix their bugs, since my stuff mostly worked fine. Of course perhaps I got the easier stuff to do - but since I still managed to fix their bugs or help them find and fix the bugs, maybe I wasn't that crap either...
That's a good situation, but it's up to you to let your manager know what's going on. Have frequent one-on-one meetings with your manager, and in those meetings let him or her know how much you're contributing to other people's projects because your own code is working just fine (but make sure that's because it's been fully tested and really is bug free, rather than the lack of bugs being due to a lack of actual testing and usage to expose the bugs). You're doing the right thing, helping others out since there's not a lot to do with your own stuff. You just need to go that extra step and let management know how much you're contributing. You'll go from being seen as the lazy guy who doesn't do anything to the team superstar who is always available to help others out of a jam.
Which goes to the question...why did they not support Aero officially on that GPU?
Ask Intel. Aero support is 100% driver-driven. The Win7 Intel GMA950 WDDM 1.1 drivers support Aero, and there's no reason why they couldn't have done so on Vista.
Some of the 2D stuff that you get from these hardware-accelerated compositing window managers, like drop shadows and zooming, is actually useful. Most of the 3D stuff is complete eye candy fluff.
I think the parent got it a little bit backward. It's not important to add 3D effects to window managers, but it's important to add 3D rendering. That doesn't mean wavy windows, desktops on cubes, or whatever, but the ability to do hardware-accelerated compositing, to render to a texture so you can have easy window previews, scaling, etc. More importantly, by using only the 3D pipeline vendors can simplify their hardware and software because they don't need to worry about 2D acceleration anymore, and desktop environments can seamlessly switch between "2D" and 3D. Visually, nothing has to change. You don't need to have "glass" effects or anything else just because you're doing 3D compositing. That's just eye-candy to get users to use it. In the end, everybody benefits, even the luddite who just wants to run a bunch of full-screen terminal apps.
My bad. I've not run XP since Vista launched, which was also right around the time multi-core processors became popular. I never got a chance to personally try XP with dual- or quad-core (I did run it dual-proc), and I have no desire to go back. Vista wasn't perfect, but at least for me it was miles ahead of XP. And Win7 is that much better than Vista, again for me.
At least Windows 7 Pro has an XP virtual machine, but we don't know how compatible it is yet.
Why not? It's been available since the RC. You do need hardware virtualization support, but that's easy to check (I dislike GRC because of his irrational fearmongering of UPnP, but this tool is the quickest way to check if you have virtualization available on your CPU). It's based on the mature VirtualPC product and running full XP, so if an app worked in XP it should work fine in virtualization.
Windows 7 is a Service Pack to Windows Vista practically, and it is like when Windows XP came out as a Service Pack to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 was version 5.0 and Windows XP was version 5.1, Windows Vista is version 6.0 and Windows 7 is version 6.1.
First, read about why Windows 7 is 6.1. Cliff notes: app compatibility, because too many apps are stupid and don't handle major version bumps properly (witness all of the apps from Windows XP that wouldn't install on Vista simply because it was 5.1 to 6.0 and the installer assumed major version would always be 5 and so just checked minor version, resulting in 0 less than 1 == not supported). Win7 is certainly an enhancement on top of Vista, but then Vista was an enhancement on top of XP (really on top of the Server 2003 codebase, but that came from XP), and XP was an advancement on top of 2000, and so on. Some things haven't changed, like the new WDDM driver model that Vista introduced (though Win7 did bump to WDDM 1.1, which allows for easier/better drivers, especially in the realm of gpus). Other things have changed dramatically, though you wont really notice such as the DWM now being much more efficient, especially if coupled with a WDDM 1.1 driver (nVidia, ATI, and Intel already have such drivers available). In Vista, DWM memory usage would grow linearly with the number of windows open. In Windows 7 with a WDDM 1.1 driver, memory usage is now constant regardless of the number of windows (and with a 1.0 driver, it's still ~50% more efficient than Vista). Another example, Win7 is much nicer to SSD storage. But you should look at the list of new features yourself.
Sadly a lot of XP machines will need RAM upgrades if not video and hard drive upgrades to run Windows 7 as I heard even 1G of RAM is not enough and that Windows 7 is a bit of a hard drive and resource hog like Vista is, because XP runs faster because it has less features and fewer services that start up upon bootup.
1GB is fine. I've used Win7 on netbooks with that little RAM and they were just as snappy (if not snappier) than when running XP. Of course I also like to upgrade netbooks to 2GB, and when you can do so for $20 why wouldn't you? You don't need a new video card, especially if you already have a DX9-capable card (DX9+ required for Aero, will be snappier with a 10.1 card but Aero will still work well). Win7 fits quite well into 16GB on netbooks with plenty of room to spare for your own content, and you can even hack it (though it's not recommended or supported) to get down into 8GB. Win7/Vista definitely have more startup services, but that's also a bit of a red herring as there are new things like the Aero Destop Window Manager and the new Audio server that show up as services now.
Most Windows XP installs don't make use of dual core or higher systems as one has to by the non uniprocessor version of XP to use more than one core or processor.
XP Pro supported 2 processors, so for most people that would be fine (assuming most people have single or dual-core CPUs, not quad-core). What's more important than that is 64-bit really shines in Win7 (it worked well in Vista as well, but it's even better in 7; for XP
Not quite. While both have a total 512MB of RAM, the 360 uses a unified memory architecture so that you can use more memory for processing vs. graphics if you need it. The PS3 has a 256MB/256MB split and the two can't share. This is a huge issue when running Linux on the PS3, for example, since it can only access the 256MB main memory and can't access the GPU at all.
the processor on the PS3 is much, much better than the 360's, albeit harder to code for given that RISC coding across multiple processors was prior to the release not exactly a much needed skillset in the world of gameing
Also debateable. The main CPU of the PS3 is exactly the same as one of the 360's three cores. You're referring to the seven Cell processors, which are just glorified vector units. In terms of raw power, the 360's 3 full cores (each with 2 hardware threading units, effectively giving you 6 cores to work with) are easier to use and more versatile than the PS3's single core (with 2 hardware threads) and 7 Cells. Both require multi-threaded programming concepts to work with, but each thread on the Xbox can do any processing you like which the PS3's Cell units require you to break down your work in a much less obvious manner.
positioning of the usb ports make it a much superior design as well. Seriously, that stupid little flap thing on the 360 was clearly designed by poo-flinging monkeys
I've never had an issue with the 360's USB flap. On the PS3, the fact that the USB slots are underneath the overhang can be a bit annoying if you have the PS3 positioned vertically and your gaming position is to the left of the console (the cord has to bend around the overhang). With the current PS3 hardware, both only have two usable USB slots (the 360 has a third on the back, but that's pretty much only intended for the wifi dongle or for transferring hard drive contents) and thus require a separate hub if you want to connect more than two USB items at a time (for example, wired Rock Band controllers, charging cables, etc). I'd call that a wash for both.
The PS3 can install Linux out of the box and can play BluRays. A BluRay player is still $200+, and $250+ for a decent one. Add $250 to the price of an XBox 360 and then tell me which is cheaper.
You can't do much with Linux on a PS3. Sony won't let Linux use the GPU, you can't play Blu-Ray disks from Linux (you have to reboot the box), etc. Also, BDLive-enabled Blu-Ray players are down to $100 bucks now.
XBox Live is better. I agree. But I prefer a free experience since I don't have 25+ hours a week to play my console online.
There's more to Live and PSN than just online gaming, and the Silver account for Live is free. The Xbox game and video stores are much better than PSN in terms of interface. For example, on Xbox the demo and full version of a game are in the same place. On PSN, I have to track down the demo vs. the full game in two completely different locations. Also, Xbox has its XNA/Community/Indie Games. PSN doesn't have anything comparable to that. No, games written for PS3 Linux are not the same since as mentioned above you don't get the full power of the console available to you. Your only viable option for homebrew PS3 games is to hack your console, and with the rate Sony sends out dash updates that's a risky proposition.
I still play PC gaming, and I love the PS2/PS3 controllers. I don't have to buy separate PC controllers for PC gaming. That is nice. You can connect them with the USB cable or bluetooth, since it uses a standard USB connection. This is still a benefit of the PS3 over the 360. You said you were debunking FUD and in reality you're offering opinions, not commenting on facts.
It's a matter of preference, but at least for me the 360 controller is much better ergonomically than the DualShock. Also, the 360 controllers have replaceable batteries so you can get a new pack when your battery life starts to drop rather than having to buy a whole new controller. Finally, the 360 controllers work just fine on a PC, and have better Windows support than the PS3 controller. For wireless, you do need to buy a separate dongle since the controllers don't use Bluetooth, but then if your PC doesn't have Bluetooth (and many don't) you'd have to buy a separate dongle to use the PS3 controller. The wired 360 controllers use regular USB (unlike the original Xbox controllers), and plug right into your PC just fine.
How about the litany of developers who claim their games won't run on the 360, or the fact that now that developers know how to code for the PS3, that 360 ports look worse, or that developers have had to lower draw distances for 360 versions, or that the cold hard facts show that the PS3 has more power? Again, you're offering opinions rather than facts.
Name some that haven't gone back on those statements. Bethesda first claimed that they couldn't do Oblivion on a single disk for 360, but they went back on that and were able to do so successfully. Id has claimed that Rage on PS3 runs worse than on 360 and PC (they're still working on that and hope to bring the PS3 version up to par, but when developer god Carmack says the PS3 is worse I tend to believe him). Valve has decided they're done porting to the PS3 after the Orange Box ran so poorly (granted that was a case of shopping out the port to a 3rd party that did it poorly, but Valve's not big enough to invest in an in-house PS3 team and have said they're not doing PS3 ports again until they do). Most multi-platform games are developed on the 360 first and then ported (poorly) to the PS3.
That was certainly the case when the PS3 first launched, and they just took 360 games and ported them poorly. That certainly isn't the case anymore.
That's definitely still the case, and will likely remain the
Considering they sell game systems at a loss, I'm not sure they want to push me that way. Because I'm the tech guy among my friends and if I go around spreading the mod chip gospel it's not just me going to update. Sure that's illegal, but I'm willing to do the civil disobedience bit to make sure I can use a game system however I want, including putting in a mod chip so I can program it myself. The downloads haven't happened yet so no use arguing with me about that part.
You're one guy, a generation behind, buying used games. They don't see a penny from you anyway, they're not going to lose anything if you modchip + downloaded games.
Also, being "the tech guy" of you friends generally doesn't translate to consoles. The friends you convince to do what you're doing now don't matter for the same reasons you don't matter. The friends of yours that are on the current generation and buying used or new won't have the same opportunity as you to go for downloaded games. While the current generation has been mostly hacked, the proliferation of modchips and downloaded games isn't nearly as bad as it was with the PS1/Dreamcast/PS2, mostly because there are safeguards against it like banning from Xbox Live and PS3 console updates that close holes while giving desirable new features. Besides, if they're already on the latest consoles, they're statistically more likely to prefer the added benefits of not stealing (being able to get online, get new features like new video streaming codecs as they're released, etc) than they are to listen to you. You might convince them to switch to PC gaming (as long as they don't mind shelling out another $400-1000 to get a rig that will play modern games), but guess what? Nobody sells used PC games. There are services like Steam, Impulse, etc where you can find older games at reasonable prices, but that's not the same as buying used.
tl;dr: You're not as important or influential as you think you are, and the game companies don't care about you.
Nope, I don't have the same problems in Vista on the same hardware. Compositing flies on it.
I'm in the same situation. I'm dual-booting Jaunty (UNR) and Win7 on my Lenovo S10 (GMA950 chipset). Under Win7, I can watch Youtube and Hulu videos without any choppiness at all, even full-screen. In Jaunty, Youtube is choppy and Hulu is pretty much unwatchable in a browser window (both are slideshows when set fullscreen). I don't know how much of this has to do with Adobe's implementation of Flash on Windows vs. Linux or Intel's drivers on Windows vs. Linux, but it's pretty annoying. I really, really like the UNR interface (I wish Win7 had something like that for netbooks), but the overall performance of the system is just better in Win7.
How is having a UI that doesn't try and distract you "primitive?"
You're assuming that Vista and Win7 UIs distract me. They don't. They let me get my work done more efficiently, by using things like the start menu search bar.
I don't want to have to right click all over IE7, I want to friggin' get my work done!
You right-click once and set everything up, and then never have to do it again. How is that any different than customizing buttons in Firefox? Or are you so vain that you think the OS and apps should be setup exactly how you want them right out of the box, ignoring the fact that what you want is not what other people want?
Aero Peek isn't totally new. Vista has had Aero Peek all along. The difference is that in Vista's Aero Peek, you weren't able to see ALL the peek preview windows by hovering over the taskbar stack. You had to open the taskbar stack's context window that showed all the different items, then you could peek at each item.
Not the same thing at all. Aero Peek shows you the actual window on the desktop, with all other windows removed (glass outlines showing where they are). You're referring to the thumbnail view from the task bar, which was in Vista as you say, but was not nearly as featureful as it is in Win7.
Next came Internet Explorer 7 where they ditched the traditional tool bar and spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth so nobody can ever find the button they one. I don't think there's a single person who likes this arrangement but once again Microsoft refuse to include any customisation to the intereface so you can "Work your way" just as long as "your way" is the way Microsoft tells you to work.
Right-click the interface, choose "Customize Command Bar". Navigation stays at the top, but everything else lives ont he command bar (which you can move to wherever you like, but by default sits to the right of the tabs). Add or remove whatever buttons you need there.
Then there was Windows Vista which adopted the attitude of "why do in 5 clicks what you can do in 20". Everything now takes more clicks to do so productivity is reduced.
Except the start menu search functionality effectively removes most of those clicks.
The new start menu is worthless and abandons the tree structure to replace it with a list of applications you have to scroll through slowly, further reducing the productivity of Vista users.
The start menu still has a tree structure under "All Programs". It's just all in the same list now. It scrolls with a regular scrollbar, so you can scroll quickly with the mouse, mouse wheel, pgup/dn, home/end, etc. And since it's all in-place rather than a bunch of flying menus, there's no risk of accidentally losing your place from mousing away or clicking the wrong thing. But I have to ask what are you doing using the menu? Use the search box.
After trying the Windows 7 beta I've been forced to switch to Linux
I apparently went the opposite direction. After using Vista for 2 years, and Win7 since January, I find it hard to go back to more primitive interfaces (XP, Gnome, etc, though I haven't used KDE4 yet).
Luckily, up here in Canada, CTV and their subsidiaries have realized that they can broadcast on the Internet, make money off of advertising (business as usual, for them) and their customers won't be robbed by the cable companies.
That's a good point, and many US networks are doing the same. The problem is one of format and access. I want to be able to watch those streaming shows on my big TV, using nothing but a remote control to navigate. Current browser-based solutions don't really allow for this, making me have to get out my keyboard and mouse, navigate to a website, etc. Solutions like PlayOn and Netflix streaming on devices like Roku, Tivo, and Xbox 360 are a great step forward, letting me watch web-based streaming video from the comfort of my couch, using a remote to control whatever device I'm using (in my case, an Xbox 360). I don't mind the ads in Hulu, for example, and I'm eagerly awaiting PlayOn adding more content providers (Fox, Fancast, etc). In fact these solutions are getting good enough that I'm seriously considering dumping my cable TV subscription. Anything I want to watch I can get OTA (and record with my media center PC) or legally online for free or a small cost ($30 one-time PlayOn license fee, $17/mo Netflix subscription).
The next step will be for content providers to get better about offering up their content. Why do I have to wait eight days to get the latest episode of House on Hulu when I can stream the latest episode of Heroes (in 720p HD!) the next day through Netflix?
It requires you to do tedious mini-games for cash, when you could just easily extort and kill people for their money. Wouldn't it have been a truer interpretation if good players received better rewards from quests, since people would like them more? Wouldn't more townsfolk beseech the player with quests, knowing that he'd help them out? Regardless of what real life is like, I don't want to grind away at a job to earn money the "Right Way."
Sounds like you did it wrong. Playing good, you grind away at minigame jobs to get enough money to buy one of the bigger properties, like Bowerstone pub (pouring drinks at the pub is a good way to get this money, and doesn't take very long to get large amounts of cash as long as you can get your multiplier high). Once you've bought that, you'll start raking in large amounts of gold every 5 minutes, which will add up and you can then buy other big properties (other pubs, the blacksmith, etc), thus adding even more to your income. Property is your main money maker, and as a good character your "bonus" is that people will sell much more cheaply to you if they like you. If you're evil, or you kill owners of shops/houses, prices go up.
Oh and the "drains laptop batteries like hell" problem - due to crapola services thrashing the hard disk 24/7.
Never heard this one before. In fact from my own experience, Vista actually increased my laptop's battery life by a good 20+ minutes. And this was on a laptop that was 2 years old at the time of Vista launch (when battery life should start decreasing naturally from use).
The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron 9300 that I upgraded with 2GB of RAM and a 7200RPM hard drive while still using XP. Under XP, I could eke out just over 2.5 hours of battery life. After installing Vista, that number went up to just about 3 hours even with all of the bells and whistles enabled. More importantly, the laptop never liked to sleep under XP and I had to set it to hibernate when I closed the lid. With Vista, sleeping has always worked perfectly.
I won't discount the possibility of having a "magic" laptop, but my own empirical evidence since installing Vista as soon as it was publicly available goes against everything I've seen people complain about. Everything has worked flawlessly, and in fact this old "Designed for Windows XP" laptop has run better under Vista than it ever did with XP.
Some people were able to activate w/ att without a contract is their credit was bad.
I was able to activate my iPhone with AT&T without a contract, without going pre-paid, and with excellent credit. How did I do it? Simple -- I've been a Cingular/AT&T Wireless customer for years (6 years at the time I bought my iPhone). My original 2-year contract ran out 4 years earlier, and I was not required to re-up another 2-year contract in order to activate my phone. I just added the $20/mo contractless data plan to my existing month-to-month plan and I was good to go. Granted I didn't get a subsidy like AT&T is offering on the 3G iPhones, but $400 for my 8GB was totally worth it to me.
i'm assuming they did this for a reason, you know, like to win the x-prize
You'd be wrong. When VW first built the 1 liter car, X-Prize was still focused on suborbital spaceflight. That's because VW built this concept waaaaaay back in 2002, when we (the States) weren't suffering from a gas crisis. The only news here is that VW is actually contemplating building this car for mass consumption.
pity Safari's not OSS, or it could be added easily by third parties
What does that have to do with being OSS or not? Safari has an extension model just like IE, and neither are open source. Prior to IE7, several third-party extensions added anti-phishing support for IE (MSN, Google, etc), and as far as I can tell there's nothing in Safari's extension model that would prevent others from doing the same there as well. OSS vs. non-OSS doesn't even come into play here.
Considering out easy it is, I'm surprised that MS doesn't just give the user a button in the menus to "tie this console as my main GamerTag console".
That risks breaking the DRM. Consider you purchase a TV show (you buy those, not rent like movies), take console offline, move the hard drive to another console, and tie the content to that new one. If you never bring that first console back online, it still thinks the media is tied to that console. Now imagine if I do that and share that TV show out with all of my friends, who won't go back online until they're done watching that show. I just "broke" the DRM. I think that's probably the biggest reason why there's no DRM transfer option for upgrades or store warranties yet, and also why it works in the warranty repair scenario (because they have physical access to your old console, thus you cannot keep an authorized offline copy of stuff).
According to the article, this happened recently (Feb 2008). However Microsoft has had a solution for DRM problems on consoles replaced through warranty repair since May or June of 2007. I don't think they publicize it like they should, but the last time I went through repair was June and the process was brand new so maybe they do better now.
Anyway, it works like this:
Your Xbox 360 breaks. You call support, schedule a repair, and send it in. KEEP YOUR HARD DRIVE (though this only matters if you care about your save games)
You receive your replacement console 1-3 weeks later.
You drill down in your account information off of the Marketplace blade to find your Download History.
You go through your download history, re-downloading each DRM-protected piece of content you wish to be able to use offline on your new console.
The downloads go extremely quickly, because you kept your hard drive. You're not actually re-downloading the whole content (that would suck for a 6GB Xbox Original game, for example). Instead, you're just downloading a new key that will sign the content to the new console ID.
As of right now, this process is only available if you go through the official Microsoft repair process (in warranty, or for $100 out of warranty). If you use a store replacement warranty, take advantage of a store's lenient return policy like CostCo used to have, or replace the console yourself (because you want to upgrade, or you hacked your console and it won't make it through official repairs), you're screwed. The rekeying process requires manual intervention to invalidate the old console ID and set up the content to retrieve a new key when you download it again.
Yes, it's a rather tedious process and it would be great if there was a "Download all premium content again" option to make it go quicker, but that's beside the point. The only value to this article is to show that customer support agents can suck. But we all knew that already, right?
Maybe I don't want my files indexed;). Maybe I don't want my computer grinding away doing some stupid shit I'm never going to use. Maybe I want a run line, that's actually a run command line. This is beyond noobs messing up a configuration, it's sheer fucking stupidity, something that deviates from every other operating system out there including previous versions of windows.
So configure your indexer settings to only index those bits that you do want indexed (for example, it's probably a very good idea to index %programfiles%, since the bulk of your executables will be there and it should change rarely. On the other hand, if you feel the indexer might leak data you can tell it not to index %userprofile%). If you want a run command line, how about clicking "Run..." off of the Start Menu, or using the old Winkey+R keyboard shortcut that still works perfectly? That's the old Run dialog that doesn't do any searching beyond its own MRU list. While you can configure your Start menu to remove the Run command, it is there by default from a clean install. The Start Menu search box is strictly extra functionality on top of what has always been there, not a replacement for other bits (although with indexing on I've found that I never bother to drill down into "All Programs" anymore).
Yes, I am a system administrator, and yes I can make vista run decently well and crash free on a computer. That's because I've had 20 years experience doing this for a living. I don't remember seeing near as many issues from NT4/W2K > XP transition as Vista has presented. Main problems I have with it...
And yet you somehow missed the "Run..." option on the Start Menu. Interesting.
Another redesign of the UI. XP was simple enough to reset to W2K behavior. No need to retrain secretaries/lusers where there application links/files have gone. You can set Vista sorta kinda but not quite like XP behavior. Unfortunately for many people this means retraining them how to use there desktop again.
Is it really that bad? All of your app links and such are still in the Start Menu, in approximately the same location as they've always been. That some things have changed locations on the physical disk ("%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings" becoming "%systemdrive%\Users", for example) doesn't really matter when the reasons why you generally go there are available right on the Start Menu as always ("My Documents" has become just "Documents", but I think most people can figure that one out).
Different control panels. Microsoft hasn't figured this one out yet. People(luser in this case) don't fix their own computers, they call their power user friends to do it. By changing the control panels and network settings, all you've done is forced all the professional and amature IT people to learn new crap. Most people plug it in once and expect it to work, if it doesn't, they call somebody. It doesn't matter how simple and full of eye candy the screen is they won't be able to fix what the issue is.
If you're really a power user, you already know the names of the control panel executables (for example, appwiz.cpl ran the old "Add/Remove Programs" control panel in pre-Vista, and still runs the same panel even though it was renamed to "Programs and Features"). If you actually try using the new control panel from the perspective of a non-power user, I think you might find that the change vastly increases discoverability of common actions. Using Add/Remove Programs as an example again, if you look at the Control Panel in Classic View you're going to be lost because that's now "Programs and Features" and you have to retrain yourself to look for that. But if you look at Control Panel in the default "helpful" view, you'll see a link for "Programs", with a few links to common actions under that (uninstall, cleanup startup programs). You can drill down deeper into "Progr
Slashdot Mirror
That's a good situation, but it's up to you to let your manager know what's going on. Have frequent one-on-one meetings with your manager, and in those meetings let him or her know how much you're contributing to other people's projects because your own code is working just fine (but make sure that's because it's been fully tested and really is bug free, rather than the lack of bugs being due to a lack of actual testing and usage to expose the bugs). You're doing the right thing, helping others out since there's not a lot to do with your own stuff. You just need to go that extra step and let management know how much you're contributing. You'll go from being seen as the lazy guy who doesn't do anything to the team superstar who is always available to help others out of a jam.
Ask Intel. Aero support is 100% driver-driven. The Win7 Intel GMA950 WDDM 1.1 drivers support Aero, and there's no reason why they couldn't have done so on Vista.
I think the parent got it a little bit backward. It's not important to add 3D effects to window managers, but it's important to add 3D rendering. That doesn't mean wavy windows, desktops on cubes, or whatever, but the ability to do hardware-accelerated compositing, to render to a texture so you can have easy window previews, scaling, etc. More importantly, by using only the 3D pipeline vendors can simplify their hardware and software because they don't need to worry about 2D acceleration anymore, and desktop environments can seamlessly switch between "2D" and 3D. Visually, nothing has to change. You don't need to have "glass" effects or anything else just because you're doing 3D compositing. That's just eye-candy to get users to use it. In the end, everybody benefits, even the luddite who just wants to run a bunch of full-screen terminal apps.
My bad. I've not run XP since Vista launched, which was also right around the time multi-core processors became popular. I never got a chance to personally try XP with dual- or quad-core (I did run it dual-proc), and I have no desire to go back. Vista wasn't perfect, but at least for me it was miles ahead of XP. And Win7 is that much better than Vista, again for me.
The ancient GMA950 chip in my netbook runs Windows 7 Aero glass liquid smooth.
Why not? It's been available since the RC. You do need hardware virtualization support, but that's easy to check (I dislike GRC because of his irrational fearmongering of UPnP, but this tool is the quickest way to check if you have virtualization available on your CPU). It's based on the mature VirtualPC product and running full XP, so if an app worked in XP it should work fine in virtualization.
First, read about why Windows 7 is 6.1. Cliff notes: app compatibility, because too many apps are stupid and don't handle major version bumps properly (witness all of the apps from Windows XP that wouldn't install on Vista simply because it was 5.1 to 6.0 and the installer assumed major version would always be 5 and so just checked minor version, resulting in 0 less than 1 == not supported). Win7 is certainly an enhancement on top of Vista, but then Vista was an enhancement on top of XP (really on top of the Server 2003 codebase, but that came from XP), and XP was an advancement on top of 2000, and so on. Some things haven't changed, like the new WDDM driver model that Vista introduced (though Win7 did bump to WDDM 1.1, which allows for easier/better drivers, especially in the realm of gpus). Other things have changed dramatically, though you wont really notice such as the DWM now being much more efficient, especially if coupled with a WDDM 1.1 driver (nVidia, ATI, and Intel already have such drivers available). In Vista, DWM memory usage would grow linearly with the number of windows open. In Windows 7 with a WDDM 1.1 driver, memory usage is now constant regardless of the number of windows (and with a 1.0 driver, it's still ~50% more efficient than Vista). Another example, Win7 is much nicer to SSD storage. But you should look at the list of new features yourself.
1GB is fine. I've used Win7 on netbooks with that little RAM and they were just as snappy (if not snappier) than when running XP. Of course I also like to upgrade netbooks to 2GB, and when you can do so for $20 why wouldn't you? You don't need a new video card, especially if you already have a DX9-capable card (DX9+ required for Aero, will be snappier with a 10.1 card but Aero will still work well). Win7 fits quite well into 16GB on netbooks with plenty of room to spare for your own content, and you can even hack it (though it's not recommended or supported) to get down into 8GB. Win7/Vista definitely have more startup services, but that's also a bit of a red herring as there are new things like the Aero Destop Window Manager and the new Audio server that show up as services now.
XP Pro supported 2 processors, so for most people that would be fine (assuming most people have single or dual-core CPUs, not quad-core). What's more important than that is 64-bit really shines in Win7 (it worked well in Vista as well, but it's even better in 7; for XP
Not quite. While both have a total 512MB of RAM, the 360 uses a unified memory architecture so that you can use more memory for processing vs. graphics if you need it. The PS3 has a 256MB/256MB split and the two can't share. This is a huge issue when running Linux on the PS3, for example, since it can only access the 256MB main memory and can't access the GPU at all.
Also debateable. The main CPU of the PS3 is exactly the same as one of the 360's three cores. You're referring to the seven Cell processors, which are just glorified vector units. In terms of raw power, the 360's 3 full cores (each with 2 hardware threading units, effectively giving you 6 cores to work with) are easier to use and more versatile than the PS3's single core (with 2 hardware threads) and 7 Cells. Both require multi-threaded programming concepts to work with, but each thread on the Xbox can do any processing you like which the PS3's Cell units require you to break down your work in a much less obvious manner.
I've never had an issue with the 360's USB flap. On the PS3, the fact that the USB slots are underneath the overhang can be a bit annoying if you have the PS3 positioned vertically and your gaming position is to the left of the console (the cord has to bend around the overhang). With the current PS3 hardware, both only have two usable USB slots (the 360 has a third on the back, but that's pretty much only intended for the wifi dongle or for transferring hard drive contents) and thus require a separate hub if you want to connect more than two USB items at a time (for example, wired Rock Band controllers, charging cables, etc). I'd call that a wash for both.
You can't do much with Linux on a PS3. Sony won't let Linux use the GPU, you can't play Blu-Ray disks from Linux (you have to reboot the box), etc. Also, BDLive-enabled Blu-Ray players are down to $100 bucks now.
There's more to Live and PSN than just online gaming, and the Silver account for Live is free. The Xbox game and video stores are much better than PSN in terms of interface. For example, on Xbox the demo and full version of a game are in the same place. On PSN, I have to track down the demo vs. the full game in two completely different locations. Also, Xbox has its XNA/Community/Indie Games. PSN doesn't have anything comparable to that. No, games written for PS3 Linux are not the same since as mentioned above you don't get the full power of the console available to you. Your only viable option for homebrew PS3 games is to hack your console, and with the rate Sony sends out dash updates that's a risky proposition.
It's a matter of preference, but at least for me the 360 controller is much better ergonomically than the DualShock. Also, the 360 controllers have replaceable batteries so you can get a new pack when your battery life starts to drop rather than having to buy a whole new controller. Finally, the 360 controllers work just fine on a PC, and have better Windows support than the PS3 controller. For wireless, you do need to buy a separate dongle since the controllers don't use Bluetooth, but then if your PC doesn't have Bluetooth (and many don't) you'd have to buy a separate dongle to use the PS3 controller. The wired 360 controllers use regular USB (unlike the original Xbox controllers), and plug right into your PC just fine.
Name some that haven't gone back on those statements. Bethesda first claimed that they couldn't do Oblivion on a single disk for 360, but they went back on that and were able to do so successfully. Id has claimed that Rage on PS3 runs worse than on 360 and PC (they're still working on that and hope to bring the PS3 version up to par, but when developer god Carmack says the PS3 is worse I tend to believe him). Valve has decided they're done porting to the PS3 after the Orange Box ran so poorly (granted that was a case of shopping out the port to a 3rd party that did it poorly, but Valve's not big enough to invest in an in-house PS3 team and have said they're not doing PS3 ports again until they do). Most multi-platform games are developed on the 360 first and then ported (poorly) to the PS3.
That's definitely still the case, and will likely remain the
You're one guy, a generation behind, buying used games. They don't see a penny from you anyway, they're not going to lose anything if you modchip + downloaded games.
Also, being "the tech guy" of you friends generally doesn't translate to consoles. The friends you convince to do what you're doing now don't matter for the same reasons you don't matter. The friends of yours that are on the current generation and buying used or new won't have the same opportunity as you to go for downloaded games. While the current generation has been mostly hacked, the proliferation of modchips and downloaded games isn't nearly as bad as it was with the PS1/Dreamcast/PS2, mostly because there are safeguards against it like banning from Xbox Live and PS3 console updates that close holes while giving desirable new features. Besides, if they're already on the latest consoles, they're statistically more likely to prefer the added benefits of not stealing (being able to get online, get new features like new video streaming codecs as they're released, etc) than they are to listen to you. You might convince them to switch to PC gaming (as long as they don't mind shelling out another $400-1000 to get a rig that will play modern games), but guess what? Nobody sells used PC games. There are services like Steam, Impulse, etc where you can find older games at reasonable prices, but that's not the same as buying used.
tl;dr: You're not as important or influential as you think you are, and the game companies don't care about you.
I'm in the same situation. I'm dual-booting Jaunty (UNR) and Win7 on my Lenovo S10 (GMA950 chipset). Under Win7, I can watch Youtube and Hulu videos without any choppiness at all, even full-screen. In Jaunty, Youtube is choppy and Hulu is pretty much unwatchable in a browser window (both are slideshows when set fullscreen). I don't know how much of this has to do with Adobe's implementation of Flash on Windows vs. Linux or Intel's drivers on Windows vs. Linux, but it's pretty annoying. I really, really like the UNR interface (I wish Win7 had something like that for netbooks), but the overall performance of the system is just better in Win7.
You're assuming that Vista and Win7 UIs distract me. They don't. They let me get my work done more efficiently, by using things like the start menu search bar.
You right-click once and set everything up, and then never have to do it again. How is that any different than customizing buttons in Firefox? Or are you so vain that you think the OS and apps should be setup exactly how you want them right out of the box, ignoring the fact that what you want is not what other people want?
Not the same thing at all. Aero Peek shows you the actual window on the desktop, with all other windows removed (glass outlines showing where they are). You're referring to the thumbnail view from the task bar, which was in Vista as you say, but was not nearly as featureful as it is in Win7.
Right-click the interface, choose "Customize Command Bar". Navigation stays at the top, but everything else lives ont he command bar (which you can move to wherever you like, but by default sits to the right of the tabs). Add or remove whatever buttons you need there.
Except the start menu search functionality effectively removes most of those clicks.
The start menu still has a tree structure under "All Programs". It's just all in the same list now. It scrolls with a regular scrollbar, so you can scroll quickly with the mouse, mouse wheel, pgup/dn, home/end, etc. And since it's all in-place rather than a bunch of flying menus, there's no risk of accidentally losing your place from mousing away or clicking the wrong thing. But I have to ask what are you doing using the menu? Use the search box.
I apparently went the opposite direction. After using Vista for 2 years, and Win7 since January, I find it hard to go back to more primitive interfaces (XP, Gnome, etc, though I haven't used KDE4 yet).
That's a good point, and many US networks are doing the same. The problem is one of format and access. I want to be able to watch those streaming shows on my big TV, using nothing but a remote control to navigate. Current browser-based solutions don't really allow for this, making me have to get out my keyboard and mouse, navigate to a website, etc. Solutions like PlayOn and Netflix streaming on devices like Roku, Tivo, and Xbox 360 are a great step forward, letting me watch web-based streaming video from the comfort of my couch, using a remote to control whatever device I'm using (in my case, an Xbox 360). I don't mind the ads in Hulu, for example, and I'm eagerly awaiting PlayOn adding more content providers (Fox, Fancast, etc). In fact these solutions are getting good enough that I'm seriously considering dumping my cable TV subscription. Anything I want to watch I can get OTA (and record with my media center PC) or legally online for free or a small cost ($30 one-time PlayOn license fee, $17/mo Netflix subscription).
The next step will be for content providers to get better about offering up their content. Why do I have to wait eight days to get the latest episode of House on Hulu when I can stream the latest episode of Heroes (in 720p HD!) the next day through Netflix?
Or File -> Install New Font ..., if you don't know about right-clicking.
Sounds like you did it wrong. Playing good, you grind away at minigame jobs to get enough money to buy one of the bigger properties, like Bowerstone pub (pouring drinks at the pub is a good way to get this money, and doesn't take very long to get large amounts of cash as long as you can get your multiplier high). Once you've bought that, you'll start raking in large amounts of gold every 5 minutes, which will add up and you can then buy other big properties (other pubs, the blacksmith, etc), thus adding even more to your income. Property is your main money maker, and as a good character your "bonus" is that people will sell much more cheaply to you if they like you. If you're evil, or you kill owners of shops/houses, prices go up.
Not Slashdot. KDawson. He's the only one who keeps using the category incorrectly.
Never heard this one before. In fact from my own experience, Vista actually increased my laptop's battery life by a good 20+ minutes. And this was on a laptop that was 2 years old at the time of Vista launch (when battery life should start decreasing naturally from use).
The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron 9300 that I upgraded with 2GB of RAM and a 7200RPM hard drive while still using XP. Under XP, I could eke out just over 2.5 hours of battery life. After installing Vista, that number went up to just about 3 hours even with all of the bells and whistles enabled. More importantly, the laptop never liked to sleep under XP and I had to set it to hibernate when I closed the lid. With Vista, sleeping has always worked perfectly.
I won't discount the possibility of having a "magic" laptop, but my own empirical evidence since installing Vista as soon as it was publicly available goes against everything I've seen people complain about. Everything has worked flawlessly, and in fact this old "Designed for Windows XP" laptop has run better under Vista than it ever did with XP.
I was able to activate my iPhone with AT&T without a contract, without going pre-paid, and with excellent credit. How did I do it? Simple -- I've been a Cingular/AT&T Wireless customer for years (6 years at the time I bought my iPhone). My original 2-year contract ran out 4 years earlier, and I was not required to re-up another 2-year contract in order to activate my phone. I just added the $20/mo contractless data plan to my existing month-to-month plan and I was good to go. Granted I didn't get a subsidy like AT&T is offering on the 3G iPhones, but $400 for my 8GB was totally worth it to me.
You'd be wrong. When VW first built the 1 liter car, X-Prize was still focused on suborbital spaceflight. That's because VW built this concept waaaaaay back in 2002, when we (the States) weren't suffering from a gas crisis. The only news here is that VW is actually contemplating building this car for mass consumption.
Rather, Microsoft is finally bringing Jellyfish.com under the Windows Live branding, after having purchased them last fall.
What does that have to do with being OSS or not? Safari has an extension model just like IE, and neither are open source. Prior to IE7, several third-party extensions added anti-phishing support for IE (MSN, Google, etc), and as far as I can tell there's nothing in Safari's extension model that would prevent others from doing the same there as well. OSS vs. non-OSS doesn't even come into play here.
That risks breaking the DRM. Consider you purchase a TV show (you buy those, not rent like movies), take console offline, move the hard drive to another console, and tie the content to that new one. If you never bring that first console back online, it still thinks the media is tied to that console. Now imagine if I do that and share that TV show out with all of my friends, who won't go back online until they're done watching that show. I just "broke" the DRM. I think that's probably the biggest reason why there's no DRM transfer option for upgrades or store warranties yet, and also why it works in the warranty repair scenario (because they have physical access to your old console, thus you cannot keep an authorized offline copy of stuff).
According to the article, this happened recently (Feb 2008). However Microsoft has had a solution for DRM problems on consoles replaced through warranty repair since May or June of 2007. I don't think they publicize it like they should, but the last time I went through repair was June and the process was brand new so maybe they do better now.
Anyway, it works like this:
- Your Xbox 360 breaks. You call support, schedule a repair, and send it in. KEEP YOUR HARD DRIVE (though this only matters if you care about your save games)
- You receive your replacement console 1-3 weeks later.
- You drill down in your account information off of the Marketplace blade to find your Download History.
- You go through your download history, re-downloading each DRM-protected piece of content you wish to be able to use offline on your new console.
- The downloads go extremely quickly, because you kept your hard drive. You're not actually re-downloading the whole content (that would suck for a 6GB Xbox Original game, for example). Instead, you're just downloading a new key that will sign the content to the new console ID.
As of right now, this process is only available if you go through the official Microsoft repair process (in warranty, or for $100 out of warranty). If you use a store replacement warranty, take advantage of a store's lenient return policy like CostCo used to have, or replace the console yourself (because you want to upgrade, or you hacked your console and it won't make it through official repairs), you're screwed. The rekeying process requires manual intervention to invalidate the old console ID and set up the content to retrieve a new key when you download it again.Yes, it's a rather tedious process and it would be great if there was a "Download all premium content again" option to make it go quicker, but that's beside the point. The only value to this article is to show that customer support agents can suck. But we all knew that already, right?
So configure your indexer settings to only index those bits that you do want indexed (for example, it's probably a very good idea to index %programfiles%, since the bulk of your executables will be there and it should change rarely. On the other hand, if you feel the indexer might leak data you can tell it not to index %userprofile%). If you want a run command line, how about clicking "Run..." off of the Start Menu, or using the old Winkey+R keyboard shortcut that still works perfectly? That's the old Run dialog that doesn't do any searching beyond its own MRU list. While you can configure your Start menu to remove the Run command, it is there by default from a clean install. The Start Menu search box is strictly extra functionality on top of what has always been there, not a replacement for other bits (although with indexing on I've found that I never bother to drill down into "All Programs" anymore).
And yet you somehow missed the "Run..." option on the Start Menu. Interesting.
Is it really that bad? All of your app links and such are still in the Start Menu, in approximately the same location as they've always been. That some things have changed locations on the physical disk ("%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings" becoming "%systemdrive%\Users", for example) doesn't really matter when the reasons why you generally go there are available right on the Start Menu as always ("My Documents" has become just "Documents", but I think most people can figure that one out).
If you're really a power user, you already know the names of the control panel executables (for example, appwiz.cpl ran the old "Add/Remove Programs" control panel in pre-Vista, and still runs the same panel even though it was renamed to "Programs and Features"). If you actually try using the new control panel from the perspective of a non-power user, I think you might find that the change vastly increases discoverability of common actions. Using Add/Remove Programs as an example again, if you look at the Control Panel in Classic View you're going to be lost because that's now "Programs and Features" and you have to retrain yourself to look for that. But if you look at Control Panel in the default "helpful" view, you'll see a link for "Programs", with a few links to common actions under that (uninstall, cleanup startup programs). You can drill down deeper into "Progr