I checked the links in the article, but I couldn't find anything indicating who these machines are being marketed to, or for that matter what their USP would be against a Wintel or Mac box. Can anyone clue me in?
PS. This is not flamebait, I really would like to know what the plan is regarding these boxes.
1) Paul McGann may not be demanding as much money to take part. 2) If Lalla Ward is taking part as Romana, that might cause problems - she was briefly married to Tom Baker, but they separated. 3) Tom Baker seems to have lost his marbles a bit with the advancing years...
Didn't MS-DOS 4.0 have issues with fdisk and partitions and format. Its been a while but I remember something about massive data loss. Thats the reason they came out with 4.01
So they did. I clean forgot about that one. Luckily they'd already released DOS 5.0 when I joined the ranks of the PC-owning class.
That's all fine and dandy if you're into that sort of thing, but I know people who still use an old 486 or low end Pentium to do nothing more than e-mail, web browsing, office applications, and the odd simple game or two. In short, the system they have does just fine for everything they ever need to do. Face it, not everybody needs a system capable of doing 3D programming, running a CAD program, or playing the latest high-end game.
I wasn't suggesting that this should be the case for all and sundry - we have plenty of PC at work running Windows 98 and Office 97, and the only upgrading we do at the moment is to replace PCs as they succumb to the ravages of old age (don't worry, we backup all data just in case).
We also reassign PCs to other tasks when they are no longer able to keep up with the workload being assigned to them. The PCs we currently use for graphic design work will probably become Office PCs when they are replaced, for instance.
We have no real need for Office 2000, let alone Office XP. And given that we'd need to move to Windows 2000 systems just to be certain that Office would be stable, we're not rushing.
That's a bit of a sick attitude. Why should I have to re-buy something every five years? Shouldn't something I buy continue to work, as long as it doesn't wear out from use? Companies like Microsoft design in obsolescence, because they know it will sell more software, when they fix bugs, add new features, etc. This is part of the inherent conflict of interest in commercial software.
It's not that people are compelled to upgrade to keep their existing system and apps working, but that in the space of five years people find that they use their PCs for more and different things, and find that they need to upgrade in order to do these news things.
Case in point - five years ago, I didn't do any 2D or 3D graphics in my spare time. Now I'm into both, and I'll be shopping for new hardware for my PC so that I can render faster.
As for the charge of planned obsolescence, you are assuming that MS are omniscient, something that is patently untrue. From missed deadlines (Windows 1.0, Windows 2000, 'Longhorn') to supposedly nifty stuff that bombed (BOB, Clippy, Hailstorm) to backing the wrong horse (MSN vs Internet), they've shown themselves to be only too human.:)
You obviously forgot about DOS 6.0, and the problems with DoubleSpace that resulted in the arrival of DOS 6.1 within a few months. Followed by DOS 6.2 after MS were sued by Stacker.
The interface is the most intuitive on the market so modelling is a pleasure and quick
Intuitive to some, perhaps. Personally, I found the Truespace interface to be extremely fiddly, mainly due to the proliferation of buttons and dialogs all over the place.
Seems that I'm not alone, as it has its own section (admittedly they look at v2, but most of the niggles are still there in v5/6 AFAICT) on the Interface Hall of Shame. Nuff said, really.
I eventually gave up on Truespace, after having had a chance to try out Cinema 4D. I find the interface in Cinema 4D to be much more conducive to my way of thinking and working. YMMV, of course.
Not meaning to diss your choice, mind you. Suffice to say, at least I could use Truespace - something that I singularly failed to do with either Amapi 3D or Blender.
Got stung when I was looking for Windows 2000 support for my Umax Astra 2000 flatbed scanner. UK site was adamant that support was coming 'in a future release of the drivers'. Ended up using a combination of Google Groups searching and a trawl around UMAX's german site.
I always check out a company's web site before I buy any stuff from them now. If the site ain't up to scratch, then I'll go elsewhere.
Additionally I worry that router companies are in collusion with the US government for purposes of spying.
And you ask why your post was marked down?
Dude, you're getting an MIB:)
Re:If Magneto is in this one...
on
Sen To, X-Men 2
·
· Score: 1
FIX HIS HELMET!
What's to fix? It did the intended job, namely keeping Chuck from turning Magnus grey matter into mashed potato.
And hopefully there's more than just one semi-lame "X-Men mission" at the end, with the rest of the movie having characters totally in the wrong point in the timeline tooling around looking for reasons to cause special effects.
Agree with this, the first movie did suck a little in that department.
And please... Toad sucks, you really can do better this time. Please?
Toad was Ok, got some decent lines too, and a proper nasty character, not at all like the joker version on 'X-Men: Evolution'...
(There! I've done it! I've finally come out of the closet! Now, when will Cartoon Network UK start showing it again?)
Slashdot Mirror
You, sir, are definitely BOFH material...
I checked the links in the article, but I couldn't find anything indicating who these machines are being marketed to, or for that matter what their USP would be against a Wintel or Mac box. Can anyone clue me in?
PS. This is not flamebait, I really would like to know what the plan is regarding these boxes.
Damn, someone beat me to it! Same story was on the Register on friday, so funny I had to print a copy for posterity.
For the same money, you could go buy one of those Walmart/Lindows PC's and load a copy of Mandrake or Redhat on it to achieve a low cost useful PC.
The difference, of course, is that you can fit an Xbox in your front room alongside the TV and VCR.
What he said!
(Oh no, I've submitted a 'me too' post! Oh, the shame of it!)
Begone, foul heathen! All hail the one true Assistant - Links the cat!
Three thoughs come to mind :
1) Paul McGann may not be demanding as much money to take part.
2) If Lalla Ward is taking part as Romana, that might cause problems - she was briefly married to Tom Baker, but they separated.
3) Tom Baker seems to have lost his marbles a bit with the advancing years...
Better up your medication, if I were you...
Didn't MS-DOS 4.0 have issues with fdisk and partitions and format. Its been a while but I remember something about massive data loss. Thats the reason they came out with 4.01
So they did. I clean forgot about that one. Luckily they'd already released DOS 5.0 when I joined the ranks of the PC-owning class.
That's all fine and dandy if you're into that sort of thing, but I know people who still use an old 486 or low end Pentium to do nothing more than e-mail, web browsing, office applications, and the odd simple game or two. In short, the system they have does just fine for everything they ever need to do. Face it, not everybody needs a system capable of doing 3D programming, running a CAD program, or playing the latest high-end game.
I wasn't suggesting that this should be the case for all and sundry - we have plenty of PC at work running Windows 98 and Office 97, and the only upgrading we do at the moment is to replace PCs as they succumb to the ravages of old age (don't worry, we backup all data just in case).
We also reassign PCs to other tasks when they are no longer able to keep up with the workload being assigned to them. The PCs we currently use for graphic design work will probably become Office PCs when they are replaced, for instance.
We have no real need for Office 2000, let alone Office XP. And given that we'd need to move to Windows 2000 systems just to be certain that Office would be stable, we're not rushing.
It's not that people are compelled to upgrade to keep their existing system and apps working, but that in the space of five years people find that they use their PCs for more and different things, and find that they need to upgrade in order to do these news things.
Case in point - five years ago, I didn't do any 2D or 3D graphics in my spare time. Now I'm into both, and I'll be shopping for new hardware for my PC so that I can render faster.
As for the charge of planned obsolescence, you are assuming that MS are omniscient, something that is patently untrue. From missed deadlines (Windows 1.0, Windows 2000, 'Longhorn') to supposedly nifty stuff that bombed (BOB, Clippy, Hailstorm) to backing the wrong horse (MSN vs Internet), they've shown themselves to be only too human.
They're sitting on 40 billion in cash. They can afford and should support the customers who stupidly gave them that money.
I hate to say this, but even forty billion greenbacks may not be enough to sort out the mess in Windows 3.x, or Windows 9x for that matter...
'The horror... the horror...'
You obviously forgot about DOS 6.0, and the problems with DoubleSpace that resulted in the arrival of DOS 6.1 within a few months. Followed by DOS 6.2 after MS were sued by Stacker.
All your 'all your X are belong to us' are belong to the bitbucket.
Looks like the Microsoft Thought Police beat you to it - just tried that link, and ended up on the .NET homepage.
It's when they start erasing the evidence of flaws in previous versions of Windows that I'll be scared, though...
Intuitive to some, perhaps. Personally, I found the Truespace interface to be extremely fiddly, mainly due to the proliferation of buttons and dialogs all over the place.
Seems that I'm not alone, as it has its own section (admittedly they look at v2, but most of the niggles are still there in v5/6 AFAICT) on the Interface Hall of Shame. Nuff said, really.
I eventually gave up on Truespace, after having had a chance to try out Cinema 4D. I find the interface in Cinema 4D to be much more conducive to my way of thinking and working. YMMV, of course. Not meaning to diss your choice, mind you. Suffice to say, at least I could use Truespace - something that I singularly failed to do with either Amapi 3D or Blender.
Been there, done that.
Got stung when I was looking for Windows 2000 support for my Umax Astra 2000 flatbed scanner. UK site was adamant that support was coming 'in a future release of the drivers'. Ended up using a combination of Google Groups searching and a trawl around UMAX's german site.
I always check out a company's web site before I buy any stuff from them now. If the site ain't up to scratch, then I'll go elsewhere.
And you ask why your post was marked down?
Dude, you're getting an MIB :)
FIX HIS HELMET!
What's to fix? It did the intended job, namely keeping Chuck from turning Magnus grey matter into mashed potato.
And hopefully there's more than just one semi-lame "X-Men mission" at the end, with the rest of the movie having characters totally in the wrong point in the timeline tooling around looking for reasons to cause special effects.
Agree with this, the first movie did suck a little in that department.
And please... Toad sucks, you really can do better this time. Please?
Toad was Ok, got some decent lines too, and a proper nasty character, not at all like the joker version on 'X-Men: Evolution'...
(There! I've done it! I've finally come out of the closet! Now, when will Cartoon Network UK start showing it again?)
Ah, so it was posted here for protest purposes, so everyone knows what to avoid, and when to avoid it. My mistake ;o)
Could be one of the rogue goody MPAA members, so hang fire kids :)
Well, the fact that the link was to Apple's web site is kind of a give-away, if you think about it...
It'll never happen - no room for banner ads and pop-up windows, see?
Well, it's only tangentially related to the Web, the same way GIF and JPEG images are.
Anyhow, given the checkered history of the groups behind this standard, maybe the W3C is wise to stay well away...
Sad, but probably true...
Ahh, push services... I remember it now, sitting there watching PointCast churn away, thinking 'Why am I doing this? There has to be a better way'
The less said about Marimba, the better...