SUS got turned into WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). WSUS is much better than SUS was and now supports Office and Exchange updates as well as Windows. It can work even if you don't have a domain, you just need to make a registry change in the client computers rather than a GPO.
And have you tried to source replacement parts? Even if you can find them they are expensive as hell. Either that or you need to take a trip to Mexico because they don't sell them over the counter in the US!
"especially since Epic has been rereleaseing the same crap in its unreal franchise for the past 8 years."
What? Don't you see it has more POLYGONS. And those shader effects? The new booming announcer voice yelling "SICK!"?
To be fair Unreal has added game types with each release but these are mostly just to play catch up (see the assault mode vs BF1942 style of play). At least it's a good basis for mods.
But oh boy am I sick of some of those old cliffyb maps.
You do realize that OS X also bundles tons of drivers for third party hardware (such as printers) so that things "just work" when you plug them in? The reason is the same in Windows. People want it to work with the least amount of hassle. Support likes it this way too. Hell if you told an average person that Windows XP was 2GB and Vista was 8GB they'd probably say "Wow! 8gigglybytes so it's 4 times faster?" It simply doesn't matter. What matters is they plug their camera in and the pictures of their kids pop on the screen.
Given how cheap hard drive space is now, I really would rather have the convenience of having the drivers on disk anyway. Windows used to require putting the OS disk in during new hardware installs. I would imagine they 9and OEMs) have saved a ton of money on support just by putting the install files on the HD. Most of the idiots I know throw out or lose the CDs that came with their PCs.
And if you don't want it on your HD you can take it out. There are also tools like Nlite for creating stripped down Windows XP installs. Additionally you can turn of a ton of services that are on by default if you don't have a use for them. If you are comfortable tweaking Linux it isn't any harder to make a stripped down Windows system.
I prefer Computer Games Magazine. The layout is much cleaner compared to PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World and a lot of the gaming commentary articles are well thought out. They also have a reader submitted article which is usually excellent. I find there is a lot less of the self absorbed hipness and juvenile humor than in competing mags.
A space at the end of a file will freak out Windows as well. I just had a case of this with a QuarkXpress file named "Document.qxd " which couldn't open on the Windows computer the web team uses.
Offering video delivery service to their own customer base at a premium level unavailable to non paying competitors???????
This is pretty much exactly the issue. Although not limited to just video services, VOIP service would be another big one where low latency is important. Honestly I don't think it's surprising that we are seeing this now from both the cable and phone providers because these new Internet services (video and voice) can potentially hit them directly in their pocketbooks. Consider that DSL providers are voice phone companies and cable Internet providers sell video services. They are going to want to retain their customers even if the services switch to VOIP and IPTV.
As long as our fine congress has as strong a grasp of how the Internet works as Senator Ted Stevens how can they fail to make the right decision?
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."
Personally I think 5 days is pretty good to transfer an entire Internet to your personal office. I however have lower expectations than our esteemed Senator.
Access can import Excel documents as tables or just link to the Excel files. I have found that oddly enough the datatypes between the two do not always directly match. The biggest issue I've had is with data truncation moving Excel files to Access. Excel's text data type can contain more than 255 characters whereas Access cannot. You need to map text to the memo data type in Access.
"would be as silly as saying that Macs are worse because they don't have Outlook"
Sadly enough in a Microsoft Exchange environment Macs do get the short end of the stick. Entourage will work with Exchange, but is notably pokey when dealing with things like shared folders and calendars. This is one area where it does seem like Microsoft is deliberately offering a lesser product on the Mac. Which completely sucks. Regarding the whole "Mac can do this out of the box" argument (as shown in Apple's recent commercial), Microsoft is in somewhat of a no win situation. Microsoft can't really bundle full blown quality applications into it's operating system without getting sued for anti-trust. No one seems to care that things like Dashboard ruined the market for applications like Konfabulator on the Mac. Do the same thing on Windows and watch the lawsuits fly. Software vendors would flip if MS released equivalent applications to iLife as a free bundle with Windows.
"Apple makes its money through an OS that many people feel is far superior to Windows"
Thank you for stating this as a subjective feeling rather than a fact as many Mac lovers do. I've just had three employees at my company come to me telling them that they hate Macs and are afraid they are going to get stuck with one since the department is transitioning to Mac. Interestingly, two out of the three are previous long time Mac users who only switched to Windows a couple of years ago. Go figure.
Direct X 10 on Vista cannot be directly compared to just OpenGL. It involves a complete overhaul of the driver structure in Windows. Also Direct X covers more than just 3D graphics with elements such as DirectSound and DirectInput. Ripping out the old kernal mode driver structure is a pretty big change for Windows, I'm sure why people think it would just be simple to retrofit it to XP.
"What I am saying is that Microsoft shouldn't simply ignore it's XP consumer base. I feel this is a mistake."
Really this comes down to the decisions of the developers. If the installed base of Vista capable machines is nil, odds are they won't be pushing DirectX 10 or games that only run on DirectX 10. There is going to be a lengthy adoption period. For one thing, right now there aren't any video cards that support DirectX 10 features. Odds are the first gen ones won't be that great either (if DirectX 9 is any indicator). Also games currently in the pipeline are not going to be Vista only. I guess the possible exception would be if Microsoft tries to push it with their own game releases. This would probably be stupid. Because developers aren't going to hurt their bottom line to help Microsoft push Vista sales, I think we are going to see a long adoption period for DirectX 10.
"Also XP is not old, its not 5 years of age, its brand new, its the newest Windows currently available so you can't really compare it with an old linux kernel and the Mac OS."
You're right! Windows XP isn't 5 years old. It's only 4 years 8 months old! Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001,
As for comparisons with Mac OS. When OS X was released NO OS X applications ran under Mac OS 9. Developement of OS 9 apps ceased and new software was developed for OS X. Any computers that couldn't run OS X were orphaned. If anything this is more restrictive than Vista. When Vista comes out SOME programs will be Vista only, but many will work on 2000, XP and Vista.
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SUS got turned into WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). WSUS is much better than SUS was and now supports Office and Exchange updates as well as Windows.
It can work even if you don't have a domain, you just need to make a registry change in the client computers rather than a GPO.
Psssshaw! REAL Photoshop users do everything with keyboard shortcuts! Who needs those steenking icons anyway!
I've used Windows XP's system restore three or four times on various PCs - and once it actually worked!
Yo! I was playing a video game, And this guy he was like "I got the wiimote" And I was like... OH MY GOD! WIIIIII!
Apparently we're not the only ones who have made the connection, there have been some YTMND pages involving the wii and gonads and strife.
And have you tried to source replacement parts? Even if you can find them they are expensive as hell. Either that or you need to take a trip to Mexico because they don't sell them over the counter in the US!
They are not the same. The block the ant hills thing was treated as a puzzle in the game, shooting zombies is not.
Even HL ep 1 has some repetitive "filler". I mean how many times did we really need to do the whole block the ant hill with a car trick?
"especially since Epic has been rereleaseing the same crap in its unreal franchise for the past 8 years."
What? Don't you see it has more POLYGONS. And those shader effects? The new booming announcer voice yelling "SICK!"?
To be fair Unreal has added game types with each release but these are mostly just to play catch up (see the assault mode vs BF1942 style of play). At least it's a good basis for mods.
But oh boy am I sick of some of those old cliffyb maps.
You do realize that OS X also bundles tons of drivers for third party hardware (such as printers) so that things "just work" when you plug them in? The reason is the same in Windows. People want it to work with the least amount of hassle. Support likes it this way too.
Hell if you told an average person that Windows XP was 2GB and Vista was 8GB they'd probably say "Wow! 8gigglybytes so it's 4 times faster?" It simply doesn't matter. What matters is they plug their camera in and the pictures of their kids pop on the screen.
Given how cheap hard drive space is now, I really would rather have the convenience of having the drivers on disk anyway. Windows used to require putting the OS disk in during new hardware installs. I would imagine they 9and OEMs) have saved a ton of money on support just by putting the install files on the HD. Most of the idiots I know throw out or lose the CDs that came with their PCs.
And if you don't want it on your HD you can take it out. There are also tools like Nlite for creating stripped down Windows XP installs. Additionally you can turn of a ton of services that are on by default if you don't have a use for them. If you are comfortable tweaking Linux it isn't any harder to make a stripped down Windows system.
I prefer Computer Games Magazine. The layout is much cleaner compared to PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World and a lot of the gaming commentary articles are well thought out. They also have a reader submitted article which is usually excellent.
I find there is a lot less of the self absorbed hipness and juvenile humor than in competing mags.
A space at the end of a file will freak out Windows as well. I just had a case of this with a QuarkXpress file named "Document.qxd " which couldn't open on the Windows computer the web team uses.
Offering video delivery service to their own customer base at a premium level unavailable to non paying competitors???????
This is pretty much exactly the issue. Although not limited to just video services, VOIP service would be another big one where low latency is important.
Honestly I don't think it's surprising that we are seeing this now from both the cable and phone providers because these new Internet services (video and voice) can potentially hit them directly in their pocketbooks. Consider that DSL providers are voice phone companies and cable Internet providers sell video services. They are going to want to retain their customers even if the services switch to VOIP and IPTV.
As long as our fine congress has as strong a grasp of how the Internet works as Senator Ted Stevens how can they fail to make the right decision?
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."
Personally I think 5 days is pretty good to transfer an entire Internet to your personal office. I however have lower expectations than our esteemed Senator.
Or buy a GP2x. Although the DS is better if you want to play current games rather than just use it for emulation/homebrew.
Access can import Excel documents as tables or just link to the Excel files. I have found that oddly enough the datatypes between the two do not always directly match. The biggest issue I've had is with data truncation moving Excel files to Access. Excel's text data type can contain more than 255 characters whereas Access cannot. You need to map text to the memo data type in Access.
I would be inclined to agree with you except for the high mortality rate of programmers using VBA.
Gah!
"would be as silly as saying that Macs are worse because they don't have Outlook"
Sadly enough in a Microsoft Exchange environment Macs do get the short end of the stick. Entourage will work with Exchange, but is notably pokey when dealing with things like shared folders and calendars. This is one area where it does seem like Microsoft is deliberately offering a lesser product on the Mac. Which completely sucks.
Regarding the whole "Mac can do this out of the box" argument (as shown in Apple's recent commercial), Microsoft is in somewhat of a no win situation. Microsoft can't really bundle full blown quality applications into it's operating system without getting sued for anti-trust. No one seems to care that things like Dashboard ruined the market for applications like Konfabulator on the Mac. Do the same thing on Windows and watch the lawsuits fly. Software vendors would flip if MS released equivalent applications to iLife as a free bundle with Windows.
"Apple makes its money through an OS that many people feel is far superior to Windows"
Thank you for stating this as a subjective feeling rather than a fact as many Mac lovers do.
I've just had three employees at my company come to me telling them that they hate Macs and are afraid they are going to get stuck with one since the department is transitioning to Mac. Interestingly, two out of the three are previous long time Mac users who only switched to Windows a couple of years ago.
Go figure.
Ah Atlas Shrugged, what a great book. Especially the saucy bits that showed how Ayn Rand enjoyed rape fantasy.
In case you haven't heard at least that plan for WinFS has been shelved.
John? Is that you?
Direct X 10 on Vista cannot be directly compared to just OpenGL. It involves a complete overhaul of the driver structure in Windows. Also Direct X covers more than just 3D graphics with elements such as DirectSound and DirectInput.
Ripping out the old kernal mode driver structure is a pretty big change for Windows, I'm sure why people think it would just be simple to retrofit it to XP.
"There's nothing monopolistic in this case. It's an API for talking to hardware, which squarely belongs in the realm of the OS maker."
Yes, thank god we aren't back in the days of vendor APIs. Remember 3DFX glide?
"What I am saying is that Microsoft shouldn't simply ignore it's XP consumer base. I feel this is a mistake."
Really this comes down to the decisions of the developers. If the installed base of Vista capable machines is nil, odds are they won't be pushing DirectX 10 or games that only run on DirectX 10.
There is going to be a lengthy adoption period. For one thing, right now there aren't any video cards that support DirectX 10 features. Odds are the first gen ones won't be that great either (if DirectX 9 is any indicator). Also games currently in the pipeline are not going to be Vista only. I guess the possible exception would be if Microsoft tries to push it with their own game releases. This would probably be stupid.
Because developers aren't going to hurt their bottom line to help Microsoft push Vista sales, I think we are going to see a long adoption period for DirectX 10.
"Also XP is not old, its not 5 years of age, its brand new, its the newest Windows currently available so you can't really compare it with an old linux kernel and the Mac OS."
You're right! Windows XP isn't 5 years old. It's only 4 years 8 months old! Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001,
As for comparisons with Mac OS. When OS X was released NO OS X applications ran under Mac OS 9. Developement of OS 9 apps ceased and new software was developed for OS X. Any computers that couldn't run OS X were orphaned.
If anything this is more restrictive than Vista. When Vista comes out SOME programs will be Vista only, but many will work on 2000, XP and Vista.