What doesn't support Windows XP? Looks like all Adobe products do, Autodesk, Mathworks, most major games, even Office 2010, Microsoft's own software supports windows XP. So now I challenege you to find major software that doesn't support office.
There was this thing called Vista. It was pretty bad, so most of us don't talk about it. They sold it to us, it had problems, they fixed them, and sold it to us again (rather than fixing what we bought).
This discussion, the one we're having right now, the one this thread is based on, is about moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. The mere fact we're having this discussions means that NO ONE is forcing you to upgrade. You can literally have paid Microsoft $100 an entire decade ago and never have pay them another cent. Again, what exactly do you have to buy every 2 years?
Apple's upgrades are subsidized by hardware... this is a flaw? Sounds like a good business strategy to me.
Hardware which you've presumably already bought at a premium price. Don't you see? You're worried that MS software costs "an arm and a leg" and you're forced by some unnamed entity to buy it. You point to Apple and say "their OS costs less, and they don't force you to upgrade." And yet the software cost is hidden in the overpriced hardware, and they do force you to upgrade. And you don't have a problem with this? Seems to me you just have some sort of irrational bias against microsoft.
Also, Win7 on a 5 year old computer might be a little slow?
5 years ago... 2007. Yeah, I have a dual core machine with 4gb of RAM from 2007. It runs Windows 7 amazingly, Aero effects and all.
Reminds me of another reason you can't keep running XP, only the latest and greatest windows gets support from software vendors, because MS strong arms everybody into moving every time they come out with a major upgrade, and they drop the last version.
Seriously? What kind of distorted world view do you have? Software developers go where the demand is. Software is still being supported and developed to run on Windows XP to this day and it will continue to be as long as customers run XP. Please, cite some evidence showing Microsoft is sending goons to software vendors and forcing them to code for Windows 7 only if you're going to spout such tripe.
Honestly most of the parts like the RAM, Mobo, and HDD were in my spare parts drawer. But I pulled those prices from newegg just now to match the specs.
If he were to argue that he's sticking to Windows XP because he does not want to pay for Windows 7, you have a point. However, the argument was that Windows 7 does not run on a cheap PC. I produced a PC that costs less than $200 that can run Windows 7 reasonably well.
At any rate I have more than a few Windows 7 licenses I've acquired over the last few years so yeah, it didn't cost me anything to put it on there.
You realize we're talking about upgrade from a product relaesed 10 years ago... so it's more like paying $100 every 10 years.
If only more of the software industry would target... mac
Apples upgrades cost less but also come more frequently and are subsidized by hardware. Further, Apple isn't very concerned about your "I bought this software, it's mine, and I'll use it" mentality, as they restrict what type of device you can run their OS on very heavily. Want to install your 10 year old Windows XP OS on a brand new state of the art computer? Nothing stopping you. Not gonna have much success with with OSX 10.0 on a brand new Apple computer though. And remind me, which company is forcing you to upgrade again? Or how about if you want to install your brand new Windows 7 OS on a 5 year old computer? Might be a little slow but go right ahead. You'll find that installing OSX 10.7 on a 5 year old intel Mac is impossible.
What lack? You can upgrade directly from XP to 7. You just have to do a clean install, which honestly for best results you really should do anyway when upgrading an OS.
I could upgrade it to Windows 7... but would gain absolutely nothing from doing so.
Tablet PCs are probably the devices that gained most from Windows 7. XP Tablet is really quite awful by comparison. Windows 7 includes personalized handwriting recognition, built in gestures for pen, built in support for touch (if you hardware supports it), multi touch gestures, automatic resizing of graphical elements based on input type, improved onscreen keyboard, jump menus (which aren't only meant for tablet PC but work great with them), checkboxes in explorer for selecting multiple items with a pen, VASTLY improved TIP.... I can't imagine you even tried Windows 7 if you think there's nothing new for Tablet PCs.
How cheap are we talking? I just built my parents a computer for about $160.
CPU - Intel Celeron E3400 - $46.99
Mobo - ASRock G31M-S R2.0 - $42.99
Case w/ Power Supply - $27.99
Memory - 2 GB - $22.99
HDD - 80 GB - $21.99
Works just fine running Windows 7 Ultimate. You can bump those specs generously by bringing the price up to $200, which is still pretty cheap for a brand new computer that doesn't have to run a decade old operating system.
Fned is correct. Most robots you see today are known as fully actuated systems. Examples of fully actuated sytems are robotic arms or differential drive robots, or even most humanoid robots. The reason for this control of a fully actuated systems is relatively easy and predictable; given a configuration of a fully actuated robot, we can transition the robot to any other state within its state space. This is why most humanoid robots don't look right when they walk; they strive to retain full control authority and balance at every step, whereas human's are really in a constant state of imbalance as we walk.
The problem is all the very interesting systems out there are under actuated, like the walking human. That is, they have more degrees of freedom than ways of exerting control. In nature, things like birds, fish, insects, and even bats and grasshoppers are under actuated. They have extraordinary mobility, but our robotic equivalents fail miserably. I think it's safe to say that most of the exciting problems in motion planning and control in robotics are in the area of underactuated systems.
I don't like iTunes either, but this is a bit unfair
Maybe, but still the truth. I don't use OSX, I use Windows, so I couldn't care less how iTunes runs under OSX. 90% of Apple's customers run Windows as well, so that is relevent to them in the same way.
You say you like Microsoft phone because it integrates better with other micorosoft software, but Apple users can make the exact same claim
Apple cannot. Google cannot. Windows Phone is THE only vendor that offers comprehensive services for games, music, movies, webmail, online storage, video chat, etc. Pretty soon you're going to see extensive compatibility between xbox, windows 8, and windows phone. For the type of person that likes to be in an ecosystem (and there are a LOT out there) Microsoft offers a better one than Apple or Google, and by the numbes any given consumer is probably already a user.
Are you one of the 300 million people that has a live account? Windows Phone works better for you than Android or iOS. Are you one of the 35 million xbox live subscribers? Windows phone works better for you. Are you one of the millions of people who use office? Windows Phone works better. Pretty soon being one of the 600 million people with a skype account will give you incentive to choose Windows Phone over iOS or Android.
Now how many of these people use multiple services? Just thinking about the people I know, ALL of them use at least skype and office, while most also use xbox and have a live account (although most don't use live for their email, but they still have access to skydrive etc.) How many of them use Windows Phone? None. But they are exceedingly jealous when they see what I can do with mine, and the only reason they haven't switched is because they're on a two year contract. I expect once more people actually SEE a windows phone and realize it does some really cool stuff they'll think twice about getting another Android.
Windows Phones go on sale all the time. The top of the line HTC Titan was available for $0.01 over thanksgiving. The Samsung Focus Flash was recently available for the same amount. And the 3gs? Really, a phone that's two generations behind?
I chose Windows Phone for a couple reasons... some against the other two OSs, others for with Windows Phone OS. I don't like iOS mostly because I don't like Apple. I don't like iTunes, I don't like their hardware, I despise their marketing, and I feel like a tool holding their products. In terms of iOS specifically, I also feel like it's starting to show its age, and the app launcher OS paradigm seems really old and boring to me.
Against Android, it's always seemed like a bad iOS clone to me. You say it's the OS for people who want freedom and openness and ethics, but the way I see it, the only reason it took off was because iPhone wasn't available on Verizon. The average Android user has no idea about freedom and openness of the Android platform, and personally I don't care about that either. I also have played with my friends Android phones (I don't know what they all were except I do know one has an Atrix) and I don't feel the user interface is very smooth compared to iOS or WP, despite them being brand new dual core phones.
For Windows Phone, I like the interface a lot better. I feel it's original and intuitive, whereas iOS is stale and Android is just following iOS. I also like the task/information-based hub paradigm as opposed to the application launcher paradigm in Android and iOS. When using iOS i feel like I'm constantly going in and out of apps to do my work, moving two steps forward, one step back constantly, which gets very tiresome.
Beyond the actual inferface I like how WP integrates all the services I use. I use xbox, I use office, I use zune pass, I have a windows live account, I use sky drive... so all those services are integrated really well. Zune software is also a pleasure to use compared to iTunes, and doesn't install a ton of other services and applications on my computer. Finally I think it goes without saying I don't have to worry as much about update availability. With the Zune players Microsoft always kept the oldest players updated well past their lifecycle. Now with Windows Phone they seem to be doing the same. I feel even more comfortable with WP than iOS about upgrades, because Apple's upgrades tend to make older models feel very slow. My iPad 1 is very frustrating to use since the iOS 5 upgrade, with apps constantly crashing due to its lower memory. My Samsung Focus with WP 7.5 is just as fast as it was with 7.0, and is just as fast as my brand new HTC Ttitan, even though the Titan is more powerful.
Godaddy does that too. They did that to me on several domains I searched for that were one day available, the next day "parked for my convenience (and by the way you have to pay $9.99 more for that convenience)"
Books - Google Books#1. Why is this ranked higher than amazon?
Calendar - Google Calendar #1, Yahoo Calendar #3, Live Calendar #52
News - Google News #1, Yahoo News #8, Microsoft News #50
Videos - Google Videos #1, Youtube #2. I realize youtube is a Google product, but seriously? How is Youtube not #1?
Your search terms seem very hand picked to prove a point.
Now, searches for News, Gmail, Images, Videos, Maps and other product names return google first. But that sort-of makes sense, since those are the product names...
Aside from gmail, those are extremely generic terms. A search for Earth brings up Google earth at number one. It seems a little strange that a search for something as generic as "Wallet", a relatively unknown and new google product, appears #1 in the search results. Or what about Reader, the name of a widely used Adobe product. Google Reader appears #1 even before Adobe Reader. I've never even heard of half the products Google puts at number 1 in their results. I'd expect a fair ranking to put them much lower.
In fact, searching for Maps and Images on Bing returns Google for the first results! Is it an anti-trust violation to name your products intelligently???
But they don't return Bing maps and Bing images first. Rightfully some of the searches above should return google first. Email for example or even Calendar. But returning Google Wallet first for a search for Wallet, at the expense of other more relevent results? What about that 10th result who got pushed to the next page? How does that affect his business, because Google gives itself preferential treatment?
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What doesn't support Windows XP? Looks like all Adobe products do, Autodesk, Mathworks, most major games, even Office 2010, Microsoft's own software supports windows XP. So now I challenege you to find major software that doesn't support office.
I didn't realize the cost of the OS had to be proportional to the cost of the machine. Either way it was a spare license.
There was this thing called Vista. It was pretty bad, so most of us don't talk about it. They sold it to us, it had problems, they fixed them, and sold it to us again (rather than fixing what we bought).
This discussion, the one we're having right now, the one this thread is based on, is about moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. The mere fact we're having this discussions means that NO ONE is forcing you to upgrade. You can literally have paid Microsoft $100 an entire decade ago and never have pay them another cent. Again, what exactly do you have to buy every 2 years?
Apple's upgrades are subsidized by hardware... this is a flaw? Sounds like a good business strategy to me.
Hardware which you've presumably already bought at a premium price. Don't you see? You're worried that MS software costs "an arm and a leg" and you're forced by some unnamed entity to buy it. You point to Apple and say "their OS costs less, and they don't force you to upgrade." And yet the software cost is hidden in the overpriced hardware, and they do force you to upgrade. And you don't have a problem with this? Seems to me you just have some sort of irrational bias against microsoft.
Also, Win7 on a 5 year old computer might be a little slow?
5 years ago... 2007. Yeah, I have a dual core machine with 4gb of RAM from 2007. It runs Windows 7 amazingly, Aero effects and all.
Reminds me of another reason you can't keep running XP, only the latest and greatest windows gets support from software vendors, because MS strong arms everybody into moving every time they come out with a major upgrade, and they drop the last version.
Seriously? What kind of distorted world view do you have? Software developers go where the demand is. Software is still being supported and developed to run on Windows XP to this day and it will continue to be as long as customers run XP. Please, cite some evidence showing Microsoft is sending goons to software vendors and forcing them to code for Windows 7 only if you're going to spout such tripe.
Sorry, I guess I thought you did more than exactly one thing on your computer.
The criteria was cheap, not quality.
Yeah, I am confused... if you're too cheap to pay for even an upgrade edition just come out and say it. None of this "unclear upgrade path" nonsense.
Honestly most of the parts like the RAM, Mobo, and HDD were in my spare parts drawer. But I pulled those prices from newegg just now to match the specs.
If he were to argue that he's sticking to Windows XP because he does not want to pay for Windows 7, you have a point. However, the argument was that Windows 7 does not run on a cheap PC. I produced a PC that costs less than $200 that can run Windows 7 reasonably well.
At any rate I have more than a few Windows 7 licenses I've acquired over the last few years so yeah, it didn't cost me anything to put it on there.
These parts were all spare and on hand except the CPU. But I priced it out anyway just to make a point.
I've got to buy it again every 2 years.
You realize we're talking about upgrade from a product relaesed 10 years ago... so it's more like paying $100 every 10 years.
If only more of the software industry would target ... mac
Apples upgrades cost less but also come more frequently and are subsidized by hardware. Further, Apple isn't very concerned about your "I bought this software, it's mine, and I'll use it" mentality, as they restrict what type of device you can run their OS on very heavily. Want to install your 10 year old Windows XP OS on a brand new state of the art computer? Nothing stopping you. Not gonna have much success with with OSX 10.0 on a brand new Apple computer though. And remind me, which company is forcing you to upgrade again? Or how about if you want to install your brand new Windows 7 OS on a 5 year old computer? Might be a little slow but go right ahead. You'll find that installing OSX 10.7 on a 5 year old intel Mac is impossible.
Depends on what your daily uses are...
lack of a clear upgrade path
What lack? You can upgrade directly from XP to 7. You just have to do a clean install, which honestly for best results you really should do anyway when upgrading an OS.
I could upgrade it to Windows 7... but would gain absolutely nothing from doing so.
Tablet PCs are probably the devices that gained most from Windows 7. XP Tablet is really quite awful by comparison. Windows 7 includes personalized handwriting recognition, built in gestures for pen, built in support for touch (if you hardware supports it), multi touch gestures, automatic resizing of graphical elements based on input type, improved onscreen keyboard, jump menus (which aren't only meant for tablet PC but work great with them), checkboxes in explorer for selecting multiple items with a pen, VASTLY improved TIP.... I can't imagine you even tried Windows 7 if you think there's nothing new for Tablet PCs.
I'll just uninstall XP and replace it with whatever the best version of Linux is at that point.
Why don't you just do that now?
How cheap are we talking? I just built my parents a computer for about $160.
Works just fine running Windows 7 Ultimate. You can bump those specs generously by bringing the price up to $200, which is still pretty cheap for a brand new computer that doesn't have to run a decade old operating system.
Windows Mobile is still supported and will be until 2013
Plays for sure is a certification program... not really sure how that's relevent to a discussion about product/service EOL.
Zune is still alive and thriving on Xbox, PC, and Windows Phone.
Kin... not sure there were enough users to care about the kin cancelation.
Did you think know one new that?
Just.... wow...
Fned is correct. Most robots you see today are known as fully actuated systems. Examples of fully actuated sytems are robotic arms or differential drive robots, or even most humanoid robots. The reason for this control of a fully actuated systems is relatively easy and predictable; given a configuration of a fully actuated robot, we can transition the robot to any other state within its state space. This is why most humanoid robots don't look right when they walk; they strive to retain full control authority and balance at every step, whereas human's are really in a constant state of imbalance as we walk.
The problem is all the very interesting systems out there are under actuated, like the walking human. That is, they have more degrees of freedom than ways of exerting control. In nature, things like birds, fish, insects, and even bats and grasshoppers are under actuated. They have extraordinary mobility, but our robotic equivalents fail miserably. I think it's safe to say that most of the exciting problems in motion planning and control in robotics are in the area of underactuated systems.
I don't like iTunes either, but this is a bit unfair
Maybe, but still the truth. I don't use OSX, I use Windows, so I couldn't care less how iTunes runs under OSX. 90% of Apple's customers run Windows as well, so that is relevent to them in the same way.
You say you like Microsoft phone because it integrates better with other micorosoft software, but Apple users can make the exact same claim
Apple cannot. Google cannot. Windows Phone is THE only vendor that offers comprehensive services for games, music, movies, webmail, online storage, video chat, etc. Pretty soon you're going to see extensive compatibility between xbox, windows 8, and windows phone. For the type of person that likes to be in an ecosystem (and there are a LOT out there) Microsoft offers a better one than Apple or Google, and by the numbes any given consumer is probably already a user.
Are you one of the 300 million people that has a live account? Windows Phone works better for you than Android or iOS. Are you one of the 35 million xbox live subscribers? Windows phone works better for you. Are you one of the millions of people who use office? Windows Phone works better. Pretty soon being one of the 600 million people with a skype account will give you incentive to choose Windows Phone over iOS or Android.
Now how many of these people use multiple services? Just thinking about the people I know, ALL of them use at least skype and office, while most also use xbox and have a live account (although most don't use live for their email, but they still have access to skydrive etc.) How many of them use Windows Phone? None. But they are exceedingly jealous when they see what I can do with mine, and the only reason they haven't switched is because they're on a two year contract. I expect once more people actually SEE a windows phone and realize it does some really cool stuff they'll think twice about getting another Android.
Windows Phones go on sale all the time. The top of the line HTC Titan was available for $0.01 over thanksgiving. The Samsung Focus Flash was recently available for the same amount. And the 3gs? Really, a phone that's two generations behind?
I chose Windows Phone for a couple reasons... some against the other two OSs, others for with Windows Phone OS. I don't like iOS mostly because I don't like Apple. I don't like iTunes, I don't like their hardware, I despise their marketing, and I feel like a tool holding their products. In terms of iOS specifically, I also feel like it's starting to show its age, and the app launcher OS paradigm seems really old and boring to me.
Against Android, it's always seemed like a bad iOS clone to me. You say it's the OS for people who want freedom and openness and ethics, but the way I see it, the only reason it took off was because iPhone wasn't available on Verizon. The average Android user has no idea about freedom and openness of the Android platform, and personally I don't care about that either. I also have played with my friends Android phones (I don't know what they all were except I do know one has an Atrix) and I don't feel the user interface is very smooth compared to iOS or WP, despite them being brand new dual core phones.
For Windows Phone, I like the interface a lot better. I feel it's original and intuitive, whereas iOS is stale and Android is just following iOS. I also like the task/information-based hub paradigm as opposed to the application launcher paradigm in Android and iOS. When using iOS i feel like I'm constantly going in and out of apps to do my work, moving two steps forward, one step back constantly, which gets very tiresome.
Beyond the actual inferface I like how WP integrates all the services I use. I use xbox, I use office, I use zune pass, I have a windows live account, I use sky drive... so all those services are integrated really well. Zune software is also a pleasure to use compared to iTunes, and doesn't install a ton of other services and applications on my computer. Finally I think it goes without saying I don't have to worry as much about update availability. With the Zune players Microsoft always kept the oldest players updated well past their lifecycle. Now with Windows Phone they seem to be doing the same. I feel even more comfortable with WP than iOS about upgrades, because Apple's upgrades tend to make older models feel very slow. My iPad 1 is very frustrating to use since the iOS 5 upgrade, with apps constantly crashing due to its lower memory. My Samsung Focus with WP 7.5 is just as fast as it was with 7.0, and is just as fast as my brand new HTC Ttitan, even though the Titan is more powerful.
Godaddy does that too. They did that to me on several domains I searched for that were one day available, the next day "parked for my convenience (and by the way you have to pay $9.99 more for that convenience)"
Wow, you clearly didn't read his entire post.
The film, due December 14, 2012, is subtitled There And Back Again
It's subtitled An Unexpected Journey. There and Back Again is the next one
Email - Gmail #1
Books - Google Books#1. Why is this ranked higher than amazon?
Calendar - Google Calendar #1, Yahoo Calendar #3, Live Calendar #52
News - Google News #1, Yahoo News #8, Microsoft News #50
Videos - Google Videos #1, Youtube #2. I realize youtube is a Google product, but seriously? How is Youtube not #1?
Your search terms seem very hand picked to prove a point.
Now, searches for News, Gmail, Images, Videos, Maps and other product names return google first. But that sort-of makes sense, since those are the product names...
Aside from gmail, those are extremely generic terms. A search for Earth brings up Google earth at number one. It seems a little strange that a search for something as generic as "Wallet", a relatively unknown and new google product, appears #1 in the search results. Or what about Reader, the name of a widely used Adobe product. Google Reader appears #1 even before Adobe Reader. I've never even heard of half the products Google puts at number 1 in their results. I'd expect a fair ranking to put them much lower.
In fact, searching for Maps and Images on Bing returns Google for the first results! Is it an anti-trust violation to name your products intelligently???
But they don't return Bing maps and Bing images first. Rightfully some of the searches above should return google first. Email for example or even Calendar. But returning Google Wallet first for a search for Wallet, at the expense of other more relevent results? What about that 10th result who got pushed to the next page? How does that affect his business, because Google gives itself preferential treatment?