Look at this from someone else's perspective for a bit. These are decent products that microsoft is offering, and integrating them and preinstalling as much as possible is good for the consumer, provided they can afford it. After all, how many people find it worthwhile to use Linux From Scratch? Sure, it's a great learning experience, but most computer users don't want a learning experience, they want a fully functional computer.
The intent seems admirable if it were altruistic, but Microsoft have shown their predatory stripes. They very nearly undid the major anti-virus industry by initially refusing to include that large business sector in to see their code. Microsoft would certainly like to hold all the cards, but that very attempt could have doomed them as businesses would want to know why Norton, McAfee, etc are not there to protect them because Microsoft believed (the very company which left so many security holes in Win95, Active X and Win XP) they could do a better job of protecting the buyer.
Microsoft bundles average quality products and gives their own line of products the inside track, which have hurt competitors for years. You might check your system performance monitor to see how much memory is being used when you first boot up and like to know why 380+ MB of memory are in use before you launch your first app. Microsoft have preloaded a tonne of library code in case you might run Explorer or Office apps. That you don't have Office doesn't seem to derail the boot process from including them to occupy your memory anyway. All this to make Microsoft's apps appear to load faster. Try loading a competitor's apps and see how many seconds you have to wait for them to open up.
The ulitimate in useability is to keep the damn system lean and let the user decide how much crap they want when they build/install and OS. You should always be able to go back to the distro and add more, but you don't really get a choice with Windows, do you?
Systems get bigger because they have to - to be able to run Windows.
It seems pretty simple to me. The mother, who cares about performance and utility, wasn't impressed. The tweenage daughter, who cares about gadgets and superficial appearances liked it.
So you're saying the daughter used the same skillfully gathered empirical data to drive her decision to switch to Vista as a typical manager, while they mother was revolted by it in the same way headcount would to anything management blindly foist upon them?
If Microsoft were anything other than one of the most dominant monopolies the world has ever seen, this would be a hideous and grave error.
As it is, people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Who is John Galt?"
They're probably wondering who let this troublemaking person in here. Don't we screen attendees for product loyalty?
I love how people like Ballmer throw around the word 'value' The product is actually a hook, designed to get you tied into Microsoft's other products and services - Office, MSN, media content through their partners, etc. If it was about an operating system it would fit on one CD, require a few megabytes of memory and be secure. Windows is not an operating system, it's an environment bundled with an operating system.
"Let's start with the end user. Your daughter saw a lot of value," said Ballmer.
Translation: We spent a lot of money packing it with bloat.
"Users appreciate the value that we put into Vista," he said. But, as with earlier operating system releases, "there is always a tension between the value that end users see -- and frankly, that software developers see -- and the value that we can deliver to IT."
Translation: No matter how many versions we have, it's still one size fits all. The tension is generated because
our developers don't lead normal lives and see things the way ordinary people do, which makes the end product obfuscated and confusing
"the most secure release of Windows you can humanly make," said Ballmer. "We have had better security, we have had fewer vulnerabilities, fewer issues with Windows Vista in its first six months than any OS that preceded it.
Translation: We're banking on bloat, the more there is the longer it takes the crackers to find the exploits, but sure as the Sun rises, they will find them because more code has more holes.
"I think there is a lot of value in Vista," he said.
Translation: Stock value. If we didn't come out with a new version of Windows everyone had to buy every few years our stock value would drop. We have to keep addicts supplied.
"When we initially shipped, fewer device drivers were ready for Vista than I would have liked, but we constantly worked with the device vendors to get new drivers available and implemented through our Windows update service," he said.
Translation: We rushed it to market. If we had waited until it was really ready we would have seen our stock drop. The premature release was purely driven by profit motives rather than care for our customers.
"We are in, from... a corporate and enterprise side, an early adoption cycle," said Ballmer.
Translation: Revenue generating cycle - Bleeding edge, counting the casualties.
I first read the title as 2007 Physics Nobel Prize For Giant and thought "cool!"
Onward ->
A system of this kind is the perfect tool for reading data from hard disks when information registered magnetically has to be converted to electric current."
I think I'm going to secretly plant a Slashdot 10th Anniversary Geocache in Palo Alto so it's published just before the party. Knowing slashdotters I won't even have to suggest they bring a GPSr.
This is the coolest thing about Slashdot. The people who are going to show up at these parties are usually hardcore techies. What a great feature, thanks Slashdot!
Ok, I know this is off topic, but I figure this is the best place to ask. A few weeks ago I was shopping for food in the East Bay (SF Bay Area) and when I walked out of the store there was a teal PT Cruiser with Slashdot logos on it. I needed to get home but I was curious if that was someone that worked for/. or just a really hard core fan.
That was probably the latest ploy in geek recruiting. If you stepped too close the doors would have swung open, you'd have been dragged inside, driven to a secret location, dragged out and into an office building, placed at a work station, given an $80,000/yr job working with software or engineering and all the women around you for the rest of your life would give you dismissive looks.
Both 'parties' remotely close to where I live have 2 or 3 people. [...] I'm not going to go sit around in awkward silence with a couple other socially inept geeks just for a t-shirt.
You have quite well summed up my sentiments regarding eBay. You should tweak it a bit and start a petition and send it to the morons who run the company.
Like you I am a logn time eBay user, but less and less all the time. As a seller it has become painful to keep up with all the changes (and bugs) they introduce. One particular bug kept charging customers 9.65 for insurance even though I had no insurance amount typed in. It came from some older listing where I saved the listing for a template. The bloat of pages is making it less usable for a person on a slow connection.
I feel, too, the usability has declined from a buyer standpoint. The searches keep coming up with recommended things like (for some definition of "like") what I'm searching for. I have to login when i want to look up what something sold for (why, so they can track what I'm looking for and point out next time who is all selling it so I can buy it? Sometimes I want some idea what an item sells for to decided if I want to sell one, not to buy it.)
As a buyer and a seller research is often necessary. I search to see what same or similar things have sold for to determine what price range I can expect. The concept of Private feedback is completely sick, I can see who uses Private and steer clear of them as sellers. I don't particularly like these people as buyers, either and wish to have the ability to block certain types of bidders. Further the difficulty one encounters trying to find why some seller or buyer has negative feedback is quite a bother, why? To what purpose do you shield bad news about people if you're going to keep it anyway?
Lastly, I really wish I could screen specific sellers. If I'm looking for a telescope I don't want to see anything from Taximarket -- nothing personal, but they're catering to the low end of the market and flood the listings with GREEN, SILVER, BLUE, whatever colour telescopes they have. I'd like to scan for telescopes without seeing all their offerings because nothing they have I want. This can be carried over to sporting goods and other categories where a lot of inexpensive Chinese commodity goods or knock offs are listing.
Ebay is rapidly becoming as seedy as many of the flea markets I've visited. There is good stuff there, but there's so much chaff to filter through. If their profitability is hinging upon maximising listings they may find bidders give up and go to other sites because they are fed up with sifting through too many listings to find what they want.
Fifteen seconds? Count that out one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand,... or use the second hand from a watch. That's a pretty damn long time.
hmm, my testicles appear to be alight. I suppose I might have to do something about that one of these days...
The fire reached to his chest? I'm wondering what else he had in his pocket, perhaps a butane lighter. Even if I hooked an electrical cord to a 2032 Li-ion cell I seriously doubt the flames
would go more than 3 inches. Usually batteries go because the current draw is very high. Perhaps polyester clothing could contribute to his misfortune, but glossy paper in his pocket protected him from severe burns? I think we'll have to see what the nano looked like afterwards before really passing any judgement, but this is
just about as amazing as the finger in the Wendy's Chili.
Slashdot Mirror
The intent seems admirable if it were altruistic, but Microsoft have shown their predatory stripes. They very nearly undid the major anti-virus industry by initially refusing to include that large business sector in to see their code. Microsoft would certainly like to hold all the cards, but that very attempt could have doomed them as businesses would want to know why Norton, McAfee, etc are not there to protect them because Microsoft believed (the very company which left so many security holes in Win95, Active X and Win XP) they could do a better job of protecting the buyer.
Microsoft bundles average quality products and gives their own line of products the inside track, which have hurt competitors for years. You might check your system performance monitor to see how much memory is being used when you first boot up and like to know why 380+ MB of memory are in use before you launch your first app. Microsoft have preloaded a tonne of library code in case you might run Explorer or Office apps. That you don't have Office doesn't seem to derail the boot process from including them to occupy your memory anyway. All this to make Microsoft's apps appear to load faster. Try loading a competitor's apps and see how many seconds you have to wait for them to open up.
The ulitimate in useability is to keep the damn system lean and let the user decide how much crap they want when they build/install and OS. You should always be able to go back to the distro and add more, but you don't really get a choice with Windows, do you?
Systems get bigger because they have to - to be able to run Windows.
So you're saying the daughter used the same skillfully gathered empirical data to drive her decision to switch to Vista as a typical manager, while they mother was revolted by it in the same way headcount would to anything management blindly foist upon them?
Now. He has to learn. To talk. Like this.
Chris Pine? That's one letter away from Chris Pike! Coincidence? I don't think so!
She pointed out what everyone's common sense has been telling them, but they've been ignoring for years.
Ironic how she points out how safe and secure the originally very buggy XP is now a comfort zone and Vista is not.
They're probably wondering who let this troublemaking person in here. Don't we screen attendees for product loyalty?
I love how people like Ballmer throw around the word 'value' The product is actually a hook, designed to get you tied into Microsoft's other products and services - Office, MSN, media content through their partners, etc. If it was about an operating system it would fit on one CD, require a few megabytes of memory and be secure. Windows is not an operating system, it's an environment bundled with an operating system.
Translation: We spent a lot of money packing it with bloat.
Translation: No matter how many versions we have, it's still one size fits all. The tension is generated because our developers don't lead normal lives and see things the way ordinary people do, which makes the end product obfuscated and confusing
Translation: We're banking on bloat, the more there is the longer it takes the crackers to find the exploits, but sure as the Sun rises, they will find them because more code has more holes.
Translation: Stock value. If we didn't come out with a new version of Windows everyone had to buy every few years our stock value would drop. We have to keep addicts supplied.
Translation: We rushed it to market. If we had waited until it was really ready we would have seen our stock drop. The premature release was purely driven by profit motives rather than care for our customers.
Translation: Revenue generating cycle - Bleeding edge, counting the casualties.
I have a 1986 Volvo. Not that I'm worried about someone shutting it down, but if a thief did steal it they'd have to figure out how to get it started.
Car personality == security
Is the moon a harsh mistress?
this first base belong to us!
I first read the title as 2007 Physics Nobel Prize For Giant and thought "cool!"
Onward ->
Just as it seems we're about to move away from purely Mechanical Memory we find ways to make it better.
I assume 90% are spambots, 5% are people trying to get Frist Psot and the remainder are legit.
I think I'm going to secretly plant a Slashdot 10th Anniversary Geocache in Palo Alto so it's published just before the party. Knowing slashdotters I won't even have to suggest they bring a GPSr.
Yeah, but look at it this way, you're still around -- what of the poor Soviet Russians? There's no Party to join THEM!
I just don't understand.
All those links and none to a goatse or tubgirl site.
What is the world coming to?
So... he can go 700 days without washing a shirt? Brilliant! No wonder Kath fell for him with a brain like that!
Don't forget to check all your base at the door.
Ok, I know this is off topic, but I figure this is the best place to ask. A few weeks ago I was shopping for food in the East Bay (SF Bay Area) and when I walked out of the store there was a teal PT Cruiser with Slashdot logos on it. I needed to get home but I was curious if that was someone that worked for /. or just a really hard core fan.
That was probably the latest ploy in geek recruiting. If you stepped too close the doors would have swung open, you'd have been dragged inside, driven to a secret location, dragged out and into an office building, placed at a work station, given an $80,000/yr job working with software or engineering and all the women around you for the rest of your life would give you dismissive looks.
Good thing you ran away!
There went your nerd cred.
He'll post your name and email address in a special follow-up article on Geek-Imitators.
I for one look forward to meeting my 'Foobar' sig-correcting overlords.
For anyone who feels compelled to point out the "misspelling" please read my journal entry (the one before the Whine Country Safari entry.)
You have quite well summed up my sentiments regarding eBay. You should tweak it a bit and start a petition and send it to the morons who run the company.
Like you I am a logn time eBay user, but less and less all the time. As a seller it has become painful to keep up with all the changes (and bugs) they introduce. One particular bug kept charging customers 9.65 for insurance even though I had no insurance amount typed in. It came from some older listing where I saved the listing for a template. The bloat of pages is making it less usable for a person on a slow connection.
I feel, too, the usability has declined from a buyer standpoint. The searches keep coming up with recommended things like (for some definition of "like") what I'm searching for. I have to login when i want to look up what something sold for (why, so they can track what I'm looking for and point out next time who is all selling it so I can buy it? Sometimes I want some idea what an item sells for to decided if I want to sell one, not to buy it.)
As a buyer and a seller research is often necessary. I search to see what same or similar things have sold for to determine what price range I can expect. The concept of Private feedback is completely sick, I can see who uses Private and steer clear of them as sellers. I don't particularly like these people as buyers, either and wish to have the ability to block certain types of bidders. Further the difficulty one encounters trying to find why some seller or buyer has negative feedback is quite a bother, why? To what purpose do you shield bad news about people if you're going to keep it anyway?
Lastly, I really wish I could screen specific sellers. If I'm looking for a telescope I don't want to see anything from Taximarket -- nothing personal, but they're catering to the low end of the market and flood the listings with GREEN, SILVER, BLUE, whatever colour telescopes they have. I'd like to scan for telescopes without seeing all their offerings because nothing they have I want. This can be carried over to sporting goods and other categories where a lot of inexpensive Chinese commodity goods or knock offs are listing.
Ebay is rapidly becoming as seedy as many of the flea markets I've visited. There is good stuff there, but there's so much chaff to filter through. If their profitability is hinging upon maximising listings they may find bidders give up and go to other sites because they are fed up with sifting through too many listings to find what they want.
I like how the article includes reference to MUCH LARGER laptop batties. Hey, how about including car batteries while they're at it?
Perhaps he sat on it. Which pocket was it in?
Fifteen seconds? Count that out one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, ... or use the second hand from a watch. That's a pretty damn long time.
hmm, my testicles appear to be alight. I suppose I might have to do something about that one of these days...
The fire reached to his chest? I'm wondering what else he had in his pocket, perhaps a butane lighter. Even if I hooked an electrical cord to a 2032 Li-ion cell I seriously doubt the flames would go more than 3 inches. Usually batteries go because the current draw is very high. Perhaps polyester clothing could contribute to his misfortune, but glossy paper in his pocket protected him from severe burns? I think we'll have to see what the nano looked like afterwards before really passing any judgement, but this is just about as amazing as the finger in the Wendy's Chili.
Imagine placing one of these cameras on one of these flyers
Coming up on the Crow News Network: Dumpster left open behind McDonalds
Yeah, once they discover TV it'll all be over for them, too.
see journal entry