I am constantly amazed at the complete LACK of understanding about what.NET is. Let me set the record straight: the functionality... the "API"... of.NET is contained in the core class libraries. Those are PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INTERFACES. There is nowhere to "HIDE" windows-only hooks. If you can have your MONO class library take CallX with four arguments of int just like the MS Windows version of the class, then you have CROSS PLATFORM capability. If Microsoft changes the class interface, then you change your corresponding class interface.
Honestly! It's all Object Oriented; there is NOWHERE to hide anything from anyone! Implementation is another issue, but by virtue of the platform itself all the interfaces have to be public and accessible, which means they can be easily emulated. That's what mono is trying to do with WindowsForms; its the GUI component that Microsoft said was going to be Windows-only, except they are already working on emulating the public interfaces (though the implementation would be calling gtk/x)
Please... THINK about this stuff before you post it. Its no like Sun can go and hide some new solaris-only hooks in the JVM that suddenly make it incompatible with other platforms! In order to have developers use the new hooks, they have to make them public, and then anyone could create a compatible class for their platform of choice.
The real problem is that the cost of backbone connections isn't proportional to the cost of installing, running, and developing the backbones in the first place.
Plus add in the fact that major players like AT&T don't pay backbone fees since they have enough traffic to peer with anyone.
Part of the reason the broadband market has collapsed is that real, hard bandwidth is just far too expensive. There is no good reason that an OC3 should run $50,000 a month; the telcos and providers could charge $10,000 a month for THE SAME THING and still churn a profit.
Why don't they do it? Because they'd like to see all the ISPs shut down. Then internet service becomes like phone service and you really only have one provider to choose from.
Most of the fibre in the ground across the United States (more than 50%) is dark. I.e. it isn't being used.
I believe this is one of the few cases where the government needs to step in. All fibre ought to be owned by the government, and run at cost, available to anyone. Only then would we see the TRUE promise of the internet and real, fast broadband in every home.
I don't get why Palm has to try and one-up PocketPC so much, yet fail to fill the space that PocketPC devices fill.
Just take a look at their product comparison page. For example, they rail the iPaq on battery usage.
I totally agree with them; the iPaq doesn't have a long battery life. But that's not why I bought it... I bought it to have a true HANDHELD PC, and that's what the iPaq is.
Palm's market is for PDA-type devices. Palms are great for storing a few SMALL notes (who can really go quickly using Graffiti?), contact list, and other small things. But you certainly aren't going to get far trying to play Quake on it, terminal service into the domain controller, or pull down highly-compressed DVDs across your 802.11b link to watch them.
I liken Palm right now to a bicycle maker trying out-advertise a car maker; it is totally silly. They are two different markets altogether.
If Palm wanted to start making cars (aka enter the HANDHELD PC market), then they are free to do so. Many will still buy their bicycles (PDAs), but some might choose them for their cars (handheld pcs) as well. In that way, everyone would win. Palm would have a greater range of products and thus more possible sales, and Microsoft would have some real competition in the handheld PC market.
But as things are going, Palm can only pretend to compete with the cars for so long before they get burned. They need to decide very quickly which one (or both) they wanna make and go after the proper market.
+ 128MB SD memory expansion card, or a 128MB or greater compact flash card
+ A PC with DeCSS and/or DVD ripping program
+ Windows media encoder 7.1
Basically just rip the DVD as if you were going to convert it to DivX, then load the AVI into Windows media encoder. On the latest version of the encoder, there is are specific pocket PC profiles... just select one and let it go. The resultant file should be about 120MB, small enough to fit on the card.
Windows Media Player on the iPaq is even smart enough to turn the widescreen DVDs sideways for better viewing.
I guess we agree on one thing: Palm doesn't have an offering in the high-end PDA market. I just think they should... it wouldn't hurt their existing line to offer such a thing.
FUD is an acronym for "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt", not "an opinion with which I disagree."
I don't work for Microsoft, and never have. I certainly didn't get paid to post that, so I am wondering where you have the gall to call it 'marketing' -- it is my opinion, which I will express as often and as freely as I like.
Let's assume that a WinCE device requires twice as much memory as an equivalent Palm device, just for grins. That means a 16MB palm is similar to a 32MB WinCE device, right? Well then... where are the 32MB standard Palm devices? That's easy... they don't make them.
So this 8MB standard i70x palm they are releasing is akin to a 16MB WinCE device by your standards. My iPaq came with 64MB standard. I think you see where this is going...
The PalmOS UI sucks compared to the PocketPC 2002 setup, in my opinion. If Palm works better for you, GREAT. More power to ya. But for me? I prefer having the greater flexibility the iPaq and WinCE offer me. Especially in terms of input... sure, I can emulate the block mode that Palms use, complete with the two areas for letters/numbers at the bottom of the screen. The difference is that when I am not inputting anything into a text box, that GOES away giving me more screen realestate. Of course I usually use the transcriber mode where I can just jot stuff down on the screen anywhere and it will pickup my handwriting. Or I can call up a mini-keyboard to occupy the same space that Palm's input panel would use. The point is that it gives me more usable screen space and more flexibility.
Go ahead and try running a Game Gear emulator on the latest color palm, or playing back a full screen, full length DVD on it. You won't get nearly as far as my iPaq.
Oh, battery usage? with backlight off (as I am usually in rooms with decent light conditions), I get days. Using autobacklight, it adjusts itself to the ambient light. With that mode I can easily go a whole day with the thing on pretty much nonstop.
Palm's hardware sucks compared to the vast array of Pocket PC devices; there is little point in making excuses. Instead, Palm should be encouraged to release a wider variety of devices into the lower and higher end markets in order to drive greater competition with Pocket PC manufacturers.
+ Less memory (usually 8 or 16 versus 64)
+ fewer applications
+ only one model that has color
Or I can buy an iPaq (like I did) and get 64MB of memory plus 32MB of ROM, a 16-bit color screen that is as big as the standard Palm screen PLUS their little writing area (which I can emulate for input if I don't wanna use the excellent handwriting recognition.)
The list of extensions to the Word format from Word 97 to Word XP number a handful.
95% of all documents use simple text and formatting, with a few frames and pictures thrown in.
Even "advanced" stuff like mailing lists, custom pages sizes, multicolumn pages/layout, superscript-subscript, watermarks, etc are all part of the BASIC format, and thus a page with all those things created in WordXP can be read by a Word 97 client.
To not allow extensions to the file format means NO NEW FEATURES can be added -- that is a ridiculous idea at best. Of course there have to be changes. What you are failing to realize is this:
The binary layout of the file from Word 97, Word 95, and all previous versions is different for each one! There aren't just a few extensions or changes, you CANNOT open the files >AT ALL. That is the key difference.
"And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. "
This statement is incorrect... Microsoft redefined the file format with Word 97 to make it extensible. SO the basic text, formatting, images, etc are all compatible between Word 97, 2000, and XP. I can save a Word file in WordXP and open it in Word 97 without any sort of conversion or downgrading... its just that the "extensions" not supported by Word 97 won't be displayed or might be displayed incorrectly.
The differences between 97 and 2000 are especially small... we have about 85% of our users on Office 97 and they exchange documents both ways with our other users of Office 2000. Of course they don't do anything special with fileformats (remember: these users think their keyboard can 'get a virus') -- the Word 97 users can open the Word 2000 files without conversion.
You are vastly mistaken, but it is a common misconception.
The only difference between a Native and Compatibility mode ActiveDirectory is which computers can be DOMAIN CONTROLLERS. It has no effect on member servers or clients. Win9x clients can auth to a Native AD domain, and NT4 servers can be members of a Native AD domain.
The only requirement to use the new features is that you have only W2K DCs... this is because the "Native" mode features do things that aren't allowable under NT4 and the old NetBIOS/SMB -- things like nesting domains inside of parent domains and so on. An NT4 DC wouldn't know how to replicate a nested domain and translate the security stuff without an insane amount of work.
Re:..I think we just Slashdotted their server
on
LindowsOS Marches On
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· Score: 2
Although it is fun to point at the particular webserver you don't like and laugh, the truth is that in 95% of the cases, a "slashdotting" is simply an overload of the site's available bandwidth.
I can have 16 Windows 2000 servers running a well tuned IIS 5 application, but if they are all on a 10Mbps link trying to serve up 250k in images/pages to every visitor, slashdotting here I come!
Similarly 16 Linux systems with Apache doing the same thing on the same line will also be slashdotted.
So I encourage everyone to laugh at the trolls just as I do when they point out slashdotted servers. Just remember its all about bandwidth (usually.)
Is that why some 15 year old HP-UX boxen running some ancient version of samba can still talk to my Windows 2000 server?
I find it hilarious that you would accuse Microsoft of changing the API; SMB hasn't changed at all on NT/2K except for a few upgrades to the password scheme to make it more secure and a few other small patches to fix bugs.
What Microsoft did do is come up with a new and improved filesharing protocol, CIFS, and implemented it as a >separate library running on different ports. If you honestly believe they are going to totally change the way their server OS works and lock out Win9x/NT4 clients, you are sadly mistaken.
Similarly, the Win32 API hasn't ever been CHANGED... it has only had things added to it. And with NTVDM/WOW, I can still run my ancient DOS and Win3.1 programs (for the most part) under Windows 2000; tell me where they've changed the API here?
*ALMOST EVERY* Time Microsoft wants to make a change that would break something, they just implement it in a separate standard or New API rather than b0rking the old one, which is the way it should be done.
If anyone is spouting FUD and nonsense here, it is you.
We must be careful not to lump all of the things under the Microsoft.NET umbrella together. For a moment, replace ".NET" with "Win32" and re-examine what you are saying, and what Microsoft is going on about.
For you see, ".NET" is really just a programming platform. Take everything that Windows can do, then wrap it in an object-oriented system, then subtract all the things that suck about Java. That is what.NET means to me.
Passport.NET/Hailstorm/etc are just services available to programmers and users that are written with.NET
I can surely write my own Passport-esque system and expose my web services just as passport does. Then you can use my system instead of Microsoft's.
All of this is on top of the fact that VisualStudio.NET is an entirely different beast from the platform/runtime and the services. There again, I can write my own language that compiles to the.NET runtime and have it integrate with VS.NET as smoothly as C# does. The Perl.NET download from ActiveState is quite tastey.
Bottom line -- Make it clear to what you are referring:
Platform: Common Language Runtime. Includes Microsoft-IL and set of standard System objects.
Services: Passport/Hailstorm and other webservices. Can be provided by Microsoft or anyone with a webserver running the CLR (or you can write it all up by hand, but it is much easier with the CLR because it was built with that in mind.)
IDE: Integrated Development Environment, VisualStudio.NET; has facilities for 3rd party systems to plug in and be treated as 1st class languages just like VB.NET/C#. Compiles apps for the CLR, and has additional publishing features and tools for developers.
Every other month someone comes out with a "breakthrough" in microprocessor design that could "someday lead to smaller and faster chips" that "use less power."
I am not blaming only Slashdot for presenting this kind of fluff, I blame the major news organizations as well. Until these companies are getting ready to ship a product, I don't want to hear about it, because so much if it becomes vaporware. What little is left ends up being only slight improvements wrapped in marketing buzzwords.
Not if you figure out the AOL auto-updating mechanism as part of the protocol. Then, the only way they can lock alternatives out is to actually force everyone who is on AOL 2,3,4,5, and 6 to upgrade immediately. That isn't ever going to happen.
In the next version of IIS6, there will be a kernel HTTP driver that can respond to static requests by serving directing from the cache. The input code has been rewritten, and is buffer checked among other things. HTTP doesn't do any processing at all... it just sees if the incoming URL matches a file already listed in the cache. If not, the request is bumped to user-space.
Secondly, each website under IIS6 can run as a different user. So if you host 10 websites, each one can run as a separate user account, each with different security permissions.
Lastly, yes 2000 gives you better file security out of the box. There are still some things that should be fine-tuned, but definitely not Full:Everyone.
With the.NET Server betas, they seem to be getting more fine-grained on that stuff.
Pipes are in Windows solely for compatibility with other systems and legacy stuff. If you are going to do interprocess (distributed or not) these days, you do it with COM.
The new HTTP.SYS driver runs in kernel-space, and can respond to static content requests with very little processing or overhead, pulling the data directly from the cache.
Assuming that HTTP.SYS can't handle it, the request is passed on to a user-space process.
There is a lot more to it than just that. Much of the core code has been rewritten, and is buffer-checked among other things.
This has been dealt with in a variety of sci-fi literature, such as the Ender's Game series.
Time for the travellers on the ship passed much faster. So the communication device took the entire message and spaced it way out so that it appeared to the stationary receivers to be perfectly in-sync.
Similarly, to receive a message from a planet, the computers there took the message and "squished" it up so the information was transmitted much faster, and appeared to the receivers as "normal".
This is a gross oversimplification, but I think you get the picture.
it sounds rather interesting, but might I suggest securing the server in the first place?
For any IIS admins out there, you need to download and install URLScan. It is a free tool put out by Microsoft. It scans incoming requests and only allows ones that meet its criteria of rules (with a default blank ruleset, all requests are discarded.)
There are a variety of other methods that can be used as well, and I am currently working on a guide to security for IIS admins. It isn't that hard... take the time to do it right.
This changes nothing in regards to Hailstorm. It only changes some people's incorrect perceptions of it. Hailstorm, and the entire.NET framework itself, is extensible by any third party, and always has been. It is simply unfortunate that people are so reactionary whenever Microsoft proposes anything.
If you want to provide authentication via non-Microsoft means, write a.NET plugin for hailstorm using the documented interface, and then the system will use your authentication method rather than some other (like Passport).
I just want to emphasise that this is only surprise news for those who failed to take the time to understand Hailstorm and.NET previously.
All major downtown cities are being evacuated. All federal buildings across the country are also being cleared. The president is heading toward a secret destination with a squadron of fighter jets as an escort.
Both Trade Center buildings have totally collapsed. A plan has hit the pentagon building.
The FAA is reporting that SEVERAL planes are unaccounted for. No word on how many of those might be hijacked or their destination, although one Trans-atlantic flight is reportedly headed for Washington,DC. As a result, fighter jets are currently flying cover over the city as everyone evacuates.
both buildings have now collapsed, and two planes have hit the pentagon. they believe that another plane has been hijacked and is headed toward Washington, DC
a large plane has also crashed north of a city in Pittsburg (no word if it is related.)
All flights are grounded, PERIOD across the entire US.
I always find it rather pitiful when zealots from any side spew false information to promote their cause... whether it be PC vs Mac or Windows vs Linux, fools on both sides tend to make up more information than they research. For example...
"Linux has this kind of stability ever since version 1.0. Linux separates the kernel from the GUI. Windows NT and 2000 built having the GUI in the kernel. Finally with Windows XP they copy the Linux approach and separate the GUI from the kernel. "
He is dead wrong here. Both in Windows 2000 and XP, the video drivers live in kernel space for performance reasons. But what is called the "Window Station", which takes care of drawing/widgets, et al lives smack dab in user-space, under the guise of csrss.exe, which also happens to provide the entire Win32 API, since the NT kernel itself only has about 200+ APIs collectively called the Executive.
Furthermore, the Window Station has always had both the capability to have multiple desktops, as well as the capability to redirect its output. Why Microsoft waited this long to expose that to end users is a mystery to me.
At any rate, here's how an XP/2K machine works (except for fast-user switching, which is new to XP).
System boots the kernel, loads drivers, etc (XP does nearly all driver loads in parallel following the dependancy tree, and remembers what loaded last time and prefetches that from disk before it is needed.)
Once that process is complete, Window Station 0 is initialized with Desktop 0 -- this is the primary console on which the GINA runs (the GINA provides login/auth, and the screen you see when you press CTRL+ALT+DEL).
Once a user logs in, Desktop 1 is initialized, which is where explorer.exe (the shell) and your programs live.
When a Terminal Services client logs in, a new "Job" is created by the kernel, and Window Station x is initialized within that job space. That Window Station also inits Desktop 0 and 1.
XP Adds the capability to init other Desktops on Window Station 0 as other users, which is where the Fast User switching comes from.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you mean about "windows-only" hooks???
.NET is. Let me set the record straight: the functionality... the "API"... of .NET is contained in the core class libraries. Those are PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INTERFACES. There is nowhere to "HIDE" windows-only hooks. If you can have your MONO class library take CallX with four arguments of int just like the MS Windows version of the class, then you have CROSS PLATFORM capability. If Microsoft changes the class interface, then you change your corresponding class interface.
I am constantly amazed at the complete LACK of understanding about what
Honestly! It's all Object Oriented; there is NOWHERE to hide anything from anyone! Implementation is another issue, but by virtue of the platform itself all the interfaces have to be public and accessible, which means they can be easily emulated. That's what mono is trying to do with WindowsForms; its the GUI component that Microsoft said was going to be Windows-only, except they are already working on emulating the public interfaces (though the implementation would be calling gtk/x)
Please... THINK about this stuff before you post it. Its no like Sun can go and hide some new solaris-only hooks in the JVM that suddenly make it incompatible with other platforms! In order to have developers use the new hooks, they have to make them public, and then anyone could create a compatible class for their platform of choice.
The real problem is that the cost of backbone connections isn't proportional to the cost of installing, running, and developing the backbones in the first place.
Plus add in the fact that major players like AT&T don't pay backbone fees since they have enough traffic to peer with anyone.
Part of the reason the broadband market has collapsed is that real, hard bandwidth is just far too expensive. There is no good reason that an OC3 should run $50,000 a month; the telcos and providers could charge $10,000 a month for THE SAME THING and still churn a profit.
Why don't they do it? Because they'd like to see all the ISPs shut down. Then internet service becomes like phone service and you really only have one provider to choose from.
Most of the fibre in the ground across the United States (more than 50%) is dark. I.e. it isn't being used.
I believe this is one of the few cases where the government needs to step in. All fibre ought to be owned by the government, and run at cost, available to anyone. Only then would we see the TRUE promise of the internet and real, fast broadband in every home.
I don't get why Palm has to try and one-up PocketPC so much, yet fail to fill the space that PocketPC devices fill.
Just take a look at their product comparison page. For example, they rail the iPaq on battery usage.
I totally agree with them; the iPaq doesn't have a long battery life. But that's not why I bought it... I bought it to have a true HANDHELD PC, and that's what the iPaq is.
Palm's market is for PDA-type devices. Palms are great for storing a few SMALL notes (who can really go quickly using Graffiti?), contact list, and other small things. But you certainly aren't going to get far trying to play Quake on it, terminal service into the domain controller, or pull down highly-compressed DVDs across your 802.11b link to watch them.
I liken Palm right now to a bicycle maker trying out-advertise a car maker; it is totally silly. They are two different markets altogether.
If Palm wanted to start making cars (aka enter the HANDHELD PC market), then they are free to do so. Many will still buy their bicycles (PDAs), but some might choose them for their cars (handheld pcs) as well. In that way, everyone would win. Palm would have a greater range of products and thus more possible sales, and Microsoft would have some real competition in the handheld PC market.
But as things are going, Palm can only pretend to compete with the cars for so long before they get burned. They need to decide very quickly which one (or both) they wanna make and go after the proper market.
H3835 can play a DVD. To do so you need:
+ 128MB SD memory expansion card, or a 128MB or greater compact flash card
+ A PC with DeCSS and/or DVD ripping program
+ Windows media encoder 7.1
Basically just rip the DVD as if you were going to convert it to DivX, then load the AVI into Windows media encoder. On the latest version of the encoder, there is are specific pocket PC profiles... just select one and let it go. The resultant file should be about 120MB, small enough to fit on the card.
Windows Media Player on the iPaq is even smart enough to turn the widescreen DVDs sideways for better viewing.
I guess we agree on one thing: Palm doesn't have an offering in the high-end PDA market. I just think they should... it wouldn't hurt their existing line to offer such a thing.
FUD is an acronym for "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt", not "an opinion with which I disagree."
I don't work for Microsoft, and never have. I certainly didn't get paid to post that, so I am wondering where you have the gall to call it 'marketing' -- it is my opinion, which I will express as often and as freely as I like.
Let's assume that a WinCE device requires twice as much memory as an equivalent Palm device, just for grins. That means a 16MB palm is similar to a 32MB WinCE device, right? Well then... where are the 32MB standard Palm devices? That's easy... they don't make them.
So this 8MB standard i70x palm they are releasing is akin to a 16MB WinCE device by your standards. My iPaq came with 64MB standard. I think you see where this is going...
The PalmOS UI sucks compared to the PocketPC 2002 setup, in my opinion. If Palm works better for you, GREAT. More power to ya. But for me? I prefer having the greater flexibility the iPaq and WinCE offer me. Especially in terms of input... sure, I can emulate the block mode that Palms use, complete with the two areas for letters/numbers at the bottom of the screen. The difference is that when I am not inputting anything into a text box, that GOES away giving me more screen realestate. Of course I usually use the transcriber mode where I can just jot stuff down on the screen anywhere and it will pickup my handwriting. Or I can call up a mini-keyboard to occupy the same space that Palm's input panel would use. The point is that it gives me more usable screen space and more flexibility.
Go ahead and try running a Game Gear emulator on the latest color palm, or playing back a full screen, full length DVD on it. You won't get nearly as far as my iPaq.
Oh, battery usage? with backlight off (as I am usually in rooms with decent light conditions), I get days. Using autobacklight, it adjusts itself to the ambient light. With that mode I can easily go a whole day with the thing on pretty much nonstop.
Palm's hardware sucks compared to the vast array of Pocket PC devices; there is little point in making excuses. Instead, Palm should be encouraged to release a wider variety of devices into the lower and higher end markets in order to drive greater competition with Pocket PC manufacturers.
Let's see.... with Palm I can get:
+ Less memory (usually 8 or 16 versus 64)
+ fewer applications
+ only one model that has color
Or I can buy an iPaq (like I did) and get 64MB of memory plus 32MB of ROM, a 16-bit color screen that is as big as the standard Palm screen PLUS their little writing area (which I can emulate for input if I don't wanna use the excellent handwriting recognition.)
Decisions, decisions...
The list of extensions to the Word format from Word 97 to Word XP number a handful.
95% of all documents use simple text and formatting, with a few frames and pictures thrown in.
Even "advanced" stuff like mailing lists, custom pages sizes, multicolumn pages/layout, superscript-subscript, watermarks, etc are all part of the BASIC format, and thus a page with all those things created in WordXP can be read by a Word 97 client.
To not allow extensions to the file format means NO NEW FEATURES can be added -- that is a ridiculous idea at best. Of course there have to be changes. What you are failing to realize is this:
The binary layout of the file from Word 97, Word 95, and all previous versions is different for each one! There aren't just a few extensions or changes, you CANNOT open the files >AT ALL. That is the key difference.
"And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. "
This statement is incorrect... Microsoft redefined the file format with Word 97 to make it extensible. SO the basic text, formatting, images, etc are all compatible between Word 97, 2000, and XP. I can save a Word file in WordXP and open it in Word 97 without any sort of conversion or downgrading... its just that the "extensions" not supported by Word 97 won't be displayed or might be displayed incorrectly.
The differences between 97 and 2000 are especially small... we have about 85% of our users on Office 97 and they exchange documents both ways with our other users of Office 2000. Of course they don't do anything special with fileformats (remember: these users think their keyboard can 'get a virus') -- the Word 97 users can open the Word 2000 files without conversion.
You are vastly mistaken, but it is a common misconception.
The only difference between a Native and Compatibility mode ActiveDirectory is which computers can be DOMAIN CONTROLLERS. It has no effect on member servers or clients. Win9x clients can auth to a Native AD domain, and NT4 servers can be members of a Native AD domain.
The only requirement to use the new features is that you have only W2K DCs... this is because the "Native" mode features do things that aren't allowable under NT4 and the old NetBIOS/SMB -- things like nesting domains inside of parent domains and so on. An NT4 DC wouldn't know how to replicate a nested domain and translate the security stuff without an insane amount of work.
Although it is fun to point at the particular webserver you don't like and laugh, the truth is that in 95% of the cases, a "slashdotting" is simply an overload of the site's available bandwidth.
I can have 16 Windows 2000 servers running a well tuned IIS 5 application, but if they are all on a 10Mbps link trying to serve up 250k in images/pages to every visitor, slashdotting here I come!
Similarly 16 Linux systems with Apache doing the same thing on the same line will also be slashdotted.
So I encourage everyone to laugh at the trolls just as I do when they point out slashdotted servers. Just remember its all about bandwidth (usually.)
Is that why some 15 year old HP-UX boxen running some ancient version of samba can still talk to my Windows 2000 server?
I find it hilarious that you would accuse Microsoft of changing the API; SMB hasn't changed at all on NT/2K except for a few upgrades to the password scheme to make it more secure and a few other small patches to fix bugs.
What Microsoft did do is come up with a new and improved filesharing protocol, CIFS, and implemented it as a >separate library running on different ports. If you honestly believe they are going to totally change the way their server OS works and lock out Win9x/NT4 clients, you are sadly mistaken.
Similarly, the Win32 API hasn't ever been CHANGED... it has only had things added to it. And with NTVDM/WOW, I can still run my ancient DOS and Win3.1 programs (for the most part) under Windows 2000; tell me where they've changed the API here?
*ALMOST EVERY* Time Microsoft wants to make a change that would break something, they just implement it in a separate standard or New API rather than b0rking the old one, which is the way it should be done.
If anyone is spouting FUD and nonsense here, it is you.
We must be careful not to lump all of the things under the Microsoft .NET umbrella together. For a moment, replace ".NET" with "Win32" and re-examine what you are saying, and what Microsoft is going on about.
.NET means to me.
.NET
.NET runtime and have it integrate with VS.NET as smoothly as C# does. The Perl.NET download from ActiveState is quite tastey.
For you see, ".NET" is really just a programming platform. Take everything that Windows can do, then wrap it in an object-oriented system, then subtract all the things that suck about Java. That is what
Passport.NET/Hailstorm/etc are just services available to programmers and users that are written with
I can surely write my own Passport-esque system and expose my web services just as passport does. Then you can use my system instead of Microsoft's.
All of this is on top of the fact that VisualStudio.NET is an entirely different beast from the platform/runtime and the services. There again, I can write my own language that compiles to the
Bottom line -- Make it clear to what you are referring:
Platform: Common Language Runtime. Includes Microsoft-IL and set of standard System objects.
Services: Passport/Hailstorm and other webservices. Can be provided by Microsoft or anyone with a webserver running the CLR (or you can write it all up by hand, but it is much easier with the CLR because it was built with that in mind.)
IDE: Integrated Development Environment, VisualStudio.NET; has facilities for 3rd party systems to plug in and be treated as 1st class languages just like VB.NET/C#. Compiles apps for the CLR, and has additional publishing features and tools for developers.
Every other month someone comes out with a "breakthrough" in microprocessor design that could "someday lead to smaller and faster chips" that "use less power."
I am not blaming only Slashdot for presenting this kind of fluff, I blame the major news organizations as well. Until these companies are getting ready to ship a product, I don't want to hear about it, because so much if it becomes vaporware. What little is left ends up being only slight improvements wrapped in marketing buzzwords.
Give me more content and less fluff please.
Apparently you've never heard about Microsoft's news servers. The morons there are just as vocal as the ones here.
(That was a joke, btw)
Not if you figure out the AOL auto-updating mechanism as part of the protocol. Then, the only way they can lock alternatives out is to actually force everyone who is on AOL 2,3,4,5, and 6 to upgrade immediately. That isn't ever going to happen.
In the next version of IIS6, there will be a kernel HTTP driver that can respond to static requests by serving directing from the cache. The input code has been rewritten, and is buffer checked among other things. HTTP doesn't do any processing at all... it just sees if the incoming URL matches a file already listed in the cache. If not, the request is bumped to user-space.
.NET Server betas, they seem to be getting more fine-grained on that stuff.
Secondly, each website under IIS6 can run as a different user. So if you host 10 websites, each one can run as a separate user account, each with different security permissions.
Lastly, yes 2000 gives you better file security out of the box. There are still some things that should be fine-tuned, but definitely not Full:Everyone.
With the
Pipes are in Windows solely for compatibility with other systems and legacy stuff. If you are going to do interprocess (distributed or not) these days, you do it with COM.
The benchmark posted is meaningless.
The new HTTP.SYS driver runs in kernel-space, and can respond to static content requests with very little processing or overhead, pulling the data directly from the cache.
Assuming that HTTP.SYS can't handle it, the request is passed on to a user-space process.
There is a lot more to it than just that. Much of the core code has been rewritten, and is buffer-checked among other things.
This has been dealt with in a variety of sci-fi literature, such as the Ender's Game series.
Time for the travellers on the ship passed much faster. So the communication device took the entire message and spaced it way out so that it appeared to the stationary receivers to be perfectly in-sync.
Similarly, to receive a message from a planet, the computers there took the message and "squished" it up so the information was transmitted much faster, and appeared to the receivers as "normal".
This is a gross oversimplification, but I think you get the picture.
it sounds rather interesting, but might I suggest securing the server in the first place?
a sp?ReleaseID=32571">http://www.microsoft.com/Downl oads/Release.asp?Rel easeID=32571</a>
For any IIS admins out there, you need to download and install URLScan. It is a free tool put out by Microsoft. It scans incoming requests and only allows ones that meet its criteria of rules (with a default blank ruleset, all requests are discarded.)
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/Release.
There are a variety of other methods that can be used as well, and I am currently working on a guide to security for IIS admins. It isn't that hard... take the time to do it right.
This changes nothing in regards to Hailstorm. It only changes some people's incorrect perceptions of it. Hailstorm, and the entire .NET framework itself, is extensible by any third party, and always has been. It is simply unfortunate that people are so reactionary whenever Microsoft proposes anything.
.NET plugin for hailstorm using the documented interface, and then the system will use your authentication method rather than some other (like Passport).
.NET previously.
If you want to provide authentication via non-Microsoft means, write a
I just want to emphasise that this is only surprise news for those who failed to take the time to understand Hailstorm and
All major downtown cities are being evacuated. All federal buildings across the country are also being cleared. The president is heading toward a secret destination with a squadron of fighter jets as an escort.
Both Trade Center buildings have totally collapsed. A plan has hit the pentagon building.
The FAA is reporting that SEVERAL planes are unaccounted for. No word on how many of those might be hijacked or their destination, although one Trans-atlantic flight is reportedly headed for Washington,DC. As a result, fighter jets are currently flying cover over the city as everyone evacuates.
No other word so far.
both buildings have now collapsed, and two planes have hit the pentagon. they believe that another plane has been hijacked and is headed toward Washington, DC
a large plane has also crashed north of a city in Pittsburg (no word if it is related.)
All flights are grounded, PERIOD across the entire US.
I always find it rather pitiful when zealots from any side spew false information to promote their cause... whether it be PC vs Mac or Windows vs Linux, fools on both sides tend to make up more information than they research. For example...
"Linux has this kind of stability ever since version 1.0. Linux separates the kernel from the GUI. Windows NT and 2000 built having the GUI in the kernel. Finally with Windows XP they copy the Linux approach and separate the GUI from the kernel. "
He is dead wrong here. Both in Windows 2000 and XP, the video drivers live in kernel space for performance reasons. But what is called the "Window Station", which takes care of drawing/widgets, et al lives smack dab in user-space, under the guise of csrss.exe, which also happens to provide the entire Win32 API, since the NT kernel itself only has about 200+ APIs collectively called the Executive.
Furthermore, the Window Station has always had both the capability to have multiple desktops, as well as the capability to redirect its output. Why Microsoft waited this long to expose that to end users is a mystery to me.
At any rate, here's how an XP/2K machine works (except for fast-user switching, which is new to XP).
System boots the kernel, loads drivers, etc (XP does nearly all driver loads in parallel following the dependancy tree, and remembers what loaded last time and prefetches that from disk before it is needed.)
Once that process is complete, Window Station 0 is initialized with Desktop 0 -- this is the primary console on which the GINA runs (the GINA provides login/auth, and the screen you see when you press CTRL+ALT+DEL).
Once a user logs in, Desktop 1 is initialized, which is where explorer.exe (the shell) and your programs live.
When a Terminal Services client logs in, a new "Job" is created by the kernel, and Window Station x is initialized within that job space. That Window Station also inits Desktop 0 and 1.
XP Adds the capability to init other Desktops on Window Station 0 as other users, which is where the Fast User switching comes from.
I have reviewed the changelogs, and I don't see many new features, and certainly none that would affect me as a standard reader/poster on slashdot.
I'm sure the administration side has improvements, and the behind-the-scenes code is better. But I'm left asking... So What?
If anyone can explain the real benefits from this move, let me know. And congrats to those who worked on Bender.