They usually get installed when I shutdown. As I shutdown the machine a new button appears on the shutdown dialog that offers to install updates and then shutdown. So it's no trouble at all.
Some quick sums suggest to me that this is excellent value for money. Of course by the time it hits us in the UK it will probably be £70 using the wonderful MS currency exchange system!
The article doesn't say what sort of licence it is though. Traditionally MS charge a lot more for commercial use than they do for personal use. Sigh.
I don't see why, a priori, scheduling onto a single core will be more cache efficient. If my threads are working on separate data (and that's essentially the goal of all parallel compute intensive software) then wouldn't it be better to schedule to different cores so that each thread can have an entire cache rather than sharing.
Anyway, the reason why I want my threads scheduled onto different cores is because they are maxed out. In fact Linux is not really relevant for my app because all my users are on Windows. I was just for fun seeing if it would run under WINE. I have to say I'm hugely impressed with what the WINE folk have done.
As in multiple threads within a single process being scheduled to run concurrently on different processors? I've just naively run my Windows app on the latest Ubuntu on a quad core and my app was only aware of a single core. I can see that Wine handles multiple threads within a process (it quite clearly has to), but somehow they don't get scheduled concurrently onto different processors.
People seem to forget that when DOS was dying and it was time to move to an OS with a graphical shell there was a choice. There was OS/2 and there was Mac. OS/2 seemed certain to win but it turned out to be utter crud. Mac was a niche at the time only really appealing to the creatives. Windows 3.1 was not good, but it was better than the rest. And Windows for Workgroups with decent networking clinched the deal.
As the manager of a small ISV I know for sure that our success would not have been possible without the existence of a universal de facto standard, namely the Windows desktop. We haven't had to port our app for 10 years because of the stability of the Win32 API. Compare this to the hell of Mac development over those 10 years. And as for Linux? All rather academic since none of our potential clients have expressed any interest in running on Linux.
They won because they were better than the competition at the key points in the battle. Excel beat 1-2-3 because it was better. Word beat Word Perfect because it was better. Outlook beat Notes because it was better. And Windows beat Mac because it was better. Not that the MS products were universally wonderful. Sometimes they won because average is better than rubbish. But they were still better when it counted.
Guys, wake up and smell the coffee. Grand Central has no details, no specs. It's pure marketing puff. So Apple have suddenly solved the holy grail of automatic parallel computing? Yeah right!
In case you hadn't noticed, Apple, just like MS, are all about marketing and branding. They take other peoples bright ideas and turn them into coherent products (Mac, iPod, iPhone etc.). Not that this is a bad thing you understand but if you think Apple are somehow the great innovators then you are seriously deluding yourself.
No, all I'm saying is that if you work in a company which has a particular IT policy to use certain tools then it works best if you stick to those tools. If all your co-workers use Visio then you should use it too in order to collaborate. If everyone uses Google Docs then you shouldn't start using Office.
I'm a firm believer in freedom of choice. But when a group of people need to coordinate efforts then they do need to standardise. At that point the choice is one for the group rather than individuals within the group.
The great success stories of computing have come through open standards as opposed to open source. I'm thinking of e-mail, networking, web. The open source movement is more based on open standards and I think it has gained ground because of the standards issue rather than the source issue.
Personally the thing that bugs me about traditional proprietary software is that typically my data becomes locked in some format that I can't do anything with. I'd be ecstatic if MS bit the bullet and gave 1st class support to ODF in Office. I could then choose to use whichever Office tool I wanted to use and be confident that I could retain control of my valuable assets (the data). I can even pick different tools for different jobs.
The same is true with e-mail systems, CAD packages etc. In any arena where good mature open standards exist and are well supported by effective tools then I can use the tools of my choice, you can use the tools of your choice and everyone gets along wonderfully.
And what about vendor lock-in with Gliffy? It's not free. How do you get hold of your data if gliffy goes bust? What format will it be in? Is it an open format? Can I process it with a script?
SMEs may go for web-apps, but I doubt MEGA-CORP will.....
His co-workers almost surely already have Visio installed and know how to use it. And then of course they have the Visio diagrams embedded in their documents. In that scenario the accommodating approach is to use Visio.
Of course if the co-workers don't have Visio and have no experience of it then the immediacy of a web-app likely wins.
So, it depends on what the situation is which choice is better, and I don't think it's very helpful to have a closed mind be that either "OSS is better" or "Windows is better". If you believe in open source then you may as well have a open mind too! How's that for a sound-bite?!
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I think your problems are all laid out here. Ownership should be collective. If you have "your own turf", then your team has big problems.
It doesn't really matter what you do, so long as everyone on the team does the same thing.
We use Office automation a lot at work. There's nothing else that comes close to matching.
End of story (for us at least).
Only about 20 years after NT!!
Get rid of ZoneAlarm and use a decent firewall!
They usually get installed when I shutdown. As I shutdown the machine a new button appears on the shutdown dialog that offers to install updates and then shutdown. So it's no trouble at all.
Windows update occurs without my intervention. I fail to see how that's obnoxious.
Perhaps you don't know how to configure it properly! HINT: if you don't configure it then it happens automatically.
..... most likely almost universally dismal
Some quick sums suggest to me that this is excellent value for money. Of course by the time it hits us in the UK it will probably be £70 using the wonderful MS currency exchange system!
The article doesn't say what sort of licence it is though. Traditionally MS charge a lot more for commercial use than they do for personal use. Sigh.
Presumably the same arguments apply to that other well known monolithic kernel, Linux.
I love the assertion that Apple wrote Mac OS X. Or am I mistaken in thinking that it's actually Mach/BSD.
Anyway, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Windows kernel as any number of other commentators have said.
I don't see why, a priori, scheduling onto a single core will be more cache efficient. If my threads are working on separate data (and that's essentially the goal of all parallel compute intensive software) then wouldn't it be better to schedule to different cores so that each thread can have an entire cache rather than sharing.
Anyway, the reason why I want my threads scheduled onto different cores is because they are maxed out. In fact Linux is not really relevant for my app because all my users are on Windows. I was just for fun seeing if it would run under WINE. I have to say I'm hugely impressed with what the WINE folk have done.
Those FF installs will all be personal users, the majority of IE users are on corp desktops. Need you look further.
As in multiple threads within a single process being scheduled to run concurrently on different processors? I've just naively run my Windows app on the latest Ubuntu on a quad core and my app was only aware of a single core. I can see that Wine handles multiple threads within a process (it quite clearly has to), but somehow they don't get scheduled concurrently onto different processors.
What plans do you have for better multi-threading support?
AC!!!
You need to get out a bit more.
End of.
People seem to forget that when DOS was dying and it was time to move to an OS with a graphical shell there was a choice. There was OS/2 and there was Mac. OS/2 seemed certain to win but it turned out to be utter crud. Mac was a niche at the time only really appealing to the creatives. Windows 3.1 was not good, but it was better than the rest. And Windows for Workgroups with decent networking clinched the deal.
As the manager of a small ISV I know for sure that our success would not have been possible without the existence of a universal de facto standard, namely the Windows desktop. We haven't had to port our app for 10 years because of the stability of the Win32 API. Compare this to the hell of Mac development over those 10 years. And as for Linux? All rather academic since none of our potential clients have expressed any interest in running on Linux.
They won because they were better than the competition at the key points in the battle. Excel beat 1-2-3 because it was better. Word beat Word Perfect because it was better. Outlook beat Notes because it was better. And Windows beat Mac because it was better. Not that the MS products were universally wonderful. Sometimes they won because average is better than rubbish. But they were still better when it counted.
End of.
Guys, wake up and smell the coffee. Grand Central has no details, no specs. It's pure marketing puff. So Apple have suddenly solved the holy grail of automatic parallel computing? Yeah right!
In case you hadn't noticed, Apple, just like MS, are all about marketing and branding. They take other peoples bright ideas and turn them into coherent products (Mac, iPod, iPhone etc.). Not that this is a bad thing you understand but if you think Apple are somehow the great innovators then you are seriously deluding yourself.
If I could use the best tool then I would. The reasons I don't drive a Ferrari or eat caviar is because I can't.
Even if getting the job done means using Visio 'cos it's the best tool there is? Would you be prepared to do that?
This guy switched to Linux at work too. You know, the guy from the original article.
And yes I do believe in choice. If people choose to use Visio then I don't have a problem with that. Do you?
No, all I'm saying is that if you work in a company which has a particular IT policy to use certain tools then it works best if you stick to those tools. If all your co-workers use Visio then you should use it too in order to collaborate. If everyone uses Google Docs then you shouldn't start using Office.
I'm a firm believer in freedom of choice. But when a group of people need to coordinate efforts then they do need to standardise. At that point the choice is one for the group rather than individuals within the group.
The great success stories of computing have come through open standards as opposed to open source. I'm thinking of e-mail, networking, web. The open source movement is more based on open standards and I think it has gained ground because of the standards issue rather than the source issue.
Personally the thing that bugs me about traditional proprietary software is that typically my data becomes locked in some format that I can't do anything with. I'd be ecstatic if MS bit the bullet and gave 1st class support to ODF in Office. I could then choose to use whichever Office tool I wanted to use and be confident that I could retain control of my valuable assets (the data). I can even pick different tools for different jobs.
The same is true with e-mail systems, CAD packages etc. In any arena where good mature open standards exist and are well supported by effective tools then I can use the tools of my choice, you can use the tools of your choice and everyone gets along wonderfully.
And what about vendor lock-in with Gliffy? It's not free. How do you get hold of your data if gliffy goes bust? What format will it be in? Is it an open format? Can I process it with a script?
SMEs may go for web-apps, but I doubt MEGA-CORP will.....
His co-workers almost surely already have Visio installed and know how to use it. And then of course they have the Visio diagrams embedded in their documents. In that scenario the accommodating approach is to use Visio.
Of course if the co-workers don't have Visio and have no experience of it then the immediacy of a web-app likely wins.
So, it depends on what the situation is which choice is better, and I don't think it's very helpful to have a closed mind be that either "OSS is better" or "Windows is better". If you believe in open source then you may as well have a open mind too! How's that for a sound-bite?!