I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with MS. I developed software for MS operating systems from 1987 to about 2004 (I do Linux now), but it became personal when I bought a low-end Gateway laptop for my wife to replace her old one. The laptop cost about $425 or so and is a Gateway. To their credit, the machine is quite nice, and is an incredible value. I don't care for the keyboard, which feels "cheap", but the screen is substantially brighter than the mid-range HP Pavilion I use (my wife was happy with the cheapest machine I could get since her requirements are far less than mine). As far as hardware goes, I'd give the machine a big thumbs up. However, it came saddled with Vista, which in my opinion is simply criminal. It was literally the slowest computer I've ever used and that counts my floppy-based Amiga 500. You could double-click on the Firefox icon and 30 seconds would pass before there was even some response from the machine, leave alone the program actually launching. It was like it would lock up for a fair fraction of a minute on almost any operation. And this was _after_ upgrading the memory to 1.5GB. I had to blow a C-note on a copy of XP just to make the thing usable. (My wife did try Ubuntu for a couple months, as was generally very happy with it, but certain hassles related to requirements of her course work made her ask to go back to Windows.) So thanks to MS strongarming Gateway (that they haven't stopped extorting OEMs is obvious) and Gateway for totally caving, a machine which was a great value was turned into a doorstop for No Good Reason.
That day I could only conclude that Microsoft hates their customers, and because I'm a customer of theirs, me. And given the belligerent behavior of their president, who acts like he has more Y chromosomes than nostrils and probably does, it's obvious that this naked and transparent contempt comes from the top, and I would doubt from the hard-working and creative engineers whose efforts and talents are largely wasted producing sub-par software for a more-evil-than-usual company.
Microsoft hates me. I can reach no other possible conclusion. They hate the fact that they cannot literally sit on my chest and dangle-spit in my face until I hand over my money, and it shows. They ate the fact that I expect value if I am ever to give them more money, something I have vowed to avoid as much as possible. Since then I have advocated for moving away from them and their products. I still use XP on my laptop (which also came with Vista... although performance was tolerable, Vista was too much of a hassle and offered literally nothing of value to me over XP, and I think Aero is ugly, not as ass-ugly as the XP theme, but the default Windows 2000 look still has to be beat, except by maybe a well-tweaked KDE). I generally like XP, I really do, but I will eventually migrate to Linux, either because XP is no longer viable or I can run Paint Shop Pro and a couple other apps in Wine. Microsoft has finally, in my opinion, joined companies like Real, and reached a point where their very existence is an affront to technology in particular and capitalism in general.
I have found a strong correlation between name-calling and a complete lack of a point, or anything intelligent or meaningful to say, on/. and your comments fit that correlation very well. Name-calling is truly a resort left to those have nothing other to offer.
The sad thing is that they're remaking "Bill and Ted", too... or at least so I've heard. Hollywood is cannibalizing itself so fast, remakes will soon be able to feature the original actors.
He never said how many "happy people" there should be nor who they are. You mistook "happy people" for "happy customers". hassanchop, however, does not seem to have done that. I wouldn't call him (or you) an idiot, just point out a communication breakdown.
Just curious, is Netflix OK with you ripping their content and posting it on the Internet or is it laden with DRM.
They're standard DVDs as far as know. I'm sure Netflix would be against ripping and posting on principal and I don't do it.
The Netflix website is a little short on detail on their TV offerings, can you watch any TV show when it premiers or just the ones that have made it to DVD.
Just the ones that have made it to DVD, AFAIK. However, I haven't looked into their streaming service and whether they offer more current TV fare through it. I'm patient... I still haven't seen Battlestar Galactica season 3 so I'm not chomping on the bit to see season 4 as soon as it airs. I'll get around to it... There are something like 300 items in my queue, a good chunk of which is TV material, and most of that is old stuff from the 60's and 70's when TV was, in general, much better.
Also not sure how the Internet will cope if everyone actually started watching TV through their ISP, especially with HD being the norm now.
I believe Netcraft confirmed the Internet is dying... or maybe it's dead already. I haven't checked.
If everyone started ordering all their TV through the mail it might be a boon to the post office but seems like a kind of inefficient distribution model, especially with the price of fuel.
That is a very valid point. The Internet is a boon for buying exactly what you want when you want it, but everything has to be shipped. I buy all my music online ever since Tower Records closed, and I buy most of my DVDs online as well. Between my wife and me, there are often several packages a week being delivered whether books, CDs, DVDs, or other goodies. The environmental affects of this are obvious, but at this time, it is the best option. The package delivery services are certainly more fuel-efficient that me driving my Accord around town, even if they are not as efficient as electronic distribution.
We went through the whole DRM thing in the 80's and it was soundly rejected as being a hindrance only to legitimate customers and not the people that were being targeted. I'm somewhat confident that that view will triumph over the increasingly draconian DRM measures being tried in an increasingly desperate attempt to stuff the genie back into the bottle.
For the record, I purchase all my electronically-downloaded music through eMusic and Mindawn which do not use any kind of DRM, and somewhat ironically have much cheaper prices. Furthermore, Mindawn offers the option of FLAC files for a modestly higher price, which I always choose. With the FLAC files I can burn a bit-for-bit version of the original CD, which is a great value to me.
Here is a question for all the Slashdot crowd that want all their media freed from the man. Do you want to watch content that actually costs a lot to produce.... The options are pretty limited.
I turned off satellite years ago and use Netflix. Works like a charm for me and I watch no commercials. I also buy any shows I would want to watch more than a couple times. How about that?
I think copyright would help protect you in that it helps ensure that was is purported to be your book is _actually_ your book, and not a cleverly altered fake.
Or in the case of the Mormons, to ensure that your book is the latest revision and not the older versions from which the "infallible" word of God has been constantly edited and changed over the last hundred and fifty or so years.
SP3 failed utterly in the face of the current market that MS faces.
While I agree with most of what you said, I'm not sure how SP3 "fails utterly". There have been far fewer problems with SP3 than previous service packs. Why, SP2, which is generally regarded as a Very Good Thing (and with good reason) broke a lot more software and machines than SP3 seems to be doing.
I'm usually the first to bash Microsoft when they deserve it, which is 99.9% of the time, but I cannot agree with the assessment that SP3 "fails".
Microsoft in general is "failing utterly" in the current market, but as far as I'm concerned, XP is doing just fine.
Maybe the complaints are the same, but the user experience isn't. I didn't get XP until I bought a laptop with it installed. It was a bit of a hassle getting used to it, but I did, and didn't notice a performance issue. I never felt like I needed to go back to Windows 2000.
I didn't buy Vista until I bought a laptop with it installed (and was well within specs to run Vista reasonably). It was a huge hassle getting used to it, and noticed a huge performance difference. After a couple months, I got tired of dealing with it, went back to XP (and had to buy a copy to do so, but it was worth it) and haven't thought about it since. (e.g., The seven minute boot after installing one little update was a camel-back-breaking event. Even normally boots took about 3 times longer than XP.) And to top it all off, I didn't think Aero was all that. It wasn't as ass-ugly as the default XP theme, but all those animations got monotonous and even annoying and the color scheme was pretty awful IMO. On Windows, nothing beats the Windows 2000 look, IMO.
Vista offers exactly zero features that I care about, but demands an enormous penalty. On the other hand, XP offered several features that made it an improvement over 2000 (Explorer being significantly less horrible for instance, much better USB, wireless and laptop support, as well) for my use.
Voting in a Federal election is supporting pure evil.
No, voting for the status quo is supporting evil. Unfortunately, the system has been rigged so only the status quo has any chance of getting elected. Voting for a third party or a write-in may be a "wasted vote" but it is also a vote of "no confidence" in the present duopoly hegemony, and probably the only way your voice can truly be heard.
Maybe it really is about some high-level finance strategy that only people in the know can grasp?
Unfortunately I don't think it's that complicated. I suspect it's just hormones.
I wonder about that too. How much of Microsoft's recent behavior can be explained by them being run by a guy with more Y chromosomes than feet? A lot if you ask me.
Don't worry, mercury poisoning will kill us all off before anyone realizes how stupid that ban is.
Congress's unintended consequences are getting ridiculous. I find it hard to believe they can even pretend they are acting in the interests of this country and its citizens. These days, when Congress "fixes" a problem, we are lucky indeed if they don't make it worse.
I find it amusing (and astounding) that apps written on Flash (minus video) seem to run at about 1% of what you could do with native programming. It's nice to see all those cute games, which are largely the kinds of things we saw on DOS about 15 years ago. It's not nice that those DOS-style games will peg a processor running at 100 times the speed of what those DOS games run on.
I was wondering if someone would mention that. When Walton was around, Walmart took great pains to show their emphasis on buying American. I'm sure there are other things they are doing that he wouldn't have stood for as well.
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Ugh. I meant "Mid-Atlantic", of course.
Mine's small enough to be a ZIP code on the Atlantic East Coast... that's gotta count for something.
I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with MS. I developed software for MS operating systems from 1987 to about 2004 (I do Linux now), but it became personal when I bought a low-end Gateway laptop for my wife to replace her old one. The laptop cost about $425 or so and is a Gateway. To their credit, the machine is quite nice, and is an incredible value. I don't care for the keyboard, which feels "cheap", but the screen is substantially brighter than the mid-range HP Pavilion I use (my wife was happy with the cheapest machine I could get since her requirements are far less than mine). As far as hardware goes, I'd give the machine a big thumbs up. However, it came saddled with Vista, which in my opinion is simply criminal. It was literally the slowest computer I've ever used and that counts my floppy-based Amiga 500. You could double-click on the Firefox icon and 30 seconds would pass before there was even some response from the machine, leave alone the program actually launching. It was like it would lock up for a fair fraction of a minute on almost any operation. And this was _after_ upgrading the memory to 1.5GB. I had to blow a C-note on a copy of XP just to make the thing usable. (My wife did try Ubuntu for a couple months, as was generally very happy with it, but certain hassles related to requirements of her course work made her ask to go back to Windows.) So thanks to MS strongarming Gateway (that they haven't stopped extorting OEMs is obvious) and Gateway for totally caving, a machine which was a great value was turned into a doorstop for No Good Reason.
That day I could only conclude that Microsoft hates their customers, and because I'm a customer of theirs, me. And given the belligerent behavior of their president, who acts like he has more Y chromosomes than nostrils and probably does, it's obvious that this naked and transparent contempt comes from the top, and I would doubt from the hard-working and creative engineers whose efforts and talents are largely wasted producing sub-par software for a more-evil-than-usual company.
Microsoft hates me. I can reach no other possible conclusion. They hate the fact that they cannot literally sit on my chest and dangle-spit in my face until I hand over my money, and it shows. They ate the fact that I expect value if I am ever to give them more money, something I have vowed to avoid as much as possible. Since then I have advocated for moving away from them and their products. I still use XP on my laptop (which also came with Vista... although performance was tolerable, Vista was too much of a hassle and offered literally nothing of value to me over XP, and I think Aero is ugly, not as ass-ugly as the XP theme, but the default Windows 2000 look still has to be beat, except by maybe a well-tweaked KDE). I generally like XP, I really do, but I will eventually migrate to Linux, either because XP is no longer viable or I can run Paint Shop Pro and a couple other apps in Wine. Microsoft has finally, in my opinion, joined companies like Real, and reached a point where their very existence is an affront to technology in particular and capitalism in general.
It's been obvious for years that Orwell wasn't a novelist or commentator but a prophet.
I have found a strong correlation between name-calling and a complete lack of a point, or anything intelligent or meaningful to say, on /. and your comments fit that correlation very well. Name-calling is truly a resort left to those have nothing other to offer.
Face it, drinkypoo, you and I have realized that while ad hominem attacks aren't a good thing, with Microsoft, you just can't resist.
So you're saying Google shouldn't be your cat?
The sad thing is that they're remaking "Bill and Ted", too... or at least so I've heard. Hollywood is cannibalizing itself so fast, remakes will soon be able to feature the original actors.
He never said how many "happy people" there should be nor who they are. You mistook "happy people" for "happy customers". hassanchop, however, does not seem to have done that. I wouldn't call him (or you) an idiot, just point out a communication breakdown.
Robotron 2084 ? Is that the game that will ship with Windows 8 ?
If the performance trend of recent Windows versions continues, Windows 8 won't be able to run Robotron.
However, Space Invaders might hack it.
Just curious, is Netflix OK with you ripping their content and posting it on the Internet or is it laden with DRM.
They're standard DVDs as far as know. I'm sure Netflix would be against ripping and posting on principal and I don't do it.
The Netflix website is a little short on detail on their TV offerings, can you watch any TV show when it premiers or just the ones that have made it to DVD.
Just the ones that have made it to DVD, AFAIK. However, I haven't looked into their streaming service and whether they offer more current TV fare through it. I'm patient... I still haven't seen Battlestar Galactica season 3 so I'm not chomping on the bit to see season 4 as soon as it airs. I'll get around to it... There are something like 300 items in my queue, a good chunk of which is TV material, and most of that is old stuff from the 60's and 70's when TV was, in general, much better.
Also not sure how the Internet will cope if everyone actually started watching TV through their ISP, especially with HD being the norm now.
I believe Netcraft confirmed the Internet is dying... or maybe it's dead already. I haven't checked.
If everyone started ordering all their TV through the mail it might be a boon to the post office but seems like a kind of inefficient distribution model, especially with the price of fuel.
That is a very valid point. The Internet is a boon for buying exactly what you want when you want it, but everything has to be shipped. I buy all my music online ever since Tower Records closed, and I buy most of my DVDs online as well. Between my wife and me, there are often several packages a week being delivered whether books, CDs, DVDs, or other goodies. The environmental affects of this are obvious, but at this time, it is the best option. The package delivery services are certainly more fuel-efficient that me driving my Accord around town, even if they are not as efficient as electronic distribution.
We went through the whole DRM thing in the 80's and it was soundly rejected as being a hindrance only to legitimate customers and not the people that were being targeted. I'm somewhat confident that that view will triumph over the increasingly draconian DRM measures being tried in an increasingly desperate attempt to stuff the genie back into the bottle.
For the record, I purchase all my electronically-downloaded music through eMusic and Mindawn which do not use any kind of DRM, and somewhat ironically have much cheaper prices. Furthermore, Mindawn offers the option of FLAC files for a modestly higher price, which I always choose. With the FLAC files I can burn a bit-for-bit version of the original CD, which is a great value to me.
Here is a question for all the Slashdot crowd that want all their media freed from the man. Do you want to watch content that actually costs a lot to produce.... The options are pretty limited.
I turned off satellite years ago and use Netflix. Works like a charm for me and I watch no commercials. I also buy any shows I would want to watch more than a couple times. How about that?
I think copyright would help protect you in that it helps ensure that was is purported to be your book is _actually_ your book, and not a cleverly altered fake.
Or in the case of the Mormons, to ensure that your book is the latest revision and not the older versions from which the "infallible" word of God has been constantly edited and changed over the last hundred and fifty or so years.
Fair enough. It didn't break my machine so I'm not too worried. ;-)
SP3 failed utterly in the face of the current market that MS faces.
While I agree with most of what you said, I'm not sure how SP3 "fails utterly". There have been far fewer problems with SP3 than previous service packs. Why, SP2, which is generally regarded as a Very Good Thing (and with good reason) broke a lot more software and machines than SP3 seems to be doing.
I'm usually the first to bash Microsoft when they deserve it, which is 99.9% of the time, but I cannot agree with the assessment that SP3 "fails".
Microsoft in general is "failing utterly" in the current market, but as far as I'm concerned, XP is doing just fine.
Flash ads? You're kidding aren't you? Who sees Flash ads any more?!
Maybe the complaints are the same, but the user experience isn't. I didn't get XP until I bought a laptop with it installed. It was a bit of a hassle getting used to it, but I did, and didn't notice a performance issue. I never felt like I needed to go back to Windows 2000.
I didn't buy Vista until I bought a laptop with it installed (and was well within specs to run Vista reasonably). It was a huge hassle getting used to it, and noticed a huge performance difference. After a couple months, I got tired of dealing with it, went back to XP (and had to buy a copy to do so, but it was worth it) and haven't thought about it since. (e.g., The seven minute boot after installing one little update was a camel-back-breaking event. Even normally boots took about 3 times longer than XP.) And to top it all off, I didn't think Aero was all that. It wasn't as ass-ugly as the default XP theme, but all those animations got monotonous and even annoying and the color scheme was pretty awful IMO. On Windows, nothing beats the Windows 2000 look, IMO.
Vista offers exactly zero features that I care about, but demands an enormous penalty. On the other hand, XP offered several features that made it an improvement over 2000 (Explorer being significantly less horrible for instance, much better USB, wireless and laptop support, as well) for my use.
Voting in a Federal election is supporting pure evil.
No, voting for the status quo is supporting evil. Unfortunately, the system has been rigged so only the status quo has any chance of getting elected. Voting for a third party or a write-in may be a "wasted vote" but it is also a vote of "no confidence" in the present duopoly hegemony, and probably the only way your voice can truly be heard.
"Noo-kyoo-lar", it's pronounced "noo-kyoo-lar".
Surf Helena!
Maybe it really is about some high-level finance strategy that only people in the know can grasp?
Unfortunately I don't think it's that complicated. I suspect it's just hormones.
I wonder about that too. How much of Microsoft's recent behavior can be explained by them being run by a guy with more Y chromosomes than feet? A lot if you ask me.
Why is it "better" if you spend longer to code the same thing? The point of technology is to make life simpler.
So I guess you don't mind when Vista takes 5 minutes to boot.
Don't worry, mercury poisoning will kill us all off before anyone realizes how stupid that ban is.
Congress's unintended consequences are getting ridiculous. I find it hard to believe they can even pretend they are acting in the interests of this country and its citizens. These days, when Congress "fixes" a problem, we are lucky indeed if they don't make it worse.
I find it amusing (and astounding) that apps written on Flash (minus video) seem to run at about 1% of what you could do with native programming. It's nice to see all those cute games, which are largely the kinds of things we saw on DOS about 15 years ago. It's not nice that those DOS-style games will peg a processor running at 100 times the speed of what those DOS games run on.
Yes, clearly it needs and 'i' or an 'e' in the front of the name.
I was wondering if someone would mention that. When Walton was around, Walmart took great pains to show their emphasis on buying American. I'm sure there are other things they are doing that he wouldn't have stood for as well.