Problem for EA: They are a slave shop, and suck at promoting true creativity in their development efforts. As a consequence, they
- CAN tell their employees to pump out yet another variation of an existing theme. - CANNOT regularly come up with good ideas. At best, they can buy up smaller studios who happen to have good ideas. And they seem to suck at this too.
Thus, you (the customer) usually won't get compelling storylines or original game concepts. BTW this was different 25 years ago. One of the coolest games on the C64 was Archon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark), distributed by EA. Back then, the EA leadership at least knew what games to pick for publishing, even if EA did not develop them by itself.
If typing is a major slowdown when writing code, you're probably doing it wrong. As in, writing waaaay too much repetitive code that should be extracted into subroutines.
In my experience, thinking takes a much larger part of development time than typing.
Sun's Sparc processors have a lot of cores which are great for large amounts of concurrent connections to either an (open source) database, file or webserver (as most of the open source designs spawn processes for a limited number of connections).
I think Oracle is trying to compete with Sparc processors in an area Sparc processors were never designed for -- low-end server systems.
My guess is Oracle(the company) wants to optimize for Oracle(the RDBMS). Assuming the/. article in correct in claiming single thread performance is important for databases. Either way, this puts them into more direct competition with Intel's and AMD's x86 machines:
- currently up to 6 cores for Intel ("Westmere") - and up to 12 cores for AMD ("Magny-Cours")
We'll see how well this works - I have my doubts....
In related gossip, it seems that back in the 1980s you could get a dishonorable discharge from the (west) German Army by pissing at a flag post that had the German flag hoisted, thus showing your disrespect for the state.
For getting out of conscription, it might have been worthwhile because as far as I heard, the associated punishment was small compared to not wasting a year in the barracks.
Note that it required the Soviet army to squash that revolution. According to Wikipedia, the Hungarian government actually fell and without intervention from outside, that would have been the end of the Communist Party's rule. Partly due to Hungarian soldiers joining the revolution.
Now if you transfer that scenario to the US, whom would the old government call to help? Maybe they could get one or two NATO countries to respond, but those would lack the resources to occupy the much larger USA.
In general I agree, but when it comes to fighting a war, the side that can keep secrets usually wins. Whereever you live, your government is the most recent group of people to conquer that land, so a government that can't keep any secrets won't remain your government for long.
According to some news articles, up to 2.5 million people had at least some level of access to the data now leaked.
With such numbers, it is a surprise that the leak did not happen earlier.
The US government really fails at keeping secrets;-)
I'd be willing to bet that in the past 5 years graphics technology has improved enough to make it worth replacing the whole guts of a console box with something newer.
Both Sony with the PS3 and Microsoft with the XBox360 are doing this every 1-2 years. But they are not upgrading for better performance, they are optimizing for cheaper manufacturing and less power usage.
As a result, a current PS3 or XBox360 is somewhat cheaper, less noisy and runs cooler than the first generation after market launch. Also, there are estimates that say Sony and Microsoft are no longer subsidizing the hardware, but actually earning a bit of money on it.
On the other hand, this means consoles have fallen behind gaming PCs in graphics technology. If console vendors want to offer the most awesome-looking games in the future, they will have to release a new console generation;-)
The one you refer to is international corporations moving to places with low taxes (hello Google). Lets call this #1.
The other one (#2 and IMHO worse) is politicians being scared into propping up banks that have mis-speculated. Which is the main probem of the Irish: The government has foolishly guaranteed for the banks' debts.
Only now, when the massive impact from #2 becomes obvious, Ireland briefly considered changing #1.
It seems IBM spent its money on the wrong company (assuming the claims of IISi were true). IISi as the original developer might have been a better buy.
Instead, IBM spent lots of money on a bunch of software pirates that cannot even produce good hacks;-)
Preparing a good note sheet requires the student to understand what formulae are important, and write them down
in a quick and easy-access format
That means going through the course material while thinking hard about the concepts and often means you understand the subject matter much better by the time you are done.
I often prepared a "cheat sheet" even where it was forbidden, only to find out I did not need it during the test. Preparing the sheet actually was a good way of learning the stuff.
On top of that, it should be easy enough for Libre Office to stick to the features of the current version of Java. Or the open version, if Java upgrades are necessary at all.
I guess Oracle might be able to push Open Office into a stronger dependency, but then it should become obvious even to the last Oracle fanboy that Open Office is not the future of Open Source office suites.
I think you're right: Acoording to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinplate), tin-plated iron was used for cheap pots, pans and other holloware. From the term "tinware" it is not far to "tin pan", which is probably what the Fermis used.
Not to mention that I suppose it's kind of awkward doing that on a PC, anyway.
And until a few years ago, I guess it was because the screen sizes and resolutions on a typical PC were lacking.
But today, a quick look into my preferred online shop shows 23" screens with 1920x1080 pixel resolution starting at 150 Euros. HDTV sets with the same resolution and 32" size start at 350 euros.
I guess splitting the 1920x1080 pixels vertically would still leave you with a good enough resolution for most games.
Until you happen to buy one of those locked down things where -the vendor simply switches off the servers (IIRC Electronic Arts "retires" some games after merely two years). This may be illegal, but you still have to start an expensive lawsuit to do something about it. -or the vendor goes bankrupt and cannot provide the service anymore. -or a simple bug (as in TFA) locks you out.
For myself, I have settled on a strong but not absolute anti-DRM stance: Usually I won't buy locked down stuff, but I may make an exception if there is a strong incentive and nothing else depends on the DRM-encumbered product. Examples: -I got "Day Of Defeat: Source" despite DRM, to play with some friends who are big fans of DOD. -but Windows Vista and later are still no-gos because a DRM-related failure of the operating system would also make a lot of my applications worthless.
Overall, that makes me someone who is unlikely to ever buy a typical games console;-)
I had some fun with this topic a while ago, so I can comment at length...
In XP, non-admins may per default write to %ProgramFiles%, but the permissions on the files are set to give only that user (and the administrators) write access. This has the following practical consequences: -A non-admin user can usually install an application and use it by himself without problems. -A non-admin user cannot modify or delete applications installed by another user. -If the application writes to %ProgramFiles% during everyday operation, this will work only for the user who installed it (and admins of course).
On Vista and Win7 every user gets his own, private copy in his "virtual store" in the user profile. So it should work for each user separately, but collaboration features that rely on exchanging data through files under %ProgramFiles% are likely to fail.
There are also interesting side effects Microsoft probably has not intended. One I have observed myself: -Install program, do some work with it -Uninstall program and manually remove remaining data from %ProgramFiles%, to get a clean slate for further testing -Reinstall program, do some tests -Wonder why the old settings from the first installation are still there;-) Solution: Uninstalling a program does not remove the redirected private copy of the.ini file that is located in %InstallationDirectory%. After reinstalling and starting the program, access is redirected to the private copy instead of the newly installed "virgin" configuration. You need to manually delete the redirected private copy...
There are still people who make similar mistakes. The company I work for ATM seems to tend towards "standardizing" development on C#, despite making devices that have at least some moderately strict real time requirements.
C# = very Microsoft-centric and locking you into Windows Windows = not so good at timing-critical tasks
I see a comparable problem arising for this company:-(
I think driver support will grow thin eventually. You might still be able to find officially supported hardware, but the days of picking something from the Dell or HP online shop and being sure it runs with XP will be over.
A few years ago, I tried to run my then-new PC with Windows 2000. But despite quality components I could not get the damn thing to run stable, while my older P4 ran fine with Win2k. Switching to XP solved the problem, so I suspect the reason was that driver developers had started to neglect Win2k driver development.
Ultimately, I guess most companies with non-replaceable IE 6 applications will end up sticking them and XP into some kind of virtual machine. Which could be a pretty long-lived solution after all.
Because communities cost money to maintain. Oracle doesn't care about whiny developers; they only care about the bottom line. Developers will use what they're told by their management. Period. End of story.
Correct for most paid developers, but even there the best can usually find another job that suits them better. For community members that are not on Oracle's payroll, the threshold to leaving is much lower as it does not endanger their livelihood.
As much as Oracle is an anathema to what developers and techies hold dear, until Oracle starts to see some damage to the bottom line, they won't care one iota.
Damage from good developers leaving tends to be visible only when your next version of the product sucks or does not get ready for sale. As it happened to Microsoft with Windows Vista. This may take years to show up on the bottom line, and years to fix as well. So it is not really smart to ignore the problem until sales are dropping.
Win 3.1 (It apparently worked but it was basically a colourful clown suit for DOS)
By today's standards it was pathetic. I don't remember much of it, but what I remember was on the same quality level as Win95 later. Of course there was not much affordable competition back then (UNIX licenses were really expensive), so its success was deserved on some level.
Windows NT 3.1 Had a reputation as pretty solid, user interface was much like Win 3.1. That's all I can say.
Win95 (Its was Just Broken.. Big Improvement over Win3.1 but still It was just broken)
Yes. GUI was nicer than Win 3.1, but it was just as unreliable...
Windows NT 4.0 Windows 95 user interface but waaay more stable. Good system for work, but lacked Direct X and USB support so no gamer system.
Win98 (It took MS 3 Years to finish Win95.. This could have been windows 95)
True. Win 98 was not really stable like NT, but OK for home users.
WinME (a Travesty that it was ever released to the Public.. This should be a learning tool for everyone at MS.. This is the perfect Example of a Mistake)
From what I heard, true. I heard of people who replaced it with Win98 and reported better success. If a "downgrade" works better, you know the vendor screwed up;-)
Windows 2000 Good all round system for work and gaming (descended from NT, and also identifies itself as NT 5.0 in some API call), but I guess Microsoft was not ready to separate it into a "Home" and a "Professional" version yet. Technology wise, this is what they should have offered to everyone instead of ME.
WinXP (Initially it was full of bugs and barely worked.. But once SP1 came out it was rock solid.. and Has been ever since.)
XP was essentially NT 5.1, Windows 2000 with fluff. Functionally, XP is a minor upgrade. Lack of support in all forms has made Windows 2000 somewhat useless by now, but otherwise it would still be a valid choice.
Vista (Again MS just screwed up... Buggy/Bloated/Slow/Crashed almost as much as it did anything else.. Again a product that should have never seen the light of day)
I did not try this one, but the reports are bad enough that I'm glad I missed the experience;-)
Win7 (Just like Windows 98 was for windows 95.. This should have been what was released instead of Vista..)
From what I've seen so far, it is OK. I think Win7 is overall somewhat better than XP, but not a spectacular improvement. Less than what I expected for the seven years since XP was released.
Win8 (If you go by the typical MS Trend... It will suck.. It will be crashy and riddled with mistakes.. MS Seems to be Very consistent in screwing up every other release of their platform)
But the Biggest underlying thing...There is basically no reason to Update from XP.. MS Creates Reasons for you to upgrade... There is no ground breaking/revolutionary advancement.. There was a significant improvement between win95/98 and XP.. but since then nothing... Just Eyecandy that eats up more memory and slows your system down. Even that you can backport to WinXP if you know what your doing..
I don't know how good or bad Win8 will be, but I think XP will eventually be killed from lack of support. Security patches run out in 2014, after that it will be increasingly risky to put XP on a network that is not 100% locked down with a firewall. Driver support for new hardware may run out even sooner - that is what made me give up Windows 2000 a few years ago.
A few years ago (2006 or 2007) I built a new PC for myself and tried to run it under Win2k at first. Which I still consider a perfectly good system, feature-wise.
But I could not get the damn thing to run stable, despite quality components. I suspect the graphics card driver, because the manufacturer (MSI) did not provide any up to date Win2K drivers anymore. I had the choice between a pretty old Win2k driver or running the XP driver. Both would install, but the PC had a tendency to crash a few times per evening.
Eventually I gave up and installed XP. The stability problems immediately disappeared.
Trust me, Oracle knows that Windows desktop and MS Office revenue are Microsoft's lifeblood.
By holding off IE-next or FF compatible rendering for Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft, they hit Microsoft where it hurts - core revenues. They also reinforce the perception of Microsoft as a difficult upgrade, and a general poor technology choice.
Larry likes this. There are other vendors, playing this game, too. Some are MS partners, so work th angle with more ambiguity.
Maybe, but that cuts both ways (or should, at least). If a large company like Oracle seems unable to write web applications for standards-compliant browsers, it reflects badly on their abilities too.
"Anything faster at 150-300" is obsolete. According to a review I found at hartware.de, a 5670 with max. 64W will beat the 4670 clearly on performance. According to the same site, a 5570 will beat the 4670 on power (max. 39W for the chip) at the expense of being a bit slower overall. Sorry for picking a German review site, but they include the previous generation in their comparisons which helps.
BTW, according to Wikipedia the (future) 6670 is supposed to be a 60W part too. Might be interesting for PCs that are supposed to go easy on the energy consumption.
This is my general buying strategy on all things; always shoot for the high middle. The high end is generally over priced, since your paying some form of status tax. You are absolutely correct when it comes to CPUs, you could spend $2000 for the top of the top, or you could spend $500 for a chip that does around 80% of the same. The cost/quality ratio gets more and more skewed the higher you get, towards cost.
At the bottom you generally have cheap crap, and get exactly what you pay for.
Even more importantly, know what you need, where exactly the "cheap crap" is lacking and where it may actually do what you need.
Since we're on the topic of GPUs, an example from the graphics cards world: I would in good conscience recommend an ATI 5450 for an office PC that only needs to display Word (and that only if no suitable mainboard graphics with digital output are available). Of course, this card sucks for gaming, but that does not matter for the office.
BTW, your ATI 4600 family looks like a good choice to me - if I needed a new graphics card now, I would go for a 5570 which is the current equivalent. With passive cooling of course, I hate the crappy fans many GPU vendors seem to use:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Problem for EA: They are a slave shop, and suck at promoting true creativity in their development efforts. As a consequence, they
- CAN tell their employees to pump out yet another variation of an existing theme.
- CANNOT regularly come up with good ideas. At best, they can buy up smaller studios who happen to have good ideas. And they seem to suck at this too.
Thus, you (the customer) usually won't get compelling storylines or original game concepts.
BTW this was different 25 years ago. One of the coolest games on the C64 was Archon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark), distributed by EA. Back then, the EA leadership at least knew what games to pick for publishing, even if EA did not develop them by itself.
If typing is a major slowdown when writing code, you're probably doing it wrong. As in, writing waaaay too much repetitive code that should be extracted into subroutines.
In my experience, thinking takes a much larger part of development time than typing.
For me, accidentally hitting CapsLock in games was the reason to go from WASD to DYXC (German keyboard, on a US layout it would be DZXC).
Stupid annoying key, because I never type long enough texts in all caps to make it worthwhile. IMHO, good riddance if it disappears some day.
Sun's Sparc processors have a lot of cores which are great for large amounts of concurrent connections to either an (open source) database, file or webserver (as most of the open source designs spawn processes for a limited number of connections).
I think Oracle is trying to compete with Sparc processors in an area Sparc processors were never designed for -- low-end server systems.
My guess is Oracle(the company) wants to optimize for Oracle(the RDBMS). Assuming the /. article in correct in claiming single thread performance is important for databases. Either way, this puts them into more direct competition with Intel's and AMD's x86 machines:
- currently up to 6 cores for Intel ("Westmere")
- and up to 12 cores for AMD ("Magny-Cours")
We'll see how well this works - I have my doubts....
Interesting.
In related gossip, it seems that back in the 1980s you could get a dishonorable discharge from the (west) German Army by pissing at a flag post that had the German flag hoisted, thus showing your disrespect for the state.
For getting out of conscription, it might have been worthwhile because as far as I heard, the associated punishment was small compared to not wasting a year in the barracks.
Note that it required the Soviet army to squash that revolution.
According to Wikipedia, the Hungarian government actually fell and without intervention from outside, that would have been the end of the Communist Party's rule. Partly due to Hungarian soldiers joining the revolution.
Now if you transfer that scenario to the US, whom would the old government call to help?
Maybe they could get one or two NATO countries to respond, but those would lack the resources to occupy the much larger USA.
In general I agree, but when it comes to fighting a war, the side that can keep secrets usually wins. Whereever you live, your government is the most recent group of people to conquer that land, so a government that can't keep any secrets won't remain your government for long.
According to some news articles, up to 2.5 million people had at least some level of access to the data now leaked.
With such numbers, it is a surprise that the leak did not happen earlier.
The US government really fails at keeping secrets ;-)
I'd be willing to bet that in the past 5 years graphics technology has improved enough to make it worth replacing the whole guts of a console box with something newer.
Both Sony with the PS3 and Microsoft with the XBox360 are doing this every 1-2 years. But they are not upgrading for better performance, they are optimizing for cheaper manufacturing and less power usage.
As a result, a current PS3 or XBox360 is somewhat cheaper, less noisy and runs cooler than the first generation after market launch. Also, there are estimates that say Sony and Microsoft are no longer subsidizing the hardware, but actually earning a bit of money on it.
On the other hand, this means consoles have fallen behind gaming PCs in graphics technology. If console vendors want to offer the most awesome-looking games in the future, they will have to release a new console generation ;-)
These are two distinct problems.
The one you refer to is international corporations moving to places with low taxes (hello Google). Lets call this #1.
The other one (#2 and IMHO worse) is politicians being scared into propping up banks that have mis-speculated. Which is the main probem of the Irish:
The government has foolishly guaranteed for the banks' debts.
Only now, when the massive impact from #2 becomes obvious, Ireland briefly considered changing #1.
It seems IBM spent its money on the wrong company (assuming the claims of IISi were true). IISi as the original developer might have been a better buy.
Instead, IBM spent lots of money on a bunch of software pirates that cannot even produce good hacks ;-)
Preparing a good note sheet requires the student to understand what formulae are important, and write them down
in a quick and easy-access format
That means going through the course material while thinking hard about the concepts and often means you understand the subject matter much better by the time you are done.
I often prepared a "cheat sheet" even where it was forbidden, only to find out I did not need it during the test. Preparing the sheet actually was a good way of learning the stuff.
On top of that, it should be easy enough for Libre Office to stick to the features of the current version of Java. Or the open version, if Java upgrades are necessary at all.
I guess Oracle might be able to push Open Office into a stronger dependency, but then it should become obvious even to the last Oracle fanboy that Open Office is not the future of Open Source office suites.
I think you're right:
Acoording to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinplate), tin-plated iron was used for cheap pots, pans and other holloware. From the term "tinware" it is not far to "tin pan", which is probably what the Fermis used.
Not to mention that I suppose it's kind of awkward doing that on a PC, anyway.
And until a few years ago, I guess it was because the screen sizes and resolutions on a typical PC were lacking.
But today, a quick look into my preferred online shop shows 23" screens with 1920x1080 pixel resolution starting at 150 Euros. HDTV sets with the same resolution and 32" size start at 350 euros.
I guess splitting the 1920x1080 pixels vertically would still leave you with a good enough resolution for most games.
Until you happen to buy one of those locked down things where
-the vendor simply switches off the servers (IIRC Electronic Arts "retires" some games after merely two years). This may be illegal, but you still have to start an expensive lawsuit to do something about it.
-or the vendor goes bankrupt and cannot provide the service anymore.
-or a simple bug (as in TFA) locks you out.
For myself, I have settled on a strong but not absolute anti-DRM stance:
Usually I won't buy locked down stuff, but I may make an exception if there is a strong incentive and nothing else depends on the DRM-encumbered product. Examples:
-I got "Day Of Defeat: Source" despite DRM, to play with some friends who are big fans of DOD.
-but Windows Vista and later are still no-gos because a DRM-related failure of the operating system would also make a lot of my applications worthless.
Overall, that makes me someone who is unlikely to ever buy a typical games console ;-)
I had some fun with this topic a while ago, so I can comment at length...
In XP, non-admins may per default write to %ProgramFiles%, but the permissions on the files are set to give only that user (and the administrators) write access. This has the following practical consequences:
-A non-admin user can usually install an application and use it by himself without problems.
-A non-admin user cannot modify or delete applications installed by another user.
-If the application writes to %ProgramFiles% during everyday operation, this will work only for the user who installed it (and admins of course).
On Vista and Win7 every user gets his own, private copy in his "virtual store" in the user profile. So it should work for each user separately, but collaboration features that rely on exchanging data through files under %ProgramFiles% are likely to fail.
There are also interesting side effects Microsoft probably has not intended. One I have observed myself: ;-) .ini file that is located in %InstallationDirectory%. After reinstalling and starting the program, access is redirected to the private copy instead of the newly installed "virgin" configuration. You need to manually delete the redirected private copy...
-Install program, do some work with it
-Uninstall program and manually remove remaining data from %ProgramFiles%, to get a clean slate for further testing
-Reinstall program, do some tests
-Wonder why the old settings from the first installation are still there
Solution: Uninstalling a program does not remove the redirected private copy of the
There are still people who make similar mistakes. The company I work for ATM seems to tend towards "standardizing" development on C#, despite making devices that have at least some moderately strict real time requirements.
C# = very Microsoft-centric and locking you into Windows
Windows = not so good at timing-critical tasks
I see a comparable problem arising for this company :-(
I think driver support will grow thin eventually. You might still be able to find officially supported hardware, but the days of picking something from the Dell or HP online shop and being sure it runs with XP will be over.
A few years ago, I tried to run my then-new PC with Windows 2000. But despite quality components I could not get the damn thing to run stable, while my older P4 ran fine with Win2k. Switching to XP solved the problem, so I suspect the reason was that driver developers had started to neglect Win2k driver development.
Ultimately, I guess most companies with non-replaceable IE 6 applications will end up sticking them and XP into some kind of virtual machine. Which could be a pretty long-lived solution after all.
Because communities cost money to maintain. Oracle doesn't care about whiny developers; they only care about the bottom line. Developers will use what they're told by their management. Period. End of story.
Correct for most paid developers, but even there the best can usually find another job that suits them better. For community members that are not on Oracle's payroll, the threshold to leaving is much lower as it does not endanger their livelihood.
As much as Oracle is an anathema to what developers and techies hold dear, until Oracle starts to see some damage to the bottom line, they won't care one iota.
Damage from good developers leaving tends to be visible only when your next version of the product sucks or does not get ready for sale. As it happened to Microsoft with Windows Vista.
This may take years to show up on the bottom line, and years to fix as well. So it is not really smart to ignore the problem until sales are dropping.
MS Track Record..
Win 3.1 (It apparently worked but it was basically a colourful clown suit for DOS)
By today's standards it was pathetic. I don't remember much of it, but what I remember was on the same quality level as Win95 later. Of course there was not much affordable competition back then (UNIX licenses were really expensive), so its success was deserved on some level.
Windows NT 3.1 Had a reputation as pretty solid, user interface was much like Win 3.1. That's all I can say.
Win95 (Its was Just Broken.. Big Improvement over Win3.1 but still It was just broken)
Yes. GUI was nicer than Win 3.1, but it was just as unreliable...
Windows NT 4.0 Windows 95 user interface but waaay more stable. Good system for work, but lacked Direct X and USB support so no gamer system.
Win98 (It took MS 3 Years to finish Win95.. This could have been windows 95)
True. Win 98 was not really stable like NT, but OK for home users.
WinME (a Travesty that it was ever released to the Public.. This should be a learning tool for everyone at MS.. This is the perfect Example of a Mistake)
From what I heard, true. I heard of people who replaced it with Win98 and reported better success. If a "downgrade" works better, you know the vendor screwed up ;-)
Windows 2000 Good all round system for work and gaming (descended from NT, and also identifies itself as NT 5.0 in some API call), but I guess Microsoft was not ready to separate it into a "Home" and a "Professional" version yet. Technology wise, this is what they should have offered to everyone instead of ME.
WinXP (Initially it was full of bugs and barely worked.. But once SP1 came out it was rock solid.. and Has been ever since.)
XP was essentially NT 5.1, Windows 2000 with fluff. Functionally, XP is a minor upgrade. Lack of support in all forms has made Windows 2000 somewhat useless by now, but otherwise it would still be a valid choice.
Vista (Again MS just screwed up... Buggy/Bloated/Slow/Crashed almost as much as it did anything else.. Again a product that should have never seen the light of day)
I did not try this one, but the reports are bad enough that I'm glad I missed the experience ;-)
Win7 (Just like Windows 98 was for windows 95.. This should have been what was released instead of Vista..)
From what I've seen so far, it is OK. I think Win7 is overall somewhat better than XP, but not a spectacular improvement. Less than what I expected for the seven years since XP was released.
Win8 (If you go by the typical MS Trend... It will suck.. It will be crashy and riddled with mistakes.. MS Seems to be Very consistent in screwing up every other release of their platform)
But the Biggest underlying thing...There is basically no reason to Update from XP.. MS Creates Reasons for you to upgrade... There is no ground breaking/revolutionary advancement.. There was a significant improvement between win95/98 and XP.. but since then nothing... Just Eyecandy that eats up more memory and slows your system down. Even that you can backport to WinXP if you know what your doing..
I don't know how good or bad Win8 will be, but I think XP will eventually be killed from lack of support. Security patches run out in 2014, after that it will be increasingly risky to put XP on a network that is not 100% locked down with a firewall. Driver support for new hardware may run out even sooner - that is what made me give up Windows 2000 a few years ago.
A few years ago (2006 or 2007) I built a new PC for myself and tried to run it under Win2k at first. Which I still consider a perfectly good system, feature-wise.
But I could not get the damn thing to run stable, despite quality components. I suspect the graphics card driver, because the manufacturer (MSI) did not provide any up to date Win2K drivers anymore. I had the choice between a pretty old Win2k driver or running the XP driver. Both would install, but the PC had a tendency to crash a few times per evening.
Eventually I gave up and installed XP. The stability problems immediately disappeared.
Trust me, Oracle knows that Windows desktop and MS Office revenue are Microsoft's lifeblood.
By holding off IE-next or FF compatible rendering for Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft, they hit Microsoft where it hurts - core revenues. They also reinforce the perception of Microsoft as a difficult upgrade, and a general poor technology choice.
Larry likes this. There are other vendors, playing this game, too. Some are MS partners, so work th angle with more ambiguity.
Maybe, but that cuts both ways (or should, at least). If a large company like Oracle seems unable to write web applications for standards-compliant browsers, it reflects badly on their abilities too.
Sounds like Abdul Alhazred to me. There is clearly a Chthulu connection there.
"Anything faster at 150-300" is obsolete. According to a review I found at hartware.de, a 5670 with max. 64W will beat the 4670 clearly on performance.
According to the same site, a 5570 will beat the 4670 on power (max. 39W for the chip) at the expense of being a bit slower overall.
Sorry for picking a German review site, but they include the previous generation in their comparisons which helps.
BTW, according to Wikipedia the (future) 6670 is supposed to be a 60W part too. Might be interesting for PCs that are supposed to go easy on the energy consumption.
This is my general buying strategy on all things; always shoot for the high middle. The high end is generally over priced, since your paying some form of status tax. You are absolutely correct when it comes to CPUs, you could spend $2000 for the top of the top, or you could spend $500 for a chip that does around 80% of the same. The cost/quality ratio gets more and more skewed the higher you get, towards cost.
At the bottom you generally have cheap crap, and get exactly what you pay for.
Even more importantly, know what you need, where exactly the "cheap crap" is lacking and where it may actually do what you need.
Since we're on the topic of GPUs, an example from the graphics cards world:
I would in good conscience recommend an ATI 5450 for an office PC that only needs to display Word (and that only if no suitable mainboard graphics with digital output are available). Of course, this card sucks for gaming, but that does not matter for the office.
BTW, your ATI 4600 family looks like a good choice to me - if I needed a new graphics card now, I would go for a 5570 which is the current equivalent. With passive cooling of course, I hate the crappy fans many GPU vendors seem to use :-)