the vast majority in a poor country cannot afford basic software that costs over a MONTH's wages
Well, they can't afford PCs either. Windows XP is still less than 10% of the cost of most PCs (XP Home runs around $30-$40 for OEMs).
And, actually, they can afford software. There is alternative. It's called Linux. Of course, that doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you can't afford a PC in the first place.
But, hey, you don't have any choice. Microsoft is forcing you to buy their software. You can't get a PC with Linux (particularly not from HP, Dell, or Lenovo). You can't get a PC with another OS (particularly not from Apple).
No, they don't. Slashdot readers like to claim that "games" are a major roadblock to Linux adoption, but it's simply not true. Having worked in IT at several organizations, I can tell you that there are many reasons why companies keep using Windows. Some are political (resistance to change), some are practical (application compatibility), and some are a mix of both (lack of funding for migration). The fact is, Windows is cheaper for many businesses at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how you slice it, but most major organizations are not stupid, and they understand the costs associated with Windows (security, deployment, etc.) and Linux (retraining, lack of compatibility). At the end of the day, businesses still want to run Office, QuickBooks, and the whole range of software that they need every day.
Linux has seen widespread success in servers, particularly in displacing UNIX servers. Businesses with Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, or other commercial UNIX systems are looking for an OS with greater mainstream support and broader vendor availability. UNIX developers are looking for a way to modernize their applications and appeal to a broader customer base without having to re-tool their entire development process. Linux fits the bill perfectly.
90%+ of all computers shipped today still come with Windows preinstalled. Pretending that a few Mac OS games are going to change that is very foolish indeed.
On top of that Intel is releasing kentsfield (quadcore) at the end of *this* year, not *next*
Kentsfield is not true quadcore. It is a multi-die package, which means higher power usage and a higher price.
Core 2 Duo has more than twice as many transistors as the Athlon 64 X2. At least now it is actually faster than a CPU with 1/2 as many transistors (Pentium D also had more than twice as many transistors as Athlon 64, and more than Core 2 Duo).
A "loser" that has been providing 20% of US electric power needs for over 20 years, with an excellent safety track record. We know how much nuclear power costs - about 5-7 cents per KWh, including fuel, plant operation, plant cost, and waste disposal. What we don't know is how much fossil fuels cost.
We chose x86 over PPC Even Apple swtiched to x86. The advantages of PPC's ISA become less important with compilers (who programs x86 assembly nowadays) and modern CPUs (which decode x86 instructions to RISC-like micro-ops).
We chose VHS over BetaMax VHS was cheaper and could record longer on a single tape. Two advantages that mean more than cleaner FF/Pause or slightly better picture quality.
We chose 8VSB over OFDM (for HDTV Broadcasting) CODFM requires more power to cover the same area as 8-VSB. Multipath issues with early 8-VSB recievers are largely resolved with newer recievers. CODFM was pushed strongly by Sinclair, but several studies showed that switching to CODFM would significantly impede the ability of non-urban users to recieve programming. 8-VSB provides better coverage with lower power, even if it's not as resistant to multipath.
We chose CDMA over GSM (only just now starting to change) CDMA is more spectrally efficent and offers better range with similar power use. CDMA has better interoperability with AMPS and offered better data services (1X-RTT) long before CDMA had anything to compare.
Consumers aren't stupid. The "better" format often isn't better at all.
A lot of "history" is recounted via the media. There may have been the same comments back in the early 1940s, but no newspapers would give credence to them via publication. For comparison, if the New York Times then had the same cavalier attitude they have now, they probably would have published the location and planned route of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) during the summer of 1945.
That's assuming that the Times even knew about it. It's not the job of the press to keep government secrets under wraps - if something needs to be secret, it should be classified. The media does a poor job of keeping secrets - the government should be smart enough not ot put them in their place.
And, what precicsely did the Times damage by revealing the wiretapping programs? If you were a criminal or a terrorist, would you not assume that the government could be monitoring your calls? Terrorists are, by and large, not stupid - pretending that they assumed their calls were secure prior to the leaks is a foolish assumption to make.
Reinstall the system with known-good media. If the OS is pirated, it probably has activation cracks, and who knows whether it has a rootkit or other malware installed. The safest thing to do is to get a new, OEM copy of Windows XP (must be purchased with hardware, but "hardware" can include a power splitter). Newegg sells legit copies for $90, which is a lot less than the retail price. You get the holographic CD and the COA, along with a valid product key, so you know that it's genuine.
You cannot upgrade from an OEM CD, nor would you want to. The system should be considered insecure because it is not in a known state. You wouldn't install from Fedora media with the wrong sha1sum; why would you install from an unknown copy of Windows?
Even the new nice Segoe font was ruled to be an illegal copy of Frutiger.
This is, and has always been crap. First of all, you cannot copyright a typeface anyway - only the program that draws it (the TTF/OpenType/Type1 font). You can, however, trademark the name.
Second, Segoe has a number of glyphs that look absolutely nothing like Frutiger. Look at this. You can certainly argue that Segoe is "Frutiger-Inspired", or perhaps even "Frutiger-Derived" (though Microsoft contends that it is not), but Frutiger is not a copy of Segoe and is certianly not an illegal copy.
Well, it depends on the bug. According to the article, the bug was intermittent, they knew that it existed, but they hadn't tracked it down and squashed it. Perhaps the bug was fixed in a newer release, but they were running an older release for the demo (would you do a demo with a largely untested nightly build?).
Bugs are not always immediately apparent and are rarely as easy to fix as we like to assume.
You know, I hate Mac OS X. And I'm not alone. I'm not some Windows-loving Microsoft apologist. I run Linux on my notebook, on my servers, and in a lot of other places. But there's just a lot of things about Mac OS X that bug me. At my university, one of my CS courses had a recitation that took place in the Mac lab. We had iMac G5s running Tiger that I used for 4 hours every week. Frankly, the Macs had the disadvantages of Linux and the disadvantages of Windows:
- Compared with Debian, software selection is rather pathetic. Under Debian, you can apt-get "foo" (or use Synaptic), and there's a pretty good chance that you will find whatever FOSS application you are looking for. "fink" isn't installed by default on Mac OS, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to install. - Tweakability is severly lacking compared with Linux. There are "binary blobs" everywhere that you "shall not touch". Mac OS is almost as closed as Windows. - Hardware support sucks. Part of what makes PCs great is that you can choose from many vendors. I can build a PC myself, or get the $150 eMachines PC (Black Friday at Best Buy) with monitor, or get a brand-new $500 laptop, or even get a used PIII box on eBay for under $200. Mac OS limits you to what Apple offers. What if I want a system that's smaller than the MacBook? What if I want a system with non-integrated graphics for under $1000? What if I want an SFF system that takes full-sized drives? What if I want to be able to upgrade my graphics? What if I want to add a TV tuner? Apple effectively has five products - PowerMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini. One of those products still isn't available in an x86 version. And what if I don't want an Intel CPU? What if I want to run x86-64 code? No Apple product can do this currently, but my two-year-old Athlon 64 junker can! - Paying for OS upgrades sucks. GNOME and KDE get new features with every release. GNOME releases every 6 months, and I can get those upgrades for free. In this regard, OS X isn't really any better than Windows, although at least you have the option of paying for upgrades with OS X. - The Dock sucks. It moves around a lot, it doesn't have text labels except on mouseover, it takes up a lot of room on the screen (and autohide makes it even more annoying), it's not very configurable, and it doesn't work well with a lot of applications. I ended up dragging the Applications folder to the Dock and using it as a quasi-Start-menu, but once you have done that, you might as well make it a button so that it's not constantly moving around. Moreover, put it in the darn corner so that I can click it easily. Apple users always talk about putting menubars at the top of the screen to take advantage of Fitt's law, yet they rarely talk about having an application launcher / window list that does the same. The Apple menu was far more useful in Mac OS 9 - I have no idea why they replaced it with a menu that is used far less frequently.
I have thought of buying a Mac and running Linux / Windows on it, but what's the point? Why pay more for a Mac unless you really like Mac OS X? I don't, and I know many others who do not. Slashdot users always talk about how great Mac OS X is, but I don't see it. I see a proprietary platform that lacks the openness of Linux and the compatibility of Windows. I see a GUI that is increasingly less consistent and increasingly more annoying. You can do so many things easily with Linux that are difficult to do with Mac OS X or Windows (hostap, anyone?). If I want the broadest library of software and the best hardware support, I run Windows. If I want a platform that is open and massively configurable, I run Linux. Where does Mac OS X fit?
No - this is exactly the kind of problem everyone was afraid of: I've legitimately purchased a license of windows
No, you have not purchased a license for Windows. You have purchased a counterfit product. It's as if you purchased concert tickets from a scalper that turned out to be fake - they are not tickets to the concert, they are a forgery.
now I have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to get everything straightened out. I'm not eating crow.
You puchased a fradulent product and now Microsoft is preventing you from using your illegal copy of Windows. What is wrong with Microsoft trying to stop people from running their product without a valid license?
You know what, this whole WGA thing is stupid. I have never had a problem with WGA, nor has anyone I know who has a legal copy of Windows. I have yet to see WGA deem a valid copy of Windows "illegal".
I think that a lot of the complaining is coming from people who are running illegal copies and refuse to admit it. It's not hard to tell if a copy of Windows is legal. My OEM copy of Windows came with a holographic CD and a COA with heat-sensitive features that demonstrate authenticity. I've seen pirated software at computer expos - it doesn't look genuine. If you buy a copy of Windows from a reseller and it ends up being counterfit, you should be angry at the reseller - not Microsoft.
Again, in response to the original post, you have not legitimately purchased a license. You have purchased a counterfit product. If you didn't know that, then your complaint is with the reseller, not with Microsoft. If anything, you should be happy that Microsoft is letting you know that you were screwed.
Moreover, since you never paid Microsoft a dime for that copy of Windows, Microsoft owes you nothing. Why should Microsoft provide updates for people who never purcahsed a valid license in the first place? Do you expect up2date to work with a counterfit RHEL subscription?
If, on the other hand, you purchased a copy of Windows with the knowledge that it was counterfit, or if you pirated Windows, then you are probably pretty pissed at Microsoft right now. But, then again, Microsoft probably doesn't care.
I used to wonder just what you are asking. Then I saw MST3K. Once you realize the sheer number of abysmally bad movies from the past, you begin to understand that movies haven't gotten worse at all. If anything, they have gotten far better. Name one major movie released this year that has bad audio, bad camerawork, or incompetent editing? You can't do it. No matter how awful today's movies are, they still look and sound amazingly better than movies of the past.
Today's movies fail in terms of writing, acting, directing, or, in some cases, all of the above. Implausible plots, paper acting, horrible cinematography - none of this is new. But we don't remember "Monster a Go Go" or "Manos: The Hands of Fate". We do remember "Back to the Future".
That said, this year has been particularly weak. There's no Matrix, no Star Wars, no Harry Potter, and no Lord of the Rings. This year seems weak because 2001-2004 were so astoundingly strong. Whether or not you liked "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", seeing the franchise come to the big screen was a huge deal for many, many people. The "Lord of the Rings" series was one of the most anticipated film adaptations ever. And although the "Star Wars" prequels were generally regarded as weak, the special effects were amazing.
I can name tons of movies that I enjoyed over the past 10 years, from Pixar's films (Incredibles / Nemo / Monsters / Toy Story) to the superhero films that worked (X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman Begins) to the unique and bizzare films (GATTACA, Fight Club, Memento) to great action/suspense films (The Matrix, Collateral) and a lot more.
Here in Larimer County, CO, we have a slightly different system: - "Vote Centers" replace precincts. You can vote at any vote center (about 30 around the county) instead of having to go to a specific precinct. - Early voting. You can vote early on weekends from October 23rd to Nobemver 3rd for the general election.
Of course, you can still do what I do - apply for an absentee ballot and mail it in.
My local Kroger store (King Soopers) installed self-checkout lanes about 5 years ago. The #1 problem with self-checkouts is that people don't know how to use them:
- Don't use it if you have more than 10 or so items. You won't save any time and you'll just clog up the units for the rest of us. - The items you buy MUST be put on the "bagging area" scale. Do not lean on the scale and don't take anything off once you put it on.
The benefit of the system? 6 self-checkout units replaced 2 "express" lanes in my Kroger - there is rarely a line, even when the other lanes are busy. If you just want to get a couple of 12-packs of Diet Pepsi and a bag of chips, they can be very, very fast - particularly if you don't even have a cart.
Most of the problems I've seen boil down to the fact that people don't understand how they work.
The Fujitsu system that Kroger uses is astoundingly better than the NCR system that Wal-Mart/Home Depot uses, although it appears that the NCR system has gotten better.
Well, of course! But that's what an SEO expert really accomplishes - if you tell management, "We should rewrite our copy and redesign our link structure to improve usability", you probably won't get much of a response. If, on the other hand, you tell management, "We should rewrite our copy and redesign our link structure to improve our ranking and get more hits", then you're talking.
Of course, SEO goes beyond that - things like code quality can have a major impact as well.
Well, you see, it's not quite that simple. Once you work with an honest SEO professional for a while, you realize that there are two different kinds of SEO: honest and dishonest.
Honest SEO means recommending changes that improve the indexability and content of the page: changing URLs to make them more concise and descriptive, adding proper keywords (not "stuffed" lists), adding a decent description, removing Flash and/or providing alternate content, adding alternate text for images, adding sitemaps, and a lot more. Basically, the idea in honest SEO is to make sure that the page design makes it easy for the search engine to index (and make sure that the crawler can find every page) and make sure that the page copy is well-written and descriptive. Honest SEO professionals also do a lot of consulting regarding advertising - such as what keywords to buy and what text to use for the ad.
I see nothing wrong with this approach. What I do have a problem with is dishonest SEO - the so-called "black hat" firms. Dishonest SEO involves anything that tries to misrepresnt the contents of a page to the engine, including things like screwing with the alt text on images (e.g. making it something completely bogus that doesn't match the image at all), hidden links, false keywords / titles, linkspamming, and a whole host of other techniques.
Absolutely, positively. I took one look (actually, six MC runs, up to but not including Rag) at the endgame content in WOW and then ran. I just don't enjoy the kind of scripted, orchestrated precision and consistency that is necessary in high-level raids in WOW. My guild went from casual to semi-serious in a matter of months, and they started asking me to switch to holy-spec (I enjoy PVP, thank you very much) and raid three times a week. I knew that it would only get worse when we started doing BWL.
What happened to the fun of lower levels? At level 40, I could screw around, group up with some random new people, complete a couple of decently-easy quests, have some fun, and improve my character at the same time. More importantly, I could do it on my schedule - an hour at a time, once a day or even once a week. Perhaps the best part was the content - it was new, usually fresh, and usually interesting. More areas to discover, more quests to unlock.
Even instancing was more fun at lower levels. I ran Scarlet about 5 levels before I should have - we wiped, a lot, but it was challenging and new. There was always a pretty good chance of getting some nice new gear, too. Raid instances change all of that - generally only 4-5 drops for your class per night (and far to often two, one, or none at all), and a DKP system that ensured that you had to attend every raid to have any chance of getting anything at all.
At some point, you ask - why am I doing this? Why am I raiding to get better gear so that I can - raid to get better gear. MC was cool the first time, the second time, and even the third time. But the fourth time, the fifth time, or the tenth time simply becomes repetitve. If everything is planned in advance, everything is calculated and practiced, then where is the challenge?
WOW was the most immersive, most incredible game that I have ever played. There is so much to do, so much to see, so much to discover. It's a shame that the endgame is so tedious, so repetitive, and so dull. It's so uncharacteristic for a game that is so unique.
Oh and we already have electric buses. They're called trolleybuses - developed along with the streetcars but used in the US mostly during the era of streetcar abandonement. Europe still uses them with great success. In case you never saw one and live in the US just visit San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Boston (actually Cambridge) or Edmonton.
Streetcars never died in the US, it's just that today we have a new name for them - "light rail".
Where the hell do comments like yours even come from? There is so much negative PR around Vista that I guess people just ignore the reality of the system.
Download Beta 2 (you can get it for free), install it, use it for 20 minutes, and you'll see just how stupid a lot of the FUD is. Vista is very, very much like XP in terms of DRM, restrictions, and the like. TPM support is minimal (only used for BitLocker), you can still install unsigned drivers, uTorrent and Azureus still run fine, K-Lite Mega Codec Pack still installs fine and XVID movies still work.
I guess the most annoying thing about posts like yours is that they are so nondescript. Which DRM features are you referring to? What limitations are you referring to? I see an OS that is no more restricted than XP. The new DRM features don't mean a thing to me because I don't buy WMV-DRM movies.
Vista is making real progress and is shaping up to be a substantial, albeit not revolutionary, upgrade from XP. Slashdot doesn't like that.
My university (the University of Colorado) has 100Mbps to every desk - but it really doesn't make a difference. The performance of your connection isn't just dependent on line speed - at some point, the network is oversubscribed, and it's that figure that often plays a role.
Other than when I access Akamai sites (CU has a local mirror) and other university networks, I really can't tell any difference between my 6Mbps Comcast connection and the "100Mbps" connection at CU.
All fast Intel notebooks get hot. Apple users are used to the cooler running G3's and G4's. That said, there were a number of units that ran exceptionally hot. Every report I've read where someone with that problem actually tried to have it replaced got a new one.
Untrue. My Compal FL-30 (generic notebook) with a 2.16GHz Dothan barely gets warm when you stress the CPU. It gets somewhat warmer when you stress the CPU and the GPU (GeForce Go 6400) at the same time, but even then it's not nearly as warm as even the old PowerBook G4s.
For a notebook with Intel integrated graphics, the MacBook gets unacceptably hot.
Why, precisely, do you think that Photoshop is overpriced?
If you just want to retouch family photos or do some web graphics, it's probably overkill - but, if that's what you want to do, there are lower-priced alternatives like Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, or even The GIMP.
If, on the other hand, you are a graphic designer or professional photographer whose business relies on their software, than $600 is cheap for something that is as versitile and powerful as Photoshop.
Might also explain why you must only drive 55ish mph on those roads.
Here in CO, it's 75 in most areas - it's only 55 in the cities. And while there are areas in poor repair (I-25 north of Longmont comes to mind), the majority of the system is generally in good condition.
Also note: - Trucks can travel in both lanes, and at the same speed as other vehicles. - The Interstate system is massive. 6.27 times larger than the German Autobahn. - The Interstate system handles 25% of road traffic in the US. - US drivers are not held to the same standards as drivers in Germany. Our driver licensing system is a joke.
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the vast majority in a poor country cannot afford basic software that costs over a MONTH's wages
Well, they can't afford PCs either. Windows XP is still less than 10% of the cost of most PCs (XP Home runs around $30-$40 for OEMs).
And, actually, they can afford software. There is alternative. It's called Linux. Of course, that doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you can't afford a PC in the first place.
But, hey, you don't have any choice. Microsoft is forcing you to buy their software. You can't get a PC with Linux (particularly not from HP, Dell, or Lenovo). You can't get a PC with another OS (particularly not from Apple).
Microsoft has to be worried about this.
No, they don't. Slashdot readers like to claim that "games" are a major roadblock to Linux adoption, but it's simply not true. Having worked in IT at several organizations, I can tell you that there are many reasons why companies keep using Windows. Some are political (resistance to change), some are practical (application compatibility), and some are a mix of both (lack of funding for migration). The fact is, Windows is cheaper for many businesses at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how you slice it, but most major organizations are not stupid, and they understand the costs associated with Windows (security, deployment, etc.) and Linux (retraining, lack of compatibility). At the end of the day, businesses still want to run Office, QuickBooks, and the whole range of software that they need every day.
Linux has seen widespread success in servers, particularly in displacing UNIX servers. Businesses with Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64, or other commercial UNIX systems are looking for an OS with greater mainstream support and broader vendor availability. UNIX developers are looking for a way to modernize their applications and appeal to a broader customer base without having to re-tool their entire development process. Linux fits the bill perfectly.
90%+ of all computers shipped today still come with Windows preinstalled. Pretending that a few Mac OS games are going to change that is very foolish indeed.
On top of that Intel is releasing kentsfield (quadcore) at the end of *this* year, not *next*
Kentsfield is not true quadcore. It is a multi-die package, which means higher power usage and a higher price.
Core 2 Duo has more than twice as many transistors as the Athlon 64 X2. At least now it is actually faster than a CPU with 1/2 as many transistors (Pentium D also had more than twice as many transistors as Athlon 64, and more than Core 2 Duo).
and nuke power still looks like a loser
A "loser" that has been providing 20% of US electric power needs for over 20 years, with an excellent safety track record. We know how much nuclear power costs - about 5-7 cents per KWh, including fuel, plant operation, plant cost, and waste disposal. What we don't know is how much fossil fuels cost.
We chose x86 over PPC
Even Apple swtiched to x86. The advantages of PPC's ISA become less important with compilers (who programs x86 assembly nowadays) and modern CPUs (which decode x86 instructions to RISC-like micro-ops).
We chose VHS over BetaMax
VHS was cheaper and could record longer on a single tape. Two advantages that mean more than cleaner FF/Pause or slightly better picture quality.
We chose 8VSB over OFDM (for HDTV Broadcasting)
CODFM requires more power to cover the same area as 8-VSB. Multipath issues with early 8-VSB recievers are largely resolved with newer recievers. CODFM was pushed strongly by Sinclair, but several studies showed that switching to CODFM would significantly impede the ability of non-urban users to recieve programming. 8-VSB provides better coverage with lower power, even if it's not as resistant to multipath.
We chose CDMA over GSM (only just now starting to change)
CDMA is more spectrally efficent and offers better range with similar power use. CDMA has better interoperability with AMPS and offered better data services (1X-RTT) long before CDMA had anything to compare.
Consumers aren't stupid. The "better" format often isn't better at all.
A lot of "history" is recounted via the media. There may have been the same comments back in the early 1940s, but no newspapers would give credence to them via publication. For comparison, if the New York Times then had the same cavalier attitude they have now, they probably would have published the location and planned route of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) during the summer of 1945.
That's assuming that the Times even knew about it. It's not the job of the press to keep government secrets under wraps - if something needs to be secret, it should be classified. The media does a poor job of keeping secrets - the government should be smart enough not ot put them in their place.
And, what precicsely did the Times damage by revealing the wiretapping programs? If you were a criminal or a terrorist, would you not assume that the government could be monitoring your calls? Terrorists are, by and large, not stupid - pretending that they assumed their calls were secure prior to the leaks is a foolish assumption to make.
Reinstall the system with known-good media. If the OS is pirated, it probably has activation cracks, and who knows whether it has a rootkit or other malware installed. The safest thing to do is to get a new, OEM copy of Windows XP (must be purchased with hardware, but "hardware" can include a power splitter). Newegg sells legit copies for $90, which is a lot less than the retail price. You get the holographic CD and the COA, along with a valid product key, so you know that it's genuine.
You cannot upgrade from an OEM CD, nor would you want to. The system should be considered insecure because it is not in a known state. You wouldn't install from Fedora media with the wrong sha1sum; why would you install from an unknown copy of Windows?
Even the new nice Segoe font was ruled to be an illegal copy of Frutiger.
This is, and has always been crap. First of all, you cannot copyright a typeface anyway - only the program that draws it (the TTF/OpenType/Type1 font). You can, however, trademark the name.
Second, Segoe has a number of glyphs that look absolutely nothing like Frutiger. Look at this. You can certainly argue that Segoe is "Frutiger-Inspired", or perhaps even "Frutiger-Derived" (though Microsoft contends that it is not), but Frutiger is not a copy of Segoe and is certianly not an illegal copy.
How the fuck did this bug go unfixed for so long?
Well, it depends on the bug. According to the article, the bug was intermittent, they knew that it existed, but they hadn't tracked it down and squashed it. Perhaps the bug was fixed in a newer release, but they were running an older release for the demo (would you do a demo with a largely untested nightly build?).
Bugs are not always immediately apparent and are rarely as easy to fix as we like to assume.
You know, I hate Mac OS X. And I'm not alone. I'm not some Windows-loving Microsoft apologist. I run Linux on my notebook, on my servers, and in a lot of other places. But there's just a lot of things about Mac OS X that bug me. At my university, one of my CS courses had a recitation that took place in the Mac lab. We had iMac G5s running Tiger that I used for 4 hours every week. Frankly, the Macs had the disadvantages of Linux and the disadvantages of Windows:
- Compared with Debian, software selection is rather pathetic. Under Debian, you can apt-get "foo" (or use Synaptic), and there's a pretty good chance that you will find whatever FOSS application you are looking for. "fink" isn't installed by default on Mac OS, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to install.
- Tweakability is severly lacking compared with Linux. There are "binary blobs" everywhere that you "shall not touch". Mac OS is almost as closed as Windows.
- Hardware support sucks. Part of what makes PCs great is that you can choose from many vendors. I can build a PC myself, or get the $150 eMachines PC (Black Friday at Best Buy) with monitor, or get a brand-new $500 laptop, or even get a used PIII box on eBay for under $200. Mac OS limits you to what Apple offers. What if I want a system that's smaller than the MacBook? What if I want a system with non-integrated graphics for under $1000? What if I want an SFF system that takes full-sized drives? What if I want to be able to upgrade my graphics? What if I want to add a TV tuner? Apple effectively has five products - PowerMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini. One of those products still isn't available in an x86 version. And what if I don't want an Intel CPU? What if I want to run x86-64 code? No Apple product can do this currently, but my two-year-old Athlon 64 junker can!
- Paying for OS upgrades sucks. GNOME and KDE get new features with every release. GNOME releases every 6 months, and I can get those upgrades for free. In this regard, OS X isn't really any better than Windows, although at least you have the option of paying for upgrades with OS X.
- The Dock sucks. It moves around a lot, it doesn't have text labels except on mouseover, it takes up a lot of room on the screen (and autohide makes it even more annoying), it's not very configurable, and it doesn't work well with a lot of applications. I ended up dragging the Applications folder to the Dock and using it as a quasi-Start-menu, but once you have done that, you might as well make it a button so that it's not constantly moving around. Moreover, put it in the darn corner so that I can click it easily. Apple users always talk about putting menubars at the top of the screen to take advantage of Fitt's law, yet they rarely talk about having an application launcher / window list that does the same. The Apple menu was far more useful in Mac OS 9 - I have no idea why they replaced it with a menu that is used far less frequently.
I have thought of buying a Mac and running Linux / Windows on it, but what's the point? Why pay more for a Mac unless you really like Mac OS X? I don't, and I know many others who do not. Slashdot users always talk about how great Mac OS X is, but I don't see it. I see a proprietary platform that lacks the openness of Linux and the compatibility of Windows. I see a GUI that is increasingly less consistent and increasingly more annoying. You can do so many things easily with Linux that are difficult to do with Mac OS X or Windows (hostap, anyone?). If I want the broadest library of software and the best hardware support, I run Windows. If I want a platform that is open and massively configurable, I run Linux. Where does Mac OS X fit?
No - this is exactly the kind of problem everyone was afraid of: I've legitimately purchased a license of windows
No, you have not purchased a license for Windows. You have purchased a counterfit product. It's as if you purchased concert tickets from a scalper that turned out to be fake - they are not tickets to the concert, they are a forgery.
now I have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to get everything straightened out. I'm not eating crow.
You puchased a fradulent product and now Microsoft is preventing you from using your illegal copy of Windows. What is wrong with Microsoft trying to stop people from running their product without a valid license?
You know what, this whole WGA thing is stupid. I have never had a problem with WGA, nor has anyone I know who has a legal copy of Windows. I have yet to see WGA deem a valid copy of Windows "illegal".
I think that a lot of the complaining is coming from people who are running illegal copies and refuse to admit it. It's not hard to tell if a copy of Windows is legal. My OEM copy of Windows came with a holographic CD and a COA with heat-sensitive features that demonstrate authenticity. I've seen pirated software at computer expos - it doesn't look genuine. If you buy a copy of Windows from a reseller and it ends up being counterfit, you should be angry at the reseller - not Microsoft.
Again, in response to the original post, you have not legitimately purchased a license. You have purchased a counterfit product. If you didn't know that, then your complaint is with the reseller, not with Microsoft. If anything, you should be happy that Microsoft is letting you know that you were screwed.
Moreover, since you never paid Microsoft a dime for that copy of Windows, Microsoft owes you nothing. Why should Microsoft provide updates for people who never purcahsed a valid license in the first place? Do you expect up2date to work with a counterfit RHEL subscription?
If, on the other hand, you purchased a copy of Windows with the knowledge that it was counterfit, or if you pirated Windows, then you are probably pretty pissed at Microsoft right now. But, then again, Microsoft probably doesn't care.
I used to wonder just what you are asking. Then I saw MST3K. Once you realize the sheer number of abysmally bad movies from the past, you begin to understand that movies haven't gotten worse at all. If anything, they have gotten far better. Name one major movie released this year that has bad audio, bad camerawork, or incompetent editing? You can't do it. No matter how awful today's movies are, they still look and sound amazingly better than movies of the past.
Today's movies fail in terms of writing, acting, directing, or, in some cases, all of the above. Implausible plots, paper acting, horrible cinematography - none of this is new. But we don't remember "Monster a Go Go" or "Manos: The Hands of Fate". We do remember "Back to the Future".
That said, this year has been particularly weak. There's no Matrix, no Star Wars, no Harry Potter, and no Lord of the Rings. This year seems weak because 2001-2004 were so astoundingly strong. Whether or not you liked "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", seeing the franchise come to the big screen was a huge deal for many, many people. The "Lord of the Rings" series was one of the most anticipated film adaptations ever. And although the "Star Wars" prequels were generally regarded as weak, the special effects were amazing.
I can name tons of movies that I enjoyed over the past 10 years, from Pixar's films (Incredibles / Nemo / Monsters / Toy Story) to the superhero films that worked (X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman Begins) to the unique and bizzare films (GATTACA, Fight Club, Memento) to great action/suspense films (The Matrix, Collateral) and a lot more.
Here in Larimer County, CO, we have a slightly different system:
- "Vote Centers" replace precincts. You can vote at any vote center (about 30 around the county) instead of having to go to a specific precinct.
- Early voting. You can vote early on weekends from October 23rd to Nobemver 3rd for the general election.
Of course, you can still do what I do - apply for an absentee ballot and mail it in.
My local Kroger store (King Soopers) installed self-checkout lanes about 5 years ago. The #1 problem with self-checkouts is that people don't know how to use them:
- Don't use it if you have more than 10 or so items. You won't save any time and you'll just clog up the units for the rest of us.
- The items you buy MUST be put on the "bagging area" scale. Do not lean on the scale and don't take anything off once you put it on.
The benefit of the system? 6 self-checkout units replaced 2 "express" lanes in my Kroger - there is rarely a line, even when the other lanes are busy. If you just want to get a couple of 12-packs of Diet Pepsi and a bag of chips, they can be very, very fast - particularly if you don't even have a cart.
Most of the problems I've seen boil down to the fact that people don't understand how they work.
The Fujitsu system that Kroger uses is astoundingly better than the NCR system that Wal-Mart/Home Depot uses, although it appears that the NCR system has gotten better.
Well, of course! But that's what an SEO expert really accomplishes - if you tell management, "We should rewrite our copy and redesign our link structure to improve usability", you probably won't get much of a response. If, on the other hand, you tell management, "We should rewrite our copy and redesign our link structure to improve our ranking and get more hits", then you're talking.
Of course, SEO goes beyond that - things like code quality can have a major impact as well.
Well, you see, it's not quite that simple. Once you work with an honest SEO professional for a while, you realize that there are two different kinds of SEO: honest and dishonest.
Honest SEO means recommending changes that improve the indexability and content of the page: changing URLs to make them more concise and descriptive, adding proper keywords (not "stuffed" lists), adding a decent description, removing Flash and/or providing alternate content, adding alternate text for images, adding sitemaps, and a lot more. Basically, the idea in honest SEO is to make sure that the page design makes it easy for the search engine to index (and make sure that the crawler can find every page) and make sure that the page copy is well-written and descriptive. Honest SEO professionals also do a lot of consulting regarding advertising - such as what keywords to buy and what text to use for the ad.
I see nothing wrong with this approach. What I do have a problem with is dishonest SEO - the so-called "black hat" firms. Dishonest SEO involves anything that tries to misrepresnt the contents of a page to the engine, including things like screwing with the alt text on images (e.g. making it something completely bogus that doesn't match the image at all), hidden links, false keywords / titles, linkspamming, and a whole host of other techniques.
Absolutely, positively. I took one look (actually, six MC runs, up to but not including Rag) at the endgame content in WOW and then ran. I just don't enjoy the kind of scripted, orchestrated precision and consistency that is necessary in high-level raids in WOW. My guild went from casual to semi-serious in a matter of months, and they started asking me to switch to holy-spec (I enjoy PVP, thank you very much) and raid three times a week. I knew that it would only get worse when we started doing BWL.
What happened to the fun of lower levels? At level 40, I could screw around, group up with some random new people, complete a couple of decently-easy quests, have some fun, and improve my character at the same time. More importantly, I could do it on my schedule - an hour at a time, once a day or even once a week. Perhaps the best part was the content - it was new, usually fresh, and usually interesting. More areas to discover, more quests to unlock.
Even instancing was more fun at lower levels. I ran Scarlet about 5 levels before I should have - we wiped, a lot, but it was challenging and new. There was always a pretty good chance of getting some nice new gear, too. Raid instances change all of that - generally only 4-5 drops for your class per night (and far to often two, one, or none at all), and a DKP system that ensured that you had to attend every raid to have any chance of getting anything at all.
At some point, you ask - why am I doing this? Why am I raiding to get better gear so that I can - raid to get better gear. MC was cool the first time, the second time, and even the third time. But the fourth time, the fifth time, or the tenth time simply becomes repetitve. If everything is planned in advance, everything is calculated and practiced, then where is the challenge?
WOW was the most immersive, most incredible game that I have ever played. There is so much to do, so much to see, so much to discover. It's a shame that the endgame is so tedious, so repetitive, and so dull. It's so uncharacteristic for a game that is so unique.
Oh and we already have electric buses. They're called trolleybuses - developed along with the streetcars but used in the US mostly during the era of streetcar abandonement. Europe still uses them with great success. In case you never saw one and live in the US just visit San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Boston (actually Cambridge) or Edmonton.
Streetcars never died in the US, it's just that today we have a new name for them - "light rail".
Where the hell do comments like yours even come from? There is so much negative PR around Vista that I guess people just ignore the reality of the system.
Download Beta 2 (you can get it for free), install it, use it for 20 minutes, and you'll see just how stupid a lot of the FUD is. Vista is very, very much like XP in terms of DRM, restrictions, and the like. TPM support is minimal (only used for BitLocker), you can still install unsigned drivers, uTorrent and Azureus still run fine, K-Lite Mega Codec Pack still installs fine and XVID movies still work.
I guess the most annoying thing about posts like yours is that they are so nondescript. Which DRM features are you referring to? What limitations are you referring to? I see an OS that is no more restricted than XP. The new DRM features don't mean a thing to me because I don't buy WMV-DRM movies.
Vista is making real progress and is shaping up to be a substantial, albeit not revolutionary, upgrade from XP. Slashdot doesn't like that.
My university (the University of Colorado) has 100Mbps to every desk - but it really doesn't make a difference. The performance of your connection isn't just dependent on line speed - at some point, the network is oversubscribed, and it's that figure that often plays a role.
Other than when I access Akamai sites (CU has a local mirror) and other university networks, I really can't tell any difference between my 6Mbps Comcast connection and the "100Mbps" connection at CU.
I saw a movie preview yesterday on tv where it didn't list a website, but a myspace address.
It was a movie produced by 20th Century Fox, which is owned by News Corporation, the same company that owns Myspace.
So, no, that's not really surprising.
And now, a startup is the #1 site (or even if you question the numbers, pretty obviously in the top five) and there is nothing Microsoft has to show.
Except, of course, for the fact that the #1 site happens to run their OS, their web server, and uses their web programming system.
Yes, Myspace uses Windows Server 2003/IIS 6/ASP.NET.
All fast Intel notebooks get hot. Apple users are used to the cooler running G3's and G4's. That said, there were a number of units that ran exceptionally hot. Every report I've read where someone with that problem actually tried to have it replaced got a new one.
Untrue. My Compal FL-30 (generic notebook) with a 2.16GHz Dothan barely gets warm when you stress the CPU. It gets somewhat warmer when you stress the CPU and the GPU (GeForce Go 6400) at the same time, but even then it's not nearly as warm as even the old PowerBook G4s.
For a notebook with Intel integrated graphics, the MacBook gets unacceptably hot.
overpriced apps
Why, precisely, do you think that Photoshop is overpriced?
If you just want to retouch family photos or do some web graphics, it's probably overkill - but, if that's what you want to do, there are lower-priced alternatives like Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, or even The GIMP.
If, on the other hand, you are a graphic designer or professional photographer whose business relies on their software, than $600 is cheap for something that is as versitile and powerful as Photoshop.
Might also explain why you must only drive 55ish mph on those roads.
Here in CO, it's 75 in most areas - it's only 55 in the cities. And while there are areas in poor repair (I-25 north of Longmont comes to mind), the majority of the system is generally in good condition.
Also note:
- Trucks can travel in both lanes, and at the same speed as other vehicles.
- The Interstate system is massive. 6.27 times larger than the German Autobahn.
- The Interstate system handles 25% of road traffic in the US.
- US drivers are not held to the same standards as drivers in Germany. Our driver licensing system is a joke.