It's slower than XP in any case and requires more memory.
Not true. It uses more memory than XP, but it doesn't require it. In exactly the same way that linux uses more memory than XP, but doesn't require it (it's used for system cache if you bother to check).
Umm, yes, it is true, many benchmarks were done of XP SP3 vs Vista SP1, and XP SP3 is definately faster than Vista SP1, and it definitely _requires_ less memory. I can run an XP machine with 512MB of RAM, and it will be OK. Not great, but OK. Put Vista on the exact same machine (or even on a more modern, faster machine, but still with only 512MB of RAM), and it will be a total dog. Vista really needs a bare minimum of 1GB of RAM to be usable, whereas XP will run acceptably on 512MB... you could probably get away with 320MB if you don't run any memory-itense applications.
If you actually install the 64bit version, you'll see where MS's development budget has been spent (The 32bit version of vista feels a bit like Win ME in comparison). In every test I've done, 64bit vista has crapped all over XP from quite a big height.
The problem is I don't consider decent hardware to be something an IT'er would buy
Dual core machine + 2Gb ram + integrated ATI/Nvidia/Intel X4500 GPU is more than adequate. These are pretty basic machine specs by anyone's standard, and tbh you'd be hard pressed to find a brand new machine for sale with lower specs than that.
Yeah, that should be enough to run Vista, and many new machines are spec'd like that, but businesses need to use a uniform platform across all machines... so are they supposed to throw away all their old machines and buy new ones just so they can use Vista? No, they'll wait until they have replaced all their machines with ones that can run Vista through the same update schedule as they usually use, and then they'll use Windows 7, since it is supposed to be faster/leaner than Vista anyway.
The worst machine I've installed vista on was an old 1.6Ghz Athalon XP. It was more than happy playing blu-ray disks, and didn't perform any worse than XP. (though I did add an ATI 3650 AGP card to help out with the blu-ray decoding). That's what, a 5year old machine and a £50 upgraded graphics card.... Not exactly high end spec I must say.
Actually, for consumer hardware, an ATI 3650 is rather high-spec. The most common integrated graphics chips are about 5-10% as powerful as a 3650.
All that said, I have nothing against Vista for home users, but in the business world, it just doesn't add up (unless you replace your hardware on a 2-year cycle).
Google, develop something for my iPhone that makes me solve a series of differential equations before I'm allowed to send out a text message after 11PM.
Please.
Or maybe just.. "Hold your iPhone level for 60 seconds if you would like to send this message."
That'd solve 95% of my relationship problems.
You get so drunk you can't find a table, or even the floor?
Now, if they could just add a feature that held any emails sent after 2am for 12 hours, aka the "sober up first" rule, thus preventing me from waking up after a bender thinking, "oh crap, did I really send that email confessing my true feelings to that girl I had a crush on in high school but hadn't talked to in 15 years?", life would be just great.
I thought Slashdot already had an article on this feature. It's called Mail Goggles. It won't stop you from sending the email, but it may slow you down.
I missed that one... this is a very interesting idea, because not only would it slow you down if you are in some way (chemically, perhaps?) impaired, but it would also help if you are overly emotional, as doing math will activate other side of your brain, and you might be able to make a more rational decision or observation.
Chrome was the only browser in the contest that was not successfully exploited... why didn't they include Opera, or any of the non-webkit open source browsers other than Firefox? (Ok, they may be fairly obscure, but surely Opera is well known enough, right?)
The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.
KILL IT!!!
Seriously. Since IE8 does it, people will just keep using that for the next decade...
If they don't kill ActiveX after IE8, we'll be stuck with it even longer than that. Since it's going to take 10 years to actually die, please start the process now, Microsoft.
(I'm only quoting the most relevant part of your text, but I'm responding to the whole post).
Imagine two green objects. One has true green pigment, the other has a mixture of yellow and blue pigment. Both look the same under incandescent light, because the light from a glowing filament emits a full spectrum.
BS. Normal incancesdents are NOT full spectrum. That's why they produce such a nasty yellow light (color temp around 2700K).
LEDs are available in a variety of color temps, but it is true that it is very difficult to make "full spectrum" LED light. OTOH, Fluorescents, including CFLs, are widely available in full spectrum. Yes, your average $1.50 CFL from Walmart is NOT full specturm, but they are easily available.
I agree on the point that if the CRI rating were listed on all lights, nearly all LEDs and any non-full spectrum CFLs would score horribly. Normal incancesdents would not fare very well either.
If you want quality light, buy full spectrum. If you want really low TCO, buy LED. If you're an old dog who can't learn the new trick of liking non-yellow light, buy anything with a color temp around 2700k.
If Twitter was the worst, with 84 hours downtime, one year is 8765.81277 hours, which means that Twitter was down.958268243% of the time. Not.9 (90%), but.009 (nine tenths of one percent). IOW, it has an uptime of 99.05%. Sure, that's not great compared to 99.95%, but it was down less than 1 in every 100 times you tried to reach it. I'm pretty sure Yahoo! doesn't manage that, and I know Microsoft's download servers don't manage that...
The company offering this unblocking service should offer a free service to victims of abuse where they can call the company (by way of an 800 or 888 number), and the company will place a monitored and recorded call to the person in question (i.e. connect the two, but record the conversation and have an operator either always listening, or available at the push of a button).
This would allow them to make a call that doesn't reveal their location, and would make a heck of a lot more sense than having private phone calls with someone who has the potential to cause you extreme harm.
Having an e-ink screen and text-to-speech on the same device is an odd match. If you want to read, read. If you want to listen, get an audio book for your mp3 player. Spare yourself the synthetic voice. Unless you enjoy imagining Stephen Hawking is in your car reading to you.
This might good for my copy of "A Brief History of Time"...
Is it just me that thinks naming a device after a bunch of waste wood suitable only for burning, is possibly a huge marketing mistake ?
That would be kindling.
Kindle is a verb, and although it literally means "to start a fire", it is also used to mean "to inspire or arouse". I'm going to assume that Amazon is after the inspiration aspect.
Jesus, M$ only charges $199 for an Xbox360, is the kindle really that much more expensive technologically? Is the screen worth so much? Where is the cost coming from, anyone?
Free usage of Sprint's 3G network. Not only for browsing the book store, but you can also check some blogs/news sites (including Slashdot), and you can access Wikipedia. No monthly fee, your $360 covers that "forever". Or until they change it, whatever comes first.
Sure, for an HDD of a particular model on a particular day, but if you're looking for a graphics card, a power supply, or most other PC components (that BB sells), their prices are 2-3x what Newegg is. Really, honestly, more than twice as much.
An slightly overclocked Core i7 965 (Extreme Edition) in a similar rig (in terms of video cards, etc) scored about 26,000 in the same benchmark (3DMark05).
So, no, they didn't have to go to liquid helium to be competetive, but going to liquid helium did allow them to set a world record (although I don't see any Guiness Book or other "official" information about this).
Still forty cents too high. Back when a single came on vinyl and cost a dollar, the manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, etc. gave them maybe a dime profit at most. Now they want a buck with no manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, or any other costs except profit.
How exactly are they getting a $1 profit out of a $0.69 download? Or a $.99 download? Even at $1.29, surely Apple takes some of that, and the artist, etc.
The new Apple Cinema Displays using the displayport connector have a built in USB hub and feature automatic mode-switching features so that it works rather much like a dock... a very, very expensive dock.
For those of you who have never been lucky enough to witness the "pink page" we display to banned users, here's the text of the template we generate it with. I confess I'd never before thought about how offensive that might be to psychics.
"
I don't understand how "we're good, but we're not psychic" (very slightly paraphrased) would offensive to psychics.
Also, it seems to me that if you are easily offended, a psychic is probably not a very good thing to be.
I asked PPL 2 days ago about the cap removal, and the customer service rep told me that residential customers are expected to have their bill increase by 30%-35%.
FYI for people in Cali or other places with expensive electric, we are currently paying $0.09/kWh with the cap in place.
Slashdot Mirror
It's slower than XP in any case and requires more memory.
Not true. It uses more memory than XP, but it doesn't require it. In exactly the same way that linux uses more memory than XP, but doesn't require it (it's used for system cache if you bother to check).
Umm, yes, it is true, many benchmarks were done of XP SP3 vs Vista SP1, and XP SP3 is definately faster than Vista SP1, and it definitely _requires_ less memory. I can run an XP machine with 512MB of RAM, and it will be OK. Not great, but OK. Put Vista on the exact same machine (or even on a more modern, faster machine, but still with only 512MB of RAM), and it will be a total dog. Vista really needs a bare minimum of 1GB of RAM to be usable, whereas XP will run acceptably on 512MB... you could probably get away with 320MB if you don't run any memory-itense applications.
If you actually install the 64bit version, you'll see where MS's development budget has been spent (The 32bit version of vista feels a bit like Win ME in comparison). In every test I've done, 64bit vista has crapped all over XP from quite a big height.
The problem is I don't consider decent hardware to be something an IT'er would buy
Dual core machine + 2Gb ram + integrated ATI/Nvidia/Intel X4500 GPU is more than adequate. These are pretty basic machine specs by anyone's standard, and tbh you'd be hard pressed to find a brand new machine for sale with lower specs than that.
Yeah, that should be enough to run Vista, and many new machines are spec'd like that, but businesses need to use a uniform platform across all machines... so are they supposed to throw away all their old machines and buy new ones just so they can use Vista? No, they'll wait until they have replaced all their machines with ones that can run Vista through the same update schedule as they usually use, and then they'll use Windows 7, since it is supposed to be faster/leaner than Vista anyway.
The worst machine I've installed vista on was an old 1.6Ghz Athalon XP. It was more than happy playing blu-ray disks, and didn't perform any worse than XP. (though I did add an ATI 3650 AGP card to help out with the blu-ray decoding). That's what, a 5year old machine and a £50 upgraded graphics card.... Not exactly high end spec I must say.
Actually, for consumer hardware, an ATI 3650 is rather high-spec. The most common integrated graphics chips are about 5-10% as powerful as a 3650.
All that said, I have nothing against Vista for home users, but in the business world, it just doesn't add up (unless you replace your hardware on a 2-year cycle).
Google, develop something for my iPhone that makes me solve a series of differential equations before I'm allowed to send out a text message after 11PM.
Please.
Or maybe just.. "Hold your iPhone level for 60 seconds if you would like to send this message."
That'd solve 95% of my relationship problems.
You get so drunk you can't find a table, or even the floor?
Now, if they could just add a feature that held any emails sent after 2am for 12 hours, aka the "sober up first" rule, thus preventing me from waking up after a bender thinking, "oh crap, did I really send that email confessing my true feelings to that girl I had a crush on in high school but hadn't talked to in 15 years?", life would be just great.
I thought Slashdot already had an article on this feature. It's called Mail Goggles. It won't stop you from sending the email, but it may slow you down.
I missed that one... this is a very interesting idea, because not only would it slow you down if you are in some way (chemically, perhaps?) impaired, but it would also help if you are overly emotional, as doing math will activate other side of your brain, and you might be able to make a more rational decision or observation.
A quick Google Pulled up the Phones as:
Phones (and associated test platform)
* Blackberry(TBA)
* Android(Dev G1)
* iPhone(locked 2.0)
* Nokia/Symbian(N95-1)
* Windows Mobile (HTC Touch)
The Blackberry was apparently a "Bold", at least, that's what one of the related blog posts refers to.
Chrome was the only browser in the contest that was not successfully exploited... why didn't they include Opera, or any of the non-webkit open source browsers other than Firefox? (Ok, they may be fairly obscure, but surely Opera is well known enough, right?)
I like how they take a change which is 98% negative and paint it like they're improving your service.
That's why I hate companies like BlockBuster.
I used to give Netflix as an example of company with great customer service... but those days are gone, too.
Anyone got a better alternative?
The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.
KILL IT!!!
Seriously. Since IE8 does it, people will just keep using that for the next decade...
If they don't kill ActiveX after IE8, we'll be stuck with it even longer than that. Since it's going to take 10 years to actually die, please start the process now, Microsoft.
Someone with mod points, verify parent, and then mod up!
I attempted to verify, but can't reach the forums... Perhaps they've pulled down the whole forum temporarily? Or maybe /. is killing it...
(I'm only quoting the most relevant part of your text, but I'm responding to the whole post).
Imagine two green objects. One has true green pigment, the other has a mixture of yellow and blue pigment. Both look the same under incandescent light, because the light from a glowing filament emits a full spectrum .
BS. Normal incancesdents are NOT full spectrum. That's why they produce such a nasty yellow light (color temp around 2700K).
LEDs are available in a variety of color temps, but it is true that it is very difficult to make "full spectrum" LED light. OTOH, Fluorescents, including CFLs, are widely available in full spectrum. Yes, your average $1.50 CFL from Walmart is NOT full specturm, but they are easily available.
I agree on the point that if the CRI rating were listed on all lights, nearly all LEDs and any non-full spectrum CFLs would score horribly. Normal incancesdents would not fare very well either.
If you want quality light, buy full spectrum. If you want really low TCO, buy LED. If you're an old dog who can't learn the new trick of liking non-yellow light, buy anything with a color temp around 2700k.
Have you ever tried googling before opening your mouth?
iBench is an open source benchmark tool for OS X.
It's hosted on SourceForge.
http://ibench.sourceforge.net/
If Twitter was the worst, with 84 hours downtime, one year is 8765.81277 hours, which means that Twitter was down .958268243% of the time. Not .9 (90%), but .009 (nine tenths of one percent). IOW, it has an uptime of 99.05%. Sure, that's not great compared to 99.95%, but it was down less than 1 in every 100 times you tried to reach it. I'm pretty sure Yahoo! doesn't manage that, and I know Microsoft's download servers don't manage that...
The company offering this unblocking service should offer a free service to victims of abuse where they can call the company (by way of an 800 or 888 number), and the company will place a monitored and recorded call to the person in question (i.e. connect the two, but record the conversation and have an operator either always listening, or available at the push of a button).
This would allow them to make a call that doesn't reveal their location, and would make a heck of a lot more sense than having private phone calls with someone who has the potential to cause you extreme harm.
Having an e-ink screen and text-to-speech on the same device is an odd match. If you want to read, read. If you want to listen, get an audio book for your mp3 player. Spare yourself the synthetic voice. Unless you enjoy imagining Stephen Hawking is in your car reading to you.
This might good for my copy of "A Brief History of Time"...
Is it just me that thinks naming a device after a bunch of waste wood suitable only for burning, is possibly a huge marketing mistake ?
That would be kindling.
Kindle is a verb, and although it literally means "to start a fire", it is also used to mean "to inspire or arouse". I'm going to assume that Amazon is after the inspiration aspect.
Jesus, M$ only charges $199 for an Xbox360, is the kindle really that much more expensive technologically? Is the screen worth so much? Where is the cost coming from, anyone?
Free usage of Sprint's 3G network. Not only for browsing the book store, but you can also check some blogs/news sites (including Slashdot), and you can access Wikipedia. No monthly fee, your $360 covers that "forever". Or until they change it, whatever comes first.
Sure, for an HDD of a particular model on a particular day, but if you're looking for a graphics card, a power supply, or most other PC components (that BB sells), their prices are 2-3x what Newegg is. Really, honestly, more than twice as much.
An slightly overclocked Core i7 965 (Extreme Edition) in a similar rig (in terms of video cards, etc) scored about 26,000 in the same benchmark (3DMark05).
So, no, they didn't have to go to liquid helium to be competetive, but going to liquid helium did allow them to set a world record (although I don't see any Guiness Book or other "official" information about this).
the lowest song price is $0.69
Still forty cents too high. Back when a single came on vinyl and cost a dollar, the manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, etc. gave them maybe a dime profit at most. Now they want a buck with no manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, or any other costs except profit.
How exactly are they getting a $1 profit out of a $0.69 download? Or a $.99 download? Even at $1.29, surely Apple takes some of that, and the artist, etc.
The new Apple Cinema Displays using the displayport connector have a built in USB hub and feature automatic mode-switching features so that it works rather much like a dock... a very, very expensive dock.
I'm trying to think of any way to use "Q" without the "U" in a word besides "qi" ("Iraq" is a proper name and thus not Scrabble-legal).
If you're a scrabble player, you should know that qat is among the best words to use when you have a Q but no U.
"
For those of you who have never been lucky enough to witness the "pink page" we display to banned users, here's the text of the template we generate it with. I confess I'd never before thought about how offensive that might be to psychics.
"
I don't understand how "we're good, but we're not psychic" (very slightly paraphrased) would offensive to psychics.
Also, it seems to me that if you are easily offended, a psychic is probably not a very good thing to be.
Somebody give the guy at least a Score:1 Funny...
I mean, c'mon, "it was a sinch". Kind of like spelling better than most of /. is a cinch, only with more S's.
"Comcast has 30 days to disclose the details of its 'unreasonable network management practices'
I can hear it now... "But our practices are all perfectly reasonable, your Honor, we do not practice unreasonable practices here at Comcast."
So compressed air (or CO2) potato guns are fine?
I asked PPL 2 days ago about the cap removal, and the customer service rep told me that residential customers are expected to have their bill increase by 30%-35%.
FYI for people in Cali or other places with expensive electric, we are currently paying $0.09/kWh with the cap in place.