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User: drsmithy

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  1. Re:Next Gen Arm based netbooks. on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    shoddy screen, shoddy keyboard, less reliable. If you want any real power, its far cheaper to buy a 1500 dollar gaming rig and 400 dollar notebook than a 2500 dollar notebook that weighs ten pounds, still only has half the power of the cheaper desktop, and can't be upgraded.

    A $2500 laptop ? What kind of idiotic example is that ? A student's - indeed, most people's - needs are quite easily met by a $1000 MacBook, or an $800 Inspiron 13, both of which are far superior to a NetBook. Add a couple of hundred $ worth of external screen, keyboard and mouse, and you've got all the computer the average person needs, the ability to just snap the lid shut and walk out the door with it, and the distinct advantage of not having to deal with multiple computers.

  2. Re:Of course! They're connected to teh intertubes on Microsoft Warns of Copycat Conficker Worm · · Score: 1

    (Of course, as debated endlessly here and elsewhere, that may be as much a function of market share as inherent design, although few informed people would seriously challenge the latter).

    Which part of the "inherent design" of Windows makes it less secure ?

  3. Re:Next Gen Arm based netbooks. on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    Don't be surprised when they start throwing in a 'free' netbook with a desktop ie power with portability.

    Again, I will make the point: why would the typical student do this when they could just get a ~13" laptop that will serve quite well as their _only_ computer ?

  4. Re:Next Gen Arm based netbooks. on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 0

    What 'real work' can't a netbook do that a regular laptop can?

    Regular laptops work quite well as most people's only computer. They have multicore CPUs, 2-8GB RAM, 250GB+ hard disks, and even decent discrete graphics, if you want it. Connect them to an external screen (or two), keyboard and mouse - ideally via a docking station - and voila. Everything you'd normally expect from a typical desktop with the advantage of being able to throw it in your backpack or briefcase when you walk out.

    Netbooks.... do not. Tiny screens, cramped keyboards, slow CPUs, tiny storage, barely enough RAM. A decent MP3 collection playing in the background, half a dozen flash-laden websites, some IM windows and a couple of emails and a NetBook is brought to its knees in terms of storage, CPU power and UI.

    The real question, as I said before, is what does a NetBook get you that a decent mobile phone + MacBook-sized laptop does not ? For most scenarios, a NetBook is not meaningfully more portable than a ~13" laptop (you still need a bag for both), yet is it dramatically less capable in terms of power, storage, display and input.

    Your point also seems to be fighting against reality: Netbooks are a massive hit. Therefore, arguing that netbooks won't sell is like saying that nobody will use that internet thing.

    We shall see how much of a "massive hit" they are as the recession really starts to bite and people start cutting back on their toys. Regular laptops still outsell NetBooks on the order of 10:1, and I doubt that figure is going to do anything except worsen in the near future.

  5. Re:I'm an XP lover but how about we make a deal,.. on XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Microsoft, I'll give up my obsession with XP, skip Vista and widely support Windows 7, if you guys have the testicles to release Windows 7 as a 64bit only operating system.

    To what end ?

    I dare you, I double dare you - do the right thing for a change.

    Why is it "the right thing" ? There are (and will be) plenty of Windows 7 capable machines out there that are not 64-bit.

  6. Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim on XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7 · · Score: 1

    What, you think DRM-processing is somehow resource-free?

    DRM is only active when DRM content is being used. GP's generalised claim that DRM "slows down I/O operations on external media including networks" is false.

    As talked about at length here [auckland.ac.nz], Flatout 2 plays 15% slower with DRM than without. DRM can also decrease battery life by 25% because of the additional processor load creating more heat.

    Gutmann's comments have already been discredited and refuted numerous times. They're FUD. In particular, his claim about "Flatout 2" has nothing at all to back it up, and the claims about reduced battery life are also without supporting evidence, and thus tenuous at best.

  7. Re:If Windows 7 is as fast as they claim on XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Now, get yourself a quad core 12gb machine with a 15,000rpm hard disk.
    Put on Windows XP
    Now put on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
    It WILL be slower, period.

    Not under heavy - particularly multithreaded - loads it won't.

    Advances and improvements in schedulers, locking, memory management, and other low-level aspects of the OS mean that newer hardware is better utilised by a more modern OS. For example, pre-SP2 releases of XP are not NUMA-aware, so on architectures like Opteron and Core i7, will be at a severe disadvantage in memory-intensive workloads.

    Benchmarks have demonstrated this. You're wrong, deal with it.

  8. Re:Just use the latest Firefox, and you'll be fine on XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you are not running as administrator you have to enter the password of an administrator. It's people who run as an admin who get the click trough dialogs. Problem is that the Windows installer still doesn't try to suggest that users should run as a mormal user. By default it should create both an admin and normal user during install and tell you to use the normal user in everyday use. Maybe even hide the admin user in the login screen.

    An "Administrator" in Vista _is_ a normal user, they just have the ability to elevate. Similar to an "admin" in OS X, or a user who can sudo in Linux.

  9. Re:Next Gen Arm based netbooks. on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    They're uninteresting in the way a toaster is uninteresting. But useful for their function.

    How are they more useful than the iPhone (or equivalent) everyone already owns and carries around ? What will an ARM-based NetBook deliver that the combination of a phone and the real computers at home and/or work won't ?

    The problem with NetBooks is their size. They're too big to just slip into a pocket like a phone, so you need a bag - and if you have to carry a bag, you may as well just get a real laptop since you're going to need one anyway for doing real work the NetBook is inadequate for.

    For $150, they won't give a shit.

    NetBooks are toys, and in the current economic climate, toys are not something people are inclined to buy lots of.

  10. Re:No cause for alarm, totally expected on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    The original specs couldn't run XP very well, [...]

    The original specs wouldn't run _anything_ very well, particularly with today's flash-infested web. Heck, a ~500Mhz Celeron wasn't even something to write home about a decade ago.

    The simple fact is that if it's fast enough for common usage cases, it's more than fast enough to run XP.

  11. Re:Next Gen Arm based netbooks. on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    Pulling the same stunt on the rash of $150 arm-based netbooks that will be hitting the shelves later this year will be much harder.

    Not nearly as hard as convincing people who have bought shitty $150 ARM-based netbooks they can't do anything interesting with, that they haven't been ripped off.

  12. Re:Honeymoon is over on Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration · · Score: 1

    For a short while people were willing to forgo Windows for the form factor and price of a netbook. Then Moore's law ticked over and Microsoft was able to enter that market - same price for the machine but with the specs that XP needs.

    As far as I recall, even the first iteration of NetBooks had more than enough oomph to run XP.

    Personally I don't see the point, but if people want to spend time with their hands contorted onto a tiny keyboard, squinting at a tiny screen, bully for them. :)

  13. Re:Openfire on Internal Instant Messaging Client / Server Combo? · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/index.jsp

    Works very well. Meets all your reqirements. Client supports Mac, Win and Linux but is a resource hog. It's jabber though so you can use many clients.

    I second OpenFire. We have been (mostly) happily using it for a couple of years now. Trivially easy to setup, can back onto all the major DBs (or has one builtin) and has reasonable - if a bit clumsy and limited - capabilities to integrate with Active Directory.

  14. Re:Detection via delta? on Windows 95 Almost Autodetected Floppy Disks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, and that's been a danger since day one. The removable media should _never_ have been the default: it should have been the fallthrough boot medium, to keep idiots from booting with floppies or later CD's and USB devices automatically to take control of your hardware.

    On "day one" the *ONLY* option was "removable media". If you were lucky, you might even have had drive A: _and_ drive B:.

  15. Re:"commercial UNIX" on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's true in your little world, but it's not true in mine.

    The UNIX-focused users I know (academics and other UNIX sysadmins) are all over FreeBSD like a rash, and will accept Linux as a reasonable substitute. Sure, they also love their edu-discounted MacBooks because when they drop to a shell for some trivial fiddling it's mostly the same, but when they really want to do UNIXy stuff they're either SSHing to their "real servers", or running VMs.

    We had an employee who insisted on a Linux notebook computer. It never worked for him. He couldn't get the display driver to work with whatever weird video card Lenovo was shipping that week.

    This is actually a somewhat decent argument. Linux on laptops sucks. With that said, you'll get better UNIX satisfaction (probably at a lower price, or higher performance) with a Windows laptop running Cygwin, or a VM, or just SSHing to another machines. Personally, I use Windows, a) because of the aforementioned Linux laptop suckage; and b) because Apple refuse to make a decent business laptop line (with basic features like a docking station).

    (4) Mac minis are small and quiet and not much more expensive than inferior imitators.

    Please. You get nearly twice as much PC for the same price as a Mac Mini, and 4-5x as much for only a litte more. The only real difference being is the size of the case, and I've never in my life, met a UNIX nerd who gave the slightest damn what his computer looked like, assuming you could even see the damn thing in the chaos.

    You haven't a clue. I'm a Unix wizard.

    That's funny, so am I. I even get paid to be one. And I find the idea that OS X is as "UNIXy" as my Solaris, FreeBSD - and even Linux - servers, to be laughable. OS X is firstly, foremost, primarily and overpoweringly, a desktop platform that just happens to look a bit like a typical UNIX if you scratch the surface.

    It can't handle signals properly and does forks incredibly slowly.

    Please. You're advocating OS X and trying to make an argument about _performance_ ? And you then have the temerity to question _my_ credibility ?

  16. Re:"commercial UNIX" on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    Amen to that. I'm guessing that out of all the Apple proponents who have hijacked this thread, not a single one of them has seriously tried to use OS X the way a Unix system is normally used.

    Indeed. It's rather obvious which people understand "like a UNIX" to be running 'ls' and which people understand "like a UNIX" like a sysadmin.

  17. Re:"commercial UNIX" on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    To which users? For the majority of users surely you are correct, but we weren't talking about the majority of computer users-- we are talking about Unix users.

    People who want UNIX don't use OS X. They use Open Solaris, FreeBSD, or Linux (in roughly that order).

    OS X is cleaning up in the university worlds where I live, because most of the Unix nerds, such as myself, are perfectly happy with OS X, which I use mostly as a pretty front-end to X11, xterm, and emacs.

    Which makes no sense. Why would you pay the Apple tax for a pretty face on X11, xterm and emacs when you can get the same thing from a Linux machine (or even an OpenSolaris PC, if you're a traditionalist) for probably half the price ?

    There are many excellent reasons to use OS X. That your primary interest is a familiar and typical UNIX-like environment, but with a pretty face, is _not_ one of them, because the UNIX aspect of OS X is neither familiar, nor typical, once you move past trivial usage (stuff even Cygwin does just as well).

  18. Re:Do Not Want on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    If it's so fucking great, why is Linux eating its lunch?

    Because Linux is the Windows 95 of the UNIX world.

  19. Re:capital punishment on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    The state has a compelling interest in justice because we pay them through taxes to be the benevolent and fair moderator, and if a person has possibly committed a crime that morally justifies death, the state should get to make the final decision, but them actually doing the killing is wrong.

    The problem with capital punishment is not whether or not the perpetrator should die, or why, or who should do the killing, it is that no justice system has a sufficiently good record of a) lack of corruption and b) lack of wrongful convictions to be trusted with such a final solution.

    I can support capital punishment on principle (although not the ones you cite). I cannot, however, support it in practice.

  20. Re:SparcStations on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 1

    What the fuck? Your Unix is so inadequate you have to run another Unix under it? I can understand running Windows under Linux or OSX, but running Linux on OSX is just bizarre. Why not just run the Unix that you need to get shit done on the bare metal, and throw away the candy-coated one? Alternatively, why does OSX suck so bad that you need Linux concurrently, and why are you still willing to run it?

    Because Linux sucks as a desktop (especially on laptops), and he probably wants a "UNIX" to work with that acts more like the typical UNIXish OSes he'll see in the wild, than OS X does.

    Or, to put it another way, there's lots of stuff OS X does better than Linux, and lots of stuff Linux does better than OS X.

  21. Re:"commercial UNIX" on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know about that. The last time I was at a Sun seminar, at least a third of the attendees had MacBooks. Including this one.

    Which says zero about whether or not they can (or are) running them like they would they Solaris, HP UX, AIX, or anything else machines. I'd be more than willing to bet that they're "adminning" them just like any other Mac user would - ie: mostly through the GUI.

  22. Re:"commercial UNIX" on IBM About To Buy Sun For $7 Billion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any decent Unix admin will be at home on MacOSX. It's just another Unix.

    No, they won't. OS X is a very different beast to a typical UNIX (or UNIX-like) system.

    Your typical UNIX admin will be lost at sea, trying to run a Mac like his Solaris or HP UX machines. OS X isn't really a UNIX from a usability perspective, nor does Apple market it as such. Of all the bits of OS X that are actually interesting and of value to users, "it's a UNIX" is a long, long, long way down the list. It could just as easily be running atop the Windows NT kernel (and for a while there, nearly was).

  23. Re:To view the show on Aussie Minister Backs Down on Internet Censorship · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Most of it, in fact the absolute vast majority of it is completely non sexual shots of single children, no toys, not an adult in sight, just a naked kid between probably about 10 and 15 years old, most of them on the beach, many of them oblivious to the camera.

    I believe this is referred to by the "victims" as Nudism. There are whole sites full of such pictures.

  24. Re:Upgrading on Mac Tax, Dell Tax, HP Tax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Try explaining to a novice the difference between just closing the window and exiting the application. Most will still be calling you a week later asking why their computer has gotten so slow.

    Back when Macs came with embarassasingly small amounts of RAM, and OS X's memory management was atrocious instead of just average, this argument carried a bit of weight. These days, it's irrelevant.

  25. Re:In technical terms on UN Attacks Free Speech · · Score: 1

    Oh, I wouldn't go that far... Lots of atheists could still point to things like the "Bill of Rights" or some such document, or have their own manifesto. Atheists can have a system of beliefs, the fundamental belief being that there is no God or Gods or divine beings or interventions.

    Indeed. Said "system of beliefs" is entirely separate from their atheism, however, which is my point.

    Agnosticism might be closer to having a lack of a defined system of beliefs. Maybe they can make up whatever justification for their actions as they see fit. From that standpoint, they have more flexibility than even the atheists.

    No. You're conflating. Atheism simply means you don't believe in god(s). It says _nothing_ about what your moral and ethical principles might be. You could just as easily be an atheist and a pacifist humanist as you could an atheist and an aggressive psychopath.