It's also worth pointing out that Microsoft itself often violates this guideline (in at least one case in a Mac version of one of their apps, incredibly).
System (Mac OS) 7 = 1991 - but in fact, the multiple monitor support was in the Mac OS as early as 1986.
Indeed. And if you weren't so keen to feel smug by trying to look superior, you would have noticed I acknowledged MacOS did it first.
The displays did not need to have identical resolution and bit-depth, as with 98 and 2000, nor did Mac users ever have to use a special video dual-head card simply to ensure that both video cards would work together, as I encountered many times on 2000.
Neither Windows 98 nor 2000 required identical resolution and bit-depth. Further, while some cards didn't play well together (because they were cheap and crappy), the list of ones that did would still be orders of magnitude greater than your video card options on the Mac.
It's also worth pointing out that many Windows developers, including Microsoft themselves, do not abide by the mentioned guidelines.
Many Apple programmers, also, have not abided by their UI guidelines (or just made new ones up on the spot after coming up with something that looks cool). In some fairly high-profile applications, as well (like, say, a sizable chunk of OS X itself).
This does not negate the existence of said guidelines.
Sadly, no. We have computer at work with Quad 2.66GHz processors, 4GB of RAM, a fairly current nVidia video card, and Vista Ultimate. And it's just at the cusp of usable. If I didn't know the specs I doubt I'd guess it was that powerful.
Oh, bullshit. I have Vista on a 3+ year old Dell _Laptop_ with a 2Ghz Pentium-M and 2G RAM and it's quite fast enough.
100% perfect honesty is the level of conduct I demand from my elected representatives.
You shouldn't.
a) It's impossible to attain.
b) It's a fool's errand to even strive for. The world runs on lies (albeit mostly unimportant ones).
c) Your elected representatives should be, well, representative. Anyone who had "100% perfect honesty" would not in any way be representative of the average person.
What you should be asking of your elected representatives is that they are, basically, just like you. Now, I don't know you personally, but hopefully you'll agree that when some rude motherfucker starts blabbing about some consensual sex you had for no justifiable reason other than schadenfreude, telling a few lies about it to avoid embarassment to all involved, is a completely typical reaction.
Lying to send an entire nation to war, OTOH, with the absolute foreknowledge that it would involve (tens of, if you count the other side as well) thousands of people dying, is something I'd like to think only the tiny proportion of the population that are psychopaths would do.
The problem is that Theo's opinion is based on the narrow (very narrow) perspective of a kernel developer. He focuses solely on one part of the whole virtualisation equation with a somewhat valid criticism, but then proceeds to write off *the whole idea* without taking into account the massive benefits virtualisation delivers in other (far more expensive) areas.
This sort of attitudent, I might point out - along with his confronting writing style - a problem _rampant_ throughout the geek world.
I've been on the fence about virtualization for a very long time now. Sure, it's quite convenient to install VMware, load up a guest OS, and tinker with new features. But to load up a server with multiple instances of the same operating system is ludicrous. It certainly doesn't scale well at all.
Actually, it scales exceptionally well. When 8-core, 32G RAM Dell 1955 blades are cheap as chips, and Sun's x4450 has 16-cores and 128G RAM in 2U, I can "fit" anywhere from 8-42U worth of low-end 1U servers in 0.7 - 2U. That's a *massive* saving in physical resources (not just the rack space, but also network, power and KVM connections, not to mention power usage) plus improvements in reliability (fewer points of physical failure, and low-end 1U servers typically lack things like redundant power) and purchase cost.
And the marketing teams are incredibly good at making people believe that by installing their virtualization software, you'll suddenly have a bunch of "virtual" servers with the same capabilities as a single server. Sure, they all have the same capabilities from an OS standpoint, but performance isn't going to be anything close to a standalone server..
When you only need the performance equivalent of, say, a 1Ghz P3 (or less), you don't *need* all the power (or even half of it) of even the lowest-end new machine on the market today.
And as far as security goes, it's nonsense. Ok, so I install 5 copies of RHEL 5.0 on my virtual server. If the virtualization software itself is attacked and compromised, all 5 servers go down. If an OS level attack is successful, then all 5 virtual servers are likely vulnerable because it's an OS level attack. The only security "benefit" I can see is if a single virtual server is compromised through something like a web application.
The security (plus reliability and maintenance) benefit exists because it allows you to isolate a single service to a single "server" (ie: VM). From that, you get the advantage that a compromise (outage/maintenance window) on that one server doesn't affect any other services.
Of course, you *do* have the problem that a single VM host problem can knock out multiple VMs, but that's why you have a farm of VM hosts to migrate VMs between (and, depending on your uptime requirements, VMs on multiple hosts clustered together).
However, there is an additional risk that the extra exposure via the VM host, or a bug/flaw in the VM software, add more vulnerability to the VMs (over and above what they would have on physical hardware). Whether or not that (very small, IMHO) additional risk outweighs the benefits, is a decision you have to make yourself. Personally, I don't think it even comes close.
Does anyone know what holds MS back from adding the Multiple Desktop feature? I know it can be had with 3rd party software, however last time I used one it really slowed down my machine and caused some crashes.
I was working with multiple monitors on System 7 many years ago (and the implementation was *better* than the one that XP and Vista have - you could move your desktops around, even lay them out vertically or in a grid.. on Windows the position is hardwired to the graphics card and they must be next to each other).. around the era of Windows 3.1
Even Windows 98 could do what you describe out of the box - and NT4 before that, albeit dependent on vendor drivers (which is not as long ago as Windows 3.1, but the reality is certainly a hell of a lot better than your fantasy).
Clearly you haven't tried OSX. You get a consistent, fluid and high performance GUI. When you want a shell, you get a Unix one on a certified Unix OS; in a fancy translucent window if you so choose.
Probably because the version of OS X that potentially meets those standards was only released today. And I'm sceptical about the "fluid and high performance GUI", since 'teh snappay' of 10.4 would need to have increased *massively* to qualify.
Microsoft has the right to do anything it wants to your machine, including totally disabling it. They also have the right to spy on you, reporting anything they want back to MS.
No, they don't. If you think they do, please quote the relevant clause(s) to support your claim.
Since when did Microsoft care about pissing off its users?
Pretty much always. Or do you think they expend mind-boggling amounts of resources on legacy application compatibility (to pick but one example) for the hell of it ?
Until January 2002, when Windows XP became available, which PC for home use ran NT?
I think you'll find a surprising number of "pro" users had been running some version of NT at home. I certainly have been since early 1996 (NT4 beta2).
However, even Windows 9x has had the necessary infrastructure to support per-user profiles and registry hives since ~1997. That's how long ago developers *should* have started modifying their applications to work in non-Administrator accounts.
Including games published by Microsoft
Well, Microsoft is a big company. Section A might not always follow the same guidelines of section B. Not to mention, "published" != "developed".
True. My point is that had Microsoft made Windows XP grant "limited user" privileges to newly created accounts, the transition might have been easier.
I have little doubt this issue was debated extensively before the decision was made. Ultimately, it was made to favour compatibility, probably because not doing so would have made migrating people off the stone-age Windows 9x codebase even more difficult than it already was.
What would really rock was if we had community cars. Pay as you go, but go where you want.
Cities in Europe have had this for nearly 20 years now. Heck, we even havesome here in Australia . Surely equivalent companies exist in major US cities ?
Umm, are you joking? That's the same solution I've been advocating in posts here for years.
Funny, because I seem to recall most of the "solutions" you've been advocating "for years" involve Microsoft being forced to rip most of the functionality considered standard today (browser, more recently search, etc), out of Windows to leave it as a basically worthless piece of semi-functional infrastructure solely for other vendors to improve. It looks like you want Windows to be reduced to the same ugly patchwork-quilt of hacked together bits and pieces that the typical Linux distribution is, presumably to leave Apple as the only vendor credibly able to make something close to an end-to-end solution.
Further, it all appears to be predicated on the highly dubious assumption that there is, for some meaningful sense of the word, a separate and identifiable "market" for each of those individual bits of functionality that now make up every remotely mainstream, end-user-oriented OS available.
I'd rather make their bundling a non-issue by removing their monopoly power than try to micro-manage things.
Strange, because you seem to want to do a lot of "micro managing" as to what features Windows is and isn't allowed to have. Although at least the theme is pretty consistent - if it's anything that end users might find vaguely useful, Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to include it in Windows.
Seems to me you favour making Windows basically useless on its own, without large amounts of third-party effort (and money) put in to make it something people might be interested in actually using. I'd say that's clearly trying to punish those who choose to use Windows, be they end users or OEMs.
I don't think Apple could build a cheap PC at the price that Dell can, but I also don't think Dell could build something like the iMac for the same cost as Apple does.
To see what windows I have open using the taskbar in Windows XP I have to click one of the taskbar buttons to pop up a list of windows belonging to a programme. The alternative - each window having a button in the taskbar - means that the buttons are so narrow I haven't got a clue what they represent.
Which is why you enlarge it to two (or more) levels if you're a heavy multitasker.
The taskbar is fine if you only have a few windows open (maybe less than 6 or 7 depending on your monitor) but is a dismal failure for identifying open windows at a glance if you actually have a few open windows.
The Taskbar works well at this with a *verY* minor configuration change. The Dock, OTOH, is a UI train wreck from just about every angle, but especially as a task switching device. That's why Apple came up with Expose - to reduce the Dock to little more than a flashy program launcher (something it's tolerably good at).
Microsoft has made it that way and OEMs aren't really pushing for anything different since each new iteration of Windows usually requires new hardware.
Rubbish. People typically "upgrade" to a new version by buying a new machine, but this is a very different thing to it _requiring_ a new machine. Each new version of Windows is generally baseline usable on what would have been a mid-range to high-end PC 5-6 years earlier.
Slashdot Mirror
It's also worth pointing out that Microsoft itself often violates this guideline (in at least one case in a Mac version of one of their apps, incredibly).
For example ?
System (Mac OS) 7 = 1991 - but in fact, the multiple monitor support was in the Mac OS as early as 1986.
Indeed. And if you weren't so keen to feel smug by trying to look superior, you would have noticed I acknowledged MacOS did it first.
The displays did not need to have identical resolution and bit-depth, as with 98 and 2000, nor did Mac users ever have to use a special video dual-head card simply to ensure that both video cards would work together, as I encountered many times on 2000.
Neither Windows 98 nor 2000 required identical resolution and bit-depth. Further, while some cards didn't play well together (because they were cheap and crappy), the list of ones that did would still be orders of magnitude greater than your video card options on the Mac.
It's also worth pointing out that many Windows developers, including Microsoft themselves, do not abide by the mentioned guidelines.
Many Apple programmers, also, have not abided by their UI guidelines (or just made new ones up on the spot after coming up with something that looks cool). In some fairly high-profile applications, as well (like, say, a sizable chunk of OS X itself).
This does not negate the existence of said guidelines.
Just look at the new Office.
What of it ? The new UI is excellent.
Sadly, no. We have computer at work with Quad 2.66GHz processors, 4GB of RAM, a fairly current nVidia video card, and Vista Ultimate. And it's just at the cusp of usable. If I didn't know the specs I doubt I'd guess it was that powerful.
Oh, bullshit. I have Vista on a 3+ year old Dell _Laptop_ with a 2Ghz Pentium-M and 2G RAM and it's quite fast enough.
100% perfect honesty is the level of conduct I demand from my elected representatives.
You shouldn't.
a) It's impossible to attain.
b) It's a fool's errand to even strive for. The world runs on lies (albeit mostly unimportant ones).
c) Your elected representatives should be, well, representative. Anyone who had "100% perfect honesty" would not in any way be representative of the average person.
What you should be asking of your elected representatives is that they are, basically, just like you. Now, I don't know you personally, but hopefully you'll agree that when some rude motherfucker starts blabbing about some consensual sex you had for no justifiable reason other than schadenfreude, telling a few lies about it to avoid embarassment to all involved, is a completely typical reaction.
Lying to send an entire nation to war, OTOH, with the absolute foreknowledge that it would involve (tens of, if you count the other side as well) thousands of people dying, is something I'd like to think only the tiny proportion of the population that are psychopaths would do.
The beauty of the system we have here in the US we can simply vote out the corrupted politicians.
No, you can't. You don't vote pople out, you vote them in.
So, when you don't have any honest politicians...
It's highly probable that Theo is right.
The problem is that Theo's opinion is based on the narrow (very narrow) perspective of a kernel developer. He focuses solely on one part of the whole virtualisation equation with a somewhat valid criticism, but then proceeds to write off *the whole idea* without taking into account the massive benefits virtualisation delivers in other (far more expensive) areas.
This sort of attitudent, I might point out - along with his confronting writing style - a problem _rampant_ throughout the geek world.
I've been on the fence about virtualization for a very long time now. Sure, it's quite convenient to install VMware, load up a guest OS, and tinker with new features. But to load up a server with multiple instances of the same operating system is ludicrous. It certainly doesn't scale well at all.
Actually, it scales exceptionally well. When 8-core, 32G RAM Dell 1955 blades are cheap as chips, and Sun's x4450 has 16-cores and 128G RAM in 2U, I can "fit" anywhere from 8-42U worth of low-end 1U servers in 0.7 - 2U. That's a *massive* saving in physical resources (not just the rack space, but also network, power and KVM connections, not to mention power usage) plus improvements in reliability (fewer points of physical failure, and low-end 1U servers typically lack things like redundant power) and purchase cost.
And the marketing teams are incredibly good at making people believe that by installing their virtualization software, you'll suddenly have a bunch of "virtual" servers with the same capabilities as a single server. Sure, they all have the same capabilities from an OS standpoint, but performance isn't going to be anything close to a standalone server..
When you only need the performance equivalent of, say, a 1Ghz P3 (or less), you don't *need* all the power (or even half of it) of even the lowest-end new machine on the market today.
And as far as security goes, it's nonsense. Ok, so I install 5 copies of RHEL 5.0 on my virtual server. If the virtualization software itself is attacked and compromised, all 5 servers go down. If an OS level attack is successful, then all 5 virtual servers are likely vulnerable because it's an OS level attack. The only security "benefit" I can see is if a single virtual server is compromised through something like a web application.
The security (plus reliability and maintenance) benefit exists because it allows you to isolate a single service to a single "server" (ie: VM). From that, you get the advantage that a compromise (outage/maintenance window) on that one server doesn't affect any other services.
Of course, you *do* have the problem that a single VM host problem can knock out multiple VMs, but that's why you have a farm of VM hosts to migrate VMs between (and, depending on your uptime requirements, VMs on multiple hosts clustered together).
However, there is an additional risk that the extra exposure via the VM host, or a bug/flaw in the VM software, add more vulnerability to the VMs (over and above what they would have on physical hardware). Whether or not that (very small, IMHO) additional risk outweighs the benefits, is a decision you have to make yourself. Personally, I don't think it even comes close.
Does anyone know what holds MS back from adding the Multiple Desktop feature? I know it can be had with 3rd party software, however last time I used one it really slowed down my machine and caused some crashes.
Lack of customer interest.
I personally couldn't live with a one button mouse, but I applaud MacOS for requiring that every feature of the OS be accessible from one button.
It's worth pointing that the Windows HCI guidelines, also, require that all functionality be accessible without using a context menu.
I was working with multiple monitors on System 7 many years ago (and the implementation was *better* than the one that XP and Vista have - you could move your desktops around, even lay them out vertically or in a grid.. on Windows the position is hardwired to the graphics card and they must be next to each other).. around the era of Windows 3.1
Even Windows 98 could do what you describe out of the box - and NT4 before that, albeit dependent on vendor drivers (which is not as long ago as Windows 3.1, but the reality is certainly a hell of a lot better than your fantasy).
Clearly you haven't tried OSX. You get a consistent, fluid and high performance GUI. When you want a shell, you get a Unix one on a certified Unix OS; in a fancy translucent window if you so choose.
Probably because the version of OS X that potentially meets those standards was only released today. And I'm sceptical about the "fluid and high performance GUI", since 'teh snappay' of 10.4 would need to have increased *massively* to qualify.
Hasn't anyone read the Windows EULA?
Just now, in fact.
Microsoft has the right to do anything it wants to your machine, including totally disabling it. They also have the right to spy on you, reporting anything they want back to MS.
No, they don't. If you think they do, please quote the relevant clause(s) to support your claim.
Since when did Microsoft care about pissing off its users?
Pretty much always. Or do you think they expend mind-boggling amounts of resources on legacy application compatibility (to pick but one example) for the hell of it ?
Until January 2002, when Windows XP became available, which PC for home use ran NT?
I think you'll find a surprising number of "pro" users had been running some version of NT at home. I certainly have been since early 1996 (NT4 beta2).
However, even Windows 9x has had the necessary infrastructure to support per-user profiles and registry hives since ~1997. That's how long ago developers *should* have started modifying their applications to work in non-Administrator accounts.
Including games published by Microsoft
Well, Microsoft is a big company. Section A might not always follow the same guidelines of section B. Not to mention, "published" != "developed".
True. My point is that had Microsoft made Windows XP grant "limited user" privileges to newly created accounts, the transition might have been easier.
I have little doubt this issue was debated extensively before the decision was made. Ultimately, it was made to favour compatibility, probably because not doing so would have made migrating people off the stone-age Windows 9x codebase even more difficult than it already was.
You are right, if you mean by "most" Macs you are talking about the iMac and those aimed at non-professionals, non-IT, etc.
Macs that have upgradable video cards (and only a handful of suitably blessed cards at that):
Mac Pro
Macs that don't have upgradeable video cards:
iMac
Mac Mini
MacBook
MacBook Pro
I'd say that wemm and truly qualifies as "most".
There are certainly good reasons for buying a Mac - but upgradability is pretty low on the list.
Wow! German must be an amazing language if that can be translated into a single word!!
German: proudly turning sentences into words and words into sentences.
What would really rock was if we had community cars. Pay as you go, but go where you want.
Cities in Europe have had this for nearly 20 years now. Heck, we even have some here in Australia . Surely equivalent companies exist in major US cities ?
Umm, are you joking? That's the same solution I've been advocating in posts here for years.
Funny, because I seem to recall most of the "solutions" you've been advocating "for years" involve Microsoft being forced to rip most of the functionality considered standard today (browser, more recently search, etc), out of Windows to leave it as a basically worthless piece of semi-functional infrastructure solely for other vendors to improve. It looks like you want Windows to be reduced to the same ugly patchwork-quilt of hacked together bits and pieces that the typical Linux distribution is, presumably to leave Apple as the only vendor credibly able to make something close to an end-to-end solution.
Further, it all appears to be predicated on the highly dubious assumption that there is, for some meaningful sense of the word, a separate and identifiable "market" for each of those individual bits of functionality that now make up every remotely mainstream, end-user-oriented OS available.
I'd rather make their bundling a non-issue by removing their monopoly power than try to micro-manage things.
Strange, because you seem to want to do a lot of "micro managing" as to what features Windows is and isn't allowed to have. Although at least the theme is pretty consistent - if it's anything that end users might find vaguely useful, Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to include it in Windows.
Seems to me you favour making Windows basically useless on its own, without large amounts of third-party effort (and money) put in to make it something people might be interested in actually using. I'd say that's clearly trying to punish those who choose to use Windows, be they end users or OEMs.
I don't think Apple could build a cheap PC at the price that Dell can, but I also don't think Dell could build something like the iMac for the same cost as Apple does.
Of course they could.
But who would buy it ?
To see what windows I have open using the taskbar in Windows XP I have to click one of the taskbar buttons to pop up a list of windows belonging to a programme. The alternative - each window having a button in the taskbar - means that the buttons are so narrow I haven't got a clue what they represent.
Which is why you enlarge it to two (or more) levels if you're a heavy multitasker.
The taskbar is fine if you only have a few windows open (maybe less than 6 or 7 depending on your monitor) but is a dismal failure for identifying open windows at a glance if you actually have a few open windows.
The Taskbar works well at this with a *verY* minor configuration change. The Dock, OTOH, is a UI train wreck from just about every angle, but especially as a task switching device. That's why Apple came up with Expose - to reduce the Dock to little more than a flashy program launcher (something it's tolerably good at).
Microsoft has made it that way and OEMs aren't really pushing for anything different since each new iteration of Windows usually requires new hardware.
Rubbish. People typically "upgrade" to a new version by buying a new machine, but this is a very different thing to it _requiring_ a new machine. Each new version of Windows is generally baseline usable on what would have been a mid-range to high-end PC 5-6 years earlier.
Jumping Jesus on a pogostick! drsmithy agrees with something I posted! Surely the end is nigh. :)
That's because you've started making suggestions that aren't just about punishing people who choose to use Windows :).
Yes, but doing that will break other things.
No, it won't.
There's no reason it couldn't be implemented with standard AJAX-type code.
Yes, there is - the only reason a business cares about - reimplementation would be a major expense for next to zero benefit.