That Vista performance is slower is just common sense. XP performance is slower than W2K. I recently installed (for gads knows what reason) NT 4.0 on an old '486 Toshiba Laptop with 32M of RAM. It ran pretty decently on that laptop. Until I installed NT4 Service Pack 6, which bogged it waaay down for some reason that I'm sure was well documented a decade or so back.
This means nothing. An older Linux kernel will also run far better on older hardware than newer.
Try modern hardware - a quad-core machine with 4G of RAM and put it under heavy load. 2000 will be (much) better than NT4, XP will be better than Windows 2000 and Vista will be better than XP. *That* is "common sense". If you were developing an OS today, why would you bother optimising for a hardware platform any less powerful than 2 CPU cores and a couple of gigabyte of RAM ?
I must admit I have not heard such a statement from anybody that does a great deal of work with computers and do not expect to. On anything other than an extremely superficial level there are many differences.
For example ? What major, relevant architectural features are not found in all of the major OSes (and haven't been for the better part of a decade) ?
I hate to use the "you must be new here" line but you have been greatly misled by somebody about this. For a variety of reasons the security model for Windows NT was originally lax and it did not matter a great deal initially. Windows NT has improved a great deal with respect to security since it's first release and more improvements will be added.
The security model of NT has remained basically unchanged since 1993. There are certainly a few minor implementation and configuration details that have been improved (eg: running services as unprivileged users, UAC) but in the last ~15 years the same changes have happened on unix platforms to basically the same degree.
And, of course, let's not forget the how "lax" the security model of traditional unix is.
Another little insult added on the end.
It's not an insult - that would imply I made it in an attempt to offend - it's an observation of someone's mental state given the circumstances. I fail to see why I should refrain from calling someone acting foolishly, a fool.
At least you are not going for the bullying questioning of people's mathematical ability etc as before.
Again, simply an observation, not "bullying". Unless you can come up with some reason why that observation was incorrect, and even if all other variables were equal, one wouldn't expect to see compromises of Windows machines outnumbering Linux machines approximatley 40:1 ?
That would work against people with little confidence who have some degree of respect for you I suspect - do you try it a lot? Please argue the thing on it's merits instead of insults.
I try to "argue the thing on its merits", but as is typical with people like you, my arguments are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant (just as you have in this thread), in favour of a) biased, unsupported and poorly reasoned assertions and b) irrelevant, cherry-picked, frequently outdated anecdotes.
If you're so keen to "argue the merits", try an come up with some good reasons as to why marketshare should not be considered a significant factor. I've already used several examples as to how it is.
I had admin priviledges, and I got UAC prompts when I renamed files that I had created myself. In one case it prompted me before I had even finished typing the new file name. I got prompted pretty much once every minute before I finally figured out how to disable UAC.
You are either lying, or have _seriously_ b0rked your Windows install.
How could you not? There has been a LOT of coverage about what people don't like about it.
Indeed there has. Unfortunately most of that "coverage" is either made-up by people who have never actually used Vista, or is blatantly false. To use a few examples:
* "High hardware requirements" -> Vista runs quite usably on my ~6 year old P3 (with modest and cheap upgrades) and on a ~3 year old Precision M60 laptop. Certainly better than OS X runs on equivalently aged Macs.
* "DRM" -> irrelevant and inactive unless you're using DRM-encumbered media, in which case you're limited by the same restrictions that all players have (be they software or appliance).
* "UAC prompts" -> I think I see maybe one of these a week (can't actually remember the last one), and never in an unexpected fashion, or one that doesn't also happen in OS X or Linux.
* "The UI has changed" -> the changes are cosmetic. The fundamental UI features and concepts (widgets, task switching and windows management models, program launching, etc) remain the same as they were in *Windows 95*.
The sheer volume of FUD spewing out of the anti-Microsoft brigade about Vista is staggering - I was expecting it to be bad, but it really has been something else. It makes Microsoft's comments about Linux look like accurate, respectful, constructive criticism.
UAC prompts you for virtually everything. Renaming, deleting and moving files will prompt you no less than two times.
Only if you are modifying files for which you don't have permissions. Which puts you well and truly into the "tinkerers" group and, further, is to be expected.
Having finally gotten around to installing Vista on an old Precision M60 laptop to see what all the fuss was about, I see maybe one UAC prompt a week - and I've yet to see one without reason, or that I wouldn't expect to see the equivalent of in OS X or Linux.
Umm...no. Your interpretation, while literal, doesn't parse because applications have neither traditions nor opinions on safety, nor do they write themselves. When you expand the original sentence's subject appropriately, it reads like this:
And when you expand my sentence appropriately, you get:
It's pretty clear from context that the implication is other applications [' developers] consider those prefixes as "traditionally safe", and not that [the average] Microsoft [developer] does.
At that point, it reads more like this: "The application developers I know traditionally consider the protocols mailto: and http: to be "safe", and therefore don't need to bother sanitizing the URIs before foisting the heavy lifting off on ShellExecute()." In that context it's clearly the blind presumption of safety on the part of the developers that's the real problem.
More like "the application developers we have experience in dealing with - having expended massive amounts of our resources over the last 2+ decades to rectify or work around their mistakes - traditionally consider the protocols mailto: and http: to be "safe" and therefore don't need to bother sanitizing the URIs before foisting the heavy lifting off on ShellExecute(). These are the same idiots who do thing like try and store runtime data in system directories." This is especially true when you consider that "Chen" probably refers to Raymond Chen, who's been helping Windows work around developer stupidity for a very long time.
And I'm the one being accused of being a fool blinded by zealotry?
Yes. Because apparently you think, despite all contemporary OSes being basically equivalent in terms of capabilities and features - marketshare has no influence on a product's "security".
Some of us have used it a lot and read hundreds of the MS white papers to get around problems you know, we still use it in situations where it makes sense. It was good enough for what it did because it was a cheap OS running on cheap hardware however only MS marketing people furthur enhanced by drugs would be making that sort of claim in anything other than ignorance.
Windows NT, since day 1, has had a vastly more capable security infrastructure than standard UNIX. It was only with the advent of things like SELinux, that this changed.
Remember that all else is not equal.
I am well aware of this. Hence the reason I *specifically stated* that assumption to get across the point that even in an unrealistic scenario offering an advantage (in the context of actual reality) to Windows, you would still expect it to have a vastly higher rate of compromise simply because of the sheer numerical difference in machines. This was in reponse to your implication that such a result would be due to Windows being a "soft target".
A simplistic comparison of numbers is hardly going to get you anywhere because the mechanisim is not randomly attacking anything and getting the same sort of success rate for everything. It would be nice is all else was equal and the Microsoft products are steadily improving but they are still the soft target that appears to be chosen by preference - even most of the dictionary attacks via ssh that I see are attempting to log on as "Administrator". Attacks are squarely aimed at MS machines and you can tell because the differences between systems are such that different methods would have to be used. Other systems have other vunerablities and can still be insecure, but malware is a MS Windows problem.
Your flawed assumption is that Windows is chosen purely - or even primarily - because it is a "soft target" from a technical perspective, and not because of any of the numerous factors related directly to marketshare. *You* are the one exercising a "simplistic analysis" (based on outdated rhetoric, judging by the stereotypical Apache vs IIS example).
Back to the ISS and apache thing: "cherrypicking an atypical example from a tiny subset of the market" was the quote above. You do realise that you are reading this on the internet? There are a lot of web servers out there so we are talking about an enormous sample size.
If you think webservers make up a meaningful proportion of internet-connected computers, you're delusional. Further, by their nature (managed servers usually maintained by knowledgable individuals, monitored for abnormal behaviour, regularly updated - although these apply much more to Apache than IIS, hence raising another inherent disadvantage to it, even if the comparison was valid) they represent an atypical example of the average internet-connected machine.
When ISS was new it was attacked a lot despite having almost zero market share - it was attacked due to being a soft target in comparison to apache. That should illustrate what I mean about market share being of little relevance in the case of malware and a very simplisitic way of looking at things.
All it illustrates is your bias and flawed analytical skills. 4-5+ years ago IIS (<6) was available on a platform that covered ~90% of the market, was frequently installed without need by amateurs with no idea how to configure or maintain it, on unmanaged (or poorly managed) machines that saw little in the way even of basic maintenance, let alone proactive security-conscious configuration. Contrast this to Apache, which was running on ca. 2003 or earlier Linux distributions (already the bar is raised significantly higher) or some other unix variant (bar is rai
And that's where my co-workers heard the cry of "You dumb motherfuckers".
Maybe you should have kept reading (or you're just quoting out of context to sensationalise):
For traditionally "safe" protocols like mailto: or http: applications often just verify the prefix and then choose to call into the Windows shell32 function ShellExecute() to handle it.
And that's where my co-workers heard the cry of "You dumb motherfuckers".
It's pretty clear from context that the implication is other applications consider those prefixes as "traditionally safe", and not that Microsoft does.
A common misconception but easily corrected by paying attention.
Anyone who doesn't think market share is a significant contributor to a product's "security record", is a fool blinded by zealotry. There are so many critical aspects of "security" that are related to market share, it's simply an inescapable factor.
The Apache vs Microsoft ISS example where market share is skewed in the opposite direction shows the market share thing is either a feeble excuse or complete and utter marketing bullshit.
Those "paying attention" will notice that a) IIS has had better "security" for some time now and b) IIS and Apache have similar levels of marketshare. Even before then, cherrypicking an atypical example from a tiny subset of the market, does not make for a compelling argument (neither for nor against) in the general case. The plural of anecdote is not data.
Furthurmore you HAVE to bring technical aspects into the discussion for it to be anything other than worthless fortunetelling.
From a technical perspective, all the major platforms have been basically equivalent for over half a decade now (and before that, Windows NT was - "technically speaking" - streets ahead of unix variants, ironically refuting the whole "bad design" argument in one fell swoop). Further, the single biggest influence on security - users - is "non-technical".
Finally, your "marketshare is irrelevant" argument completely misses the point I was making - that even if all else was equal (ie: in any given situation, a Linux machine and a Windows machine had exactly the same probability of being compromised) you still expect to have "dozens" more Windows machines compromised than Linux machines, because they outnumber them ca. 40 to 1. Here, I'll even make a car analogy to emphasise the point; There are 100 identical cars in a garage. Ninety of them are owned by Caucasians, six by Asians, three by Negros and one by an Indian. Which ethnicity do you expect have the largest number of cars stolen from them ? Do you believe this is due to racism or statistics ?
Or, to put it another way, if you believe Windows - today - should have anything close to as "good" a "security record" as Linux, you fail at basic logic, reasoning and maths.
In the time they take to get a poorly secured *nix box they could have taken over dozens of badly set up MS Windows boxes.
That's to be expected. Given the market share disparity, even if every other factor was equivalent [0], you would still expect to see at least ca. 40:1 "pwnership ratio".
[0] And they're not. Without even bringing technical aspects into the discussion, Windows is already at a serious disadvantage to Linux in terms of "security" because if its user demographic.
This would be true if they produced a well formatted document, but usually they do not.
No, you are creating a false dichotomy. The choices are not "a well formatted document" or "a badly formatted document", they are "a formatted document of some description" and "nothing".
If you expect people to produce a well formatted document, the best way to do ensure they do is making sure they are correctly trained in that piece of software and what consitutes a decent document. It is certainly not by giving a very complicated tool to an untrained monkey and expecting them to produce something decent.
I am not disputing this. What I am disputing is your implication that only being able to produce a badly formatted document is worse than not being able to produce one at all.
Only someone who has never seen a document with a carriage return at the end of every line instead of word wrap would say this. Once you have been presented with such a document and asked to insert a single word into the first paragraph you will understand that the presence of WYSIWYG tools can be an impediment.
I have been confronted with many such documents. Pagination via carriage returns. Tables created with spaces and manually inserted (or even hand-drawn later) lines. Etc. This does not change my opinion - WYSIWYG is not an "impediment" when it enables someone to produce a document they would otherwise not have been able to produce at all, just because they don't do it "the right way".
You sound just like all the other elitists lamenting about how much it sucks now you don't need years of study and experience to be competent with a computer.
Oh, not you as well. There's absolutely nothing wrong with text file configuration. There's a whole world of things wrong with a pointy-clicky GUI interface to a config in the registry when there's no other way to edit it.
There are lots of measurable, demonstrable things wrong with "text file configuration". Most of the complaints about "a pointy-clicky GUI interface to a config in the registry", however, boil down to taste and inertia.
How do you search a gui interface?
Ideally, you don't because it's well designed. However, for a reasonable example, look at OS X's System Preferences.
How do you generate a gui config?
You dump it to a file and reload it. Or you push it out to clients from a central location.
How can you minimalise a gui config to the bare essentials?
Same way you do with "text files" - turn everything off you don't need.
How do you upload/download a config and email it to someone?
Dump it to a file. Tell them which settings to change.
How do you edit the config without having to run remote desktop client?
Running a "remote desktop client" is conceptually identical to SSHing into a machine and firing up vi, so I don't really see how this is a criticism. However, you avoid doing that by having management tools that push configurations out over the network.
And of course, with clicky configs, if they haven't provided an option for something, then you can't do it. Sorry, "computer says no".
Indeed. Just like when there's no option to do it in the "text file configuration".
Before you reply, bear in mind Compiz was around months before Vista.
Wow. Months you say ? I bet right up until a few execs at Microsoft saw that Youtube video they were still planning to have good old GDI and the Windows XP GUI in Vista, but then they decided to reimplement the whole display subsystem and UI just a few "months" before release.
Fuck. Do you people who say "well some OSS hackers released a barely functional alpha of feature X, a few minutes/hours/days/weeks/months before anyone else so obviously the only reason platforms B, C and D have a stable, functional, designed version of feature X today, minutes/hours/days/weeks/months later is because of OSS platform A" expend even a few seconds thought to consider how long these things take to design and implement ? (Hint: it's more into the "6 months to a couple of years" timescale.)
</RANT>
(Not to mention OS X had its Quartz Extreme before compiz, as did the Vista/Longhorn Betas/Alphas from ca. 2003 - and that's not considering when desktop compositing on "the next version of Windows" was first being touted, which predated even Apple's announcement of same.)
The whole idea of a WYSIWYG text editor was a novel idea (no pun intended) but you only need to look at why no professional web dev uses dreamweaver in layout mode to understand why it is a failure in the long term. The results are sloppy. You end up with a document full of bloated markup that does not actually change what the page looks like, instead it just contains loads of elements that countermand each other.
It's not a failure at all. It allows people who would not otherwise be able to produce even a slightly well-formatted document, do so. For those who are genuinely interested in "proper" layout procedures - and have the discipline and knowledge to use them - the ability to do so is not impeded by the existence of WYSIWYG tools.
The only way WYSIWYG is a "failure" is if you subscribe to the view that "we are worse off now that more people can be productive".
I measure human progress in how many things a computer can do for its user at once, and for a given configuration of paid-for hardware, less RAM use per program means more progress.
I guess I must be unclear on what ReadyBoost is, then. From MS's page it sure sounds like "priority swap to USB", only they try to couche the whole thing in ambiguity. What is it, then, if not this?
Essentially, it's a DIY hybrid hard disk - take normal hard disk, add thumbdrive and ReadyBoost -> most of the benefits of a hybrid drive. It has nothing to do with swap (apart from possibly improving swapping performance by caching).
With that said, the ReadyBoost web page linked above doesn't explain this very well - but that's probably because it's trying to present what is a fairly complicated concept to non-technical users. The Wikipedia page is better and there's almost certainly detailed information in MSDN somewhere.
I don't really care either way about Apple. I am merely pointing out that their server hardware is poor value unless you happen to need OS X Server.
[...] but your pricing analysis isn't quite on par with these analysts.
My "pricing analysis" is trivial for anyone with a web browser and internet access to reproduce. Further, it's up to day with current pricing, something the one you are quoting clearly isn't. In fact it is from over a year ago.. Not to mention some obvious bias (calling a low-end $180 consumer video card "comparable" to a $1500 professional workstation video card) calls the whole thing into question.
Yes, Dell has special offers and does offer 3 yr support. Have you ever seen an Xserve, I have seen both and it's very clear to me that Apple makes better hardware.
Yes, I have seen both, numerous times. Dell and Apple are getting their components from the same place. However much you might be impressed with Apple's shiny fit and finish, it certainly doesn't make up for a 30% - 300% price differential, especially when you're talking about hardware that will spend 99% of its lifetime stuffed into a rack.
Users rate Apples service higher than any hardware mfg., even Dell (which has been falling in the rankings)
Don't conflate budget desktop support with enterprise server hardware support. Dell's server support is *excellent*.
Want lower end servers or more processors, check out Sun (JAVA), they rock and are priced better than Dell too.
Not from what I can see (although they *are* a much better value proposition than Apple's Xserve because they've got (sometimes significant) additional features over Dell's hardware to justify the higher cost).
I don't believe there is some threshold of "reasonableness" in which other men become your slaves. For example, I can't say, "I was born without any arms and legs, making it unreasonable for me to take care of myself. Therefore, it is moral for me to ask society to force you, as a non-handicapped human being, to support me." No man owes you anything. If a man does offer you a good or service, for any price, be grateful for it. The fact that you find it unreasonable to refuse his offer shows how grateful you should be to him.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, or how it is relevant, but *my* point is that in many cases, the frequently heard retort of "deal with it, or go somewhere else" (or variations thereof, like yours) ignores that "leaving" is often not a reasonable course of action to take.
Further, it is not at all unreasonable to expect people not to be arseholes when dealing with them. That it frequently takes government regulation to make this a reality, is a sad reflection on the attitudes prevalent in business, not on the consumers who request that the regulation be imposed.
Why?
Because you simply may not be able to access that resource without going via that CEO or another he colludes with.
The CEO owes me nothing.
On the contrary, he owes everyone something because it is only through government legislation and law enforcement services that he is able to operate fearlessly behind the shield of incorporation, rather than actually having to take responsibility for his actions.
He's going to run his company in order to maximize profit; in other words, to get customers to pay him as much as possible. If he is able to make more profit by providing an inferior service, then that must be because the customers are willing to pay more for an inferior service, and therefore, have only themselves to blame. On the other hand, if the majority of customers are happy with his service, but you are not, then that is your problem.
Or, alternatively, they have no choice because that CEO - or the other CEOs he influences - don't offer any alternatives. Or they don't know about alternatives because the half a dozen guys that CEO has dinner with every other Tuesday own all the mainstream media outlets and don't publish any negative information about his services (and he, in return, gives their services priorities over any competitors).
If I build my own house, instead of moving into someone else's, is that needless duplication?
No. Nor is the comparison valid. There is value in separate housing, because different people have different needs. There is no value in (to use a relevant example) two lines of fibre optic cable lying next to each other transferring the same bits over them when one could do the same job.
You see this as wasteful because you don't like the way one of those individuals chooses to control his good. But why is your opinion of how the good should be controlled more important than his?
No, I see it as wasteful because it uses twice as many physical resources to provide exactly the same goods and services for no reason other than a bad attitude. Sorry, but physics trumps economics.
Also, don't forget that if company A controls a good in way that his customer B does not like, and B decides to duplicate that good, A will be pressured to give into B's demands. But if the government prevents B from duplicating that good (because it would be "wasteful"), then A has nothing to fear, and very little reason to give into B's demands.
Indeed. Which is why critical infrastructure and utilities should be regulated, at the very least, if not wholely government-owned. Thus preventing A from being unreasonable and allowing B to offer his services.
In contrast, a company must acquire its money by providing goods and services, and a company can not use violence or violent threats to stop competition. A company can only oppress you to the extent that you allow yourself to be oppressed.
This theory works up until the point where avoiding that company's products is a reasonable thing to do. In many cases, that isn't true.
Another poster mentioned that it's dangerous to allow a random CEO to price a provider out of the market. Yes, a CEO exercising his right to control his company's property on behalf of the shareholders is dangerous to your "freedom" to dictate to that company how they will use their property. However, I don't believe in your so-called freedom.
When that CEO and the rest of his regular golfing foursome control 99% - 100% of the avenues you have to access a particular good or service, then you probably should start caring about "so-called freedom".
Build your own damn network.
Needlessly duplicating that sort of infrastructure is a grossly wasteful and inefficient exercise.
True, but you are paying for that service. Shouldn't you expect to get what you're paying for? Not what the highest bidder is offering for the service provider to give you.
You do get what you pay for. So does the service provider on the other end.
"You should get what you pay for" is a pretty nonsensical argument. Because service providers paying to get their traffic prioritised (or not de-prioritised) is a fairly standard example of exactly that.
Why should the service companies be able to charge on both ends for a service that they are already providing to paying customers?
Same reason they can now. They have a resource that various parties want to access. According to free market ideology, they should be able to charge both parties as much as they are willing to pay.
Yes, thereabouts (I'd personally peg it at 2001-2002). Computers stopped getting twice as fast every 12-15 months right around that time. We stopped needing to replace machines every 3 years (a 386 was a lot faster then a 286 and the 486 was a big step up as well) because a 3 year old machine was no longer 1/4 to 1/8 the speed of a new one.
Personally, I think it has more to do with software maturity. Until ca. 2000, software - particularly Windows - was increasing in capability (and subsequently hardware requirements) in significant increments. That basically stopped in 2000/2001 - even Vista's only real hardware requirement above and beyond what was available in 2000/2001 is a $30 video card.
The story on Macintosh is a bit different, of course, because of relatively less powerful/more expensive hardware (for most of the last decade or so) and with OS X, a relatively more resource-intensive OS (at least until the release of Vista). Apple were ~5 years late to their "next generation OS" after a few false starts and subsequently leapfrogged Windows in a few areas, but both Vista and OS X have ended up in basically the same spot as of 2007.
The machines that we've been ordering for the office over the past year are dual-core, 2GB RAM, RAID1 hard drives running WinXP. We fully expect them to last at least 7 years (and possibly 10 years) before they need to be replaced. If we do upgrade them it will be to add one more gigabyte of RAM (to get to 3GB) and to add 22" 1680x1050 LCD displays.
Sounds quite reasonable. It's likely hardware failures will kill these machines long before lack of usefulness does.
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That Vista performance is slower is just common sense. XP performance is slower than W2K. I recently installed (for gads knows what reason) NT 4.0 on an old '486 Toshiba Laptop with 32M of RAM. It ran pretty decently on that laptop. Until I installed NT4 Service Pack 6, which bogged it waaay down for some reason that I'm sure was well documented a decade or so back.
This means nothing. An older Linux kernel will also run far better on older hardware than newer.
Try modern hardware - a quad-core machine with 4G of RAM and put it under heavy load. 2000 will be (much) better than NT4, XP will be better than Windows 2000 and Vista will be better than XP. *That* is "common sense". If you were developing an OS today, why would you bother optimising for a hardware platform any less powerful than 2 CPU cores and a couple of gigabyte of RAM ?
I must admit I have not heard such a statement from anybody that does a great deal of work with computers and do not expect to. On anything other than an extremely superficial level there are many differences.
For example ? What major, relevant architectural features are not found in all of the major OSes (and haven't been for the better part of a decade) ?
I hate to use the "you must be new here" line but you have been greatly misled by somebody about this. For a variety of reasons the security model for Windows NT was originally lax and it did not matter a great deal initially. Windows NT has improved a great deal with respect to security since it's first release and more improvements will be added.
The security model of NT has remained basically unchanged since 1993. There are certainly a few minor implementation and configuration details that have been improved (eg: running services as unprivileged users, UAC) but in the last ~15 years the same changes have happened on unix platforms to basically the same degree.
And, of course, let's not forget the how "lax" the security model of traditional unix is.
Another little insult added on the end.
It's not an insult - that would imply I made it in an attempt to offend - it's an observation of someone's mental state given the circumstances. I fail to see why I should refrain from calling someone acting foolishly, a fool.
At least you are not going for the bullying questioning of people's mathematical ability etc as before.
Again, simply an observation, not "bullying". Unless you can come up with some reason why that observation was incorrect, and even if all other variables were equal, one wouldn't expect to see compromises of Windows machines outnumbering Linux machines approximatley 40:1 ?
That would work against people with little confidence who have some degree of respect for you I suspect - do you try it a lot? Please argue the thing on it's merits instead of insults.
I try to "argue the thing on its merits", but as is typical with people like you, my arguments are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant (just as you have in this thread), in favour of a) biased, unsupported and poorly reasoned assertions and b) irrelevant, cherry-picked, frequently outdated anecdotes.
If you're so keen to "argue the merits", try an come up with some good reasons as to why marketshare should not be considered a significant factor. I've already used several examples as to how it is.
I had admin priviledges, and I got UAC prompts when I renamed files that I had created myself. In one case it prompted me before I had even finished typing the new file name. I got prompted pretty much once every minute before I finally figured out how to disable UAC.
You are either lying, or have _seriously_ b0rked your Windows install.
well, some of the features you mentionned werent there at launch (for example the firewall).
Yes, it was.
How could you not? There has been a LOT of coverage about what people don't like about it.
Indeed there has. Unfortunately most of that "coverage" is either made-up by people who have never actually used Vista, or is blatantly false. To use a few examples:
* "High hardware requirements" -> Vista runs quite usably on my ~6 year old P3 (with modest and cheap upgrades) and on a ~3 year old Precision M60 laptop. Certainly better than OS X runs on equivalently aged Macs.
* "DRM" -> irrelevant and inactive unless you're using DRM-encumbered media, in which case you're limited by the same restrictions that all players have (be they software or appliance).
* "UAC prompts" -> I think I see maybe one of these a week (can't actually remember the last one), and never in an unexpected fashion, or one that doesn't also happen in OS X or Linux.
* "The UI has changed" -> the changes are cosmetic. The fundamental UI features and concepts (widgets, task switching and windows management models, program launching, etc) remain the same as they were in *Windows 95*.
The sheer volume of FUD spewing out of the anti-Microsoft brigade about Vista is staggering - I was expecting it to be bad, but it really has been something else. It makes Microsoft's comments about Linux look like accurate, respectful, constructive criticism.
UAC prompts you for virtually everything. Renaming, deleting and moving files will prompt you no less than two times.
Only if you are modifying files for which you don't have permissions. Which puts you well and truly into the "tinkerers" group and, further, is to be expected.
Having finally gotten around to installing Vista on an old Precision M60 laptop to see what all the fuss was about, I see maybe one UAC prompt a week - and I've yet to see one without reason, or that I wouldn't expect to see the equivalent of in OS X or Linux.
Umm...no. Your interpretation, while literal, doesn't parse because applications have neither traditions nor opinions on safety, nor do they write themselves. When you expand the original sentence's subject appropriately, it reads like this:
And when you expand my sentence appropriately, you get:
At that point, it reads more like this: "The application developers I know traditionally consider the protocols mailto: and http: to be "safe", and therefore don't need to bother sanitizing the URIs before foisting the heavy lifting off on ShellExecute()." In that context it's clearly the blind presumption of safety on the part of the developers that's the real problem.
More like "the application developers we have experience in dealing with - having expended massive amounts of our resources over the last 2+ decades to rectify or work around their mistakes - traditionally consider the protocols mailto: and http: to be "safe" and therefore don't need to bother sanitizing the URIs before foisting the heavy lifting off on ShellExecute(). These are the same idiots who do thing like try and store runtime data in system directories." This is especially true when you consider that "Chen" probably refers to Raymond Chen, who's been helping Windows work around developer stupidity for a very long time.
And I'm the one being accused of being a fool blinded by zealotry?
Yes. Because apparently you think, despite all contemporary OSes being basically equivalent in terms of capabilities and features - marketshare has no influence on a product's "security".
Some of us have used it a lot and read hundreds of the MS white papers to get around problems you know, we still use it in situations where it makes sense. It was good enough for what it did because it was a cheap OS running on cheap hardware however only MS marketing people furthur enhanced by drugs would be making that sort of claim in anything other than ignorance.
Windows NT, since day 1, has had a vastly more capable security infrastructure than standard UNIX. It was only with the advent of things like SELinux, that this changed.
Remember that all else is not equal.
I am well aware of this. Hence the reason I *specifically stated* that assumption to get across the point that even in an unrealistic scenario offering an advantage (in the context of actual reality) to Windows, you would still expect it to have a vastly higher rate of compromise simply because of the sheer numerical difference in machines. This was in reponse to your implication that such a result would be due to Windows being a "soft target".
A simplistic comparison of numbers is hardly going to get you anywhere because the mechanisim is not randomly attacking anything and getting the same sort of success rate for everything. It would be nice is all else was equal and the Microsoft products are steadily improving but they are still the soft target that appears to be chosen by preference - even most of the dictionary attacks via ssh that I see are attempting to log on as "Administrator". Attacks are squarely aimed at MS machines and you can tell because the differences between systems are such that different methods would have to be used. Other systems have other vunerablities and can still be insecure, but malware is a MS Windows problem.
Your flawed assumption is that Windows is chosen purely - or even primarily - because it is a "soft target" from a technical perspective, and not because of any of the numerous factors related directly to marketshare. *You* are the one exercising a "simplistic analysis" (based on outdated rhetoric, judging by the stereotypical Apache vs IIS example).
Back to the ISS and apache thing: "cherrypicking an atypical example from a tiny subset of the market" was the quote above. You do realise that you are reading this on the internet? There are a lot of web servers out there so we are talking about an enormous sample size.
If you think webservers make up a meaningful proportion of internet-connected computers, you're delusional. Further, by their nature (managed servers usually maintained by knowledgable individuals, monitored for abnormal behaviour, regularly updated - although these apply much more to Apache than IIS, hence raising another inherent disadvantage to it, even if the comparison was valid) they represent an atypical example of the average internet-connected machine.
When ISS was new it was attacked a lot despite having almost zero market share - it was attacked due to being a soft target in comparison to apache. That should illustrate what I mean about market share being of little relevance in the case of malware and a very simplisitic way of looking at things.
All it illustrates is your bias and flawed analytical skills. 4-5+ years ago IIS (<6) was available on a platform that covered ~90% of the market, was frequently installed without need by amateurs with no idea how to configure or maintain it, on unmanaged (or poorly managed) machines that saw little in the way even of basic maintenance, let alone proactive security-conscious configuration. Contrast this to Apache, which was running on ca. 2003 or earlier Linux distributions (already the bar is raised significantly higher) or some other unix variant (bar is rai
I want to know why someone from India isn't already an Asian.
Because I was using it in the context of ethnicity, not what continent they were born on.
Or is 'Indian' to be taken in the same context as 'Negro'?
Uh, not sure what context you're inferring...
And that's where my co-workers heard the cry of "You dumb motherfuckers".
Maybe you should have kept reading (or you're just quoting out of context to sensationalise):
And that's where my co-workers heard the cry of "You dumb motherfuckers".
It's pretty clear from context that the implication is other applications consider those prefixes as "traditionally safe", and not that Microsoft does.
A common misconception but easily corrected by paying attention.
Anyone who doesn't think market share is a significant contributor to a product's "security record", is a fool blinded by zealotry. There are so many critical aspects of "security" that are related to market share, it's simply an inescapable factor.
The Apache vs Microsoft ISS example where market share is skewed in the opposite direction shows the market share thing is either a feeble excuse or complete and utter marketing bullshit.
Those "paying attention" will notice that a) IIS has had better "security" for some time now and b) IIS and Apache have similar levels of marketshare. Even before then, cherrypicking an atypical example from a tiny subset of the market, does not make for a compelling argument (neither for nor against) in the general case. The plural of anecdote is not data.
Furthurmore you HAVE to bring technical aspects into the discussion for it to be anything other than worthless fortunetelling.
From a technical perspective, all the major platforms have been basically equivalent for over half a decade now (and before that, Windows NT was - "technically speaking" - streets ahead of unix variants, ironically refuting the whole "bad design" argument in one fell swoop). Further, the single biggest influence on security - users - is "non-technical".
Finally, your "marketshare is irrelevant" argument completely misses the point I was making - that even if all else was equal (ie: in any given situation, a Linux machine and a Windows machine had exactly the same probability of being compromised) you still expect to have "dozens" more Windows machines compromised than Linux machines, because they outnumber them ca. 40 to 1. Here, I'll even make a car analogy to emphasise the point; There are 100 identical cars in a garage. Ninety of them are owned by Caucasians, six by Asians, three by Negros and one by an Indian. Which ethnicity do you expect have the largest number of cars stolen from them ? Do you believe this is due to racism or statistics ?
Or, to put it another way, if you believe Windows - today - should have anything close to as "good" a "security record" as Linux, you fail at basic logic, reasoning and maths.
In the time they take to get a poorly secured *nix box they could have taken over dozens of badly set up MS Windows boxes.
That's to be expected. Given the market share disparity, even if every other factor was equivalent [0], you would still expect to see at least ca. 40:1 "pwnership ratio".
[0] And they're not. Without even bringing technical aspects into the discussion, Windows is already at a serious disadvantage to Linux in terms of "security" because if its user demographic.
6. You (or anyone else) can't (easily) keep your own [searchable] archive of postings.
This would be true if they produced a well formatted document, but usually they do not.
No, you are creating a false dichotomy. The choices are not "a well formatted document" or "a badly formatted document", they are "a formatted document of some description" and "nothing".
If you expect people to produce a well formatted document, the best way to do ensure they do is making sure they are correctly trained in that piece of software and what consitutes a decent document. It is certainly not by giving a very complicated tool to an untrained monkey and expecting them to produce something decent.
I am not disputing this. What I am disputing is your implication that only being able to produce a badly formatted document is worse than not being able to produce one at all.
Only someone who has never seen a document with a carriage return at the end of every line instead of word wrap would say this. Once you have been presented with such a document and asked to insert a single word into the first paragraph you will understand that the presence of WYSIWYG tools can be an impediment.
I have been confronted with many such documents. Pagination via carriage returns. Tables created with spaces and manually inserted (or even hand-drawn later) lines. Etc. This does not change my opinion - WYSIWYG is not an "impediment" when it enables someone to produce a document they would otherwise not have been able to produce at all, just because they don't do it "the right way".
You sound just like all the other elitists lamenting about how much it sucks now you don't need years of study and experience to be competent with a computer.
Oh, not you as well. There's absolutely nothing wrong with text file configuration. There's a whole world of things wrong with a pointy-clicky GUI interface to a config in the registry when there's no other way to edit it.
There are lots of measurable, demonstrable things wrong with "text file configuration". Most of the complaints about "a pointy-clicky GUI interface to a config in the registry", however, boil down to taste and inertia.
How do you search a gui interface?
Ideally, you don't because it's well designed. However, for a reasonable example, look at OS X's System Preferences.
How do you generate a gui config?
You dump it to a file and reload it. Or you push it out to clients from a central location.
How can you minimalise a gui config to the bare essentials?
Same way you do with "text files" - turn everything off you don't need.
How do you upload/download a config and email it to someone?
Dump it to a file. Tell them which settings to change.
How do you edit the config without having to run remote desktop client?
Running a "remote desktop client" is conceptually identical to SSHing into a machine and firing up vi, so I don't really see how this is a criticism. However, you avoid doing that by having management tools that push configurations out over the network.
And of course, with clicky configs, if they haven't provided an option for something, then you can't do it. Sorry, "computer says no".
Indeed. Just like when there's no option to do it in the "text file configuration".
Before you reply, bear in mind Compiz was around months before Vista.
Wow. Months you say ? I bet right up until a few execs at Microsoft saw that Youtube video they were still planning to have good old GDI and the Windows XP GUI in Vista, but then they decided to reimplement the whole display subsystem and UI just a few "months" before release.
Fuck. Do you people who say "well some OSS hackers released a barely functional alpha of feature X, a few minutes/hours/days/weeks/months before anyone else so obviously the only reason platforms B, C and D have a stable, functional, designed version of feature X today, minutes/hours/days/weeks/months later is because of OSS platform A" expend even a few seconds thought to consider how long these things take to design and implement ? (Hint: it's more into the "6 months to a couple of years" timescale.)
</RANT>
(Not to mention OS X had its Quartz Extreme before compiz, as did the Vista/Longhorn Betas/Alphas from ca. 2003 - and that's not considering when desktop compositing on "the next version of Windows" was first being touted, which predated even Apple's announcement of same.)
The whole idea of a WYSIWYG text editor was a novel idea (no pun intended) but you only need to look at why no professional web dev uses dreamweaver in layout mode to understand why it is a failure in the long term. The results are sloppy. You end up with a document full of bloated markup that does not actually change what the page looks like, instead it just contains loads of elements that countermand each other.
It's not a failure at all. It allows people who would not otherwise be able to produce even a slightly well-formatted document, do so. For those who are genuinely interested in "proper" layout procedures - and have the discipline and knowledge to use them - the ability to do so is not impeded by the existence of WYSIWYG tools.
The only way WYSIWYG is a "failure" is if you subscribe to the view that "we are worse off now that more people can be productive".
I measure human progress in how many things a computer can do for its user at once, and for a given configuration of paid-for hardware, less RAM use per program means more progress.
Your reasoning is broken.
I guess I must be unclear on what ReadyBoost is, then. From MS's page it sure sounds like "priority swap to USB", only they try to couche the whole thing in ambiguity. What is it, then, if not this?
Essentially, it's a DIY hybrid hard disk - take normal hard disk, add thumbdrive and ReadyBoost -> most of the benefits of a hybrid drive. It has nothing to do with swap (apart from possibly improving swapping performance by caching).
With that said, the ReadyBoost web page linked above doesn't explain this very well - but that's probably because it's trying to present what is a fairly complicated concept to non-technical users. The Wikipedia page is better and there's almost certainly detailed information in MSDN somewhere.
You know your country's cuisine is in trouble when even Americans complain about it...
That hardly seems like a fair measure. Americans complain about anything that isn't American.
Okay, I get it, you don't like Apple, [...]
I don't really care either way about Apple. I am merely pointing out that their server hardware is poor value unless you happen to need OS X Server.
[...] but your pricing analysis isn't quite on par with these analysts.
My "pricing analysis" is trivial for anyone with a web browser and internet access to reproduce. Further, it's up to day with current pricing, something the one you are quoting clearly isn't. In fact it is from over a year ago.. Not to mention some obvious bias (calling a low-end $180 consumer video card "comparable" to a $1500 professional workstation video card) calls the whole thing into question.
Yes, Dell has special offers and does offer 3 yr support. Have you ever seen an Xserve, I have seen both and it's very clear to me that Apple makes better hardware.
Yes, I have seen both, numerous times. Dell and Apple are getting their components from the same place. However much you might be impressed with Apple's shiny fit and finish, it certainly doesn't make up for a 30% - 300% price differential, especially when you're talking about hardware that will spend 99% of its lifetime stuffed into a rack.
Users rate Apples service higher than any hardware mfg., even Dell (which has been falling in the rankings)
Don't conflate budget desktop support with enterprise server hardware support. Dell's server support is *excellent*.
Want lower end servers or more processors, check out Sun (JAVA), they rock and are priced better than Dell too.
Not from what I can see (although they *are* a much better value proposition than Apple's Xserve because they've got (sometimes significant) additional features over Dell's hardware to justify the higher cost).
I don't believe there is some threshold of "reasonableness" in which other men become your slaves. For example, I can't say, "I was born without any arms and legs, making it unreasonable for me to take care of myself. Therefore, it is moral for me to ask society to force you, as a non-handicapped human being, to support me." No man owes you anything. If a man does offer you a good or service, for any price, be grateful for it. The fact that you find it unreasonable to refuse his offer shows how grateful you should be to him.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, or how it is relevant, but *my* point is that in many cases, the frequently heard retort of "deal with it, or go somewhere else" (or variations thereof, like yours) ignores that "leaving" is often not a reasonable course of action to take.
Further, it is not at all unreasonable to expect people not to be arseholes when dealing with them. That it frequently takes government regulation to make this a reality, is a sad reflection on the attitudes prevalent in business, not on the consumers who request that the regulation be imposed.
Why?
Because you simply may not be able to access that resource without going via that CEO or another he colludes with.
The CEO owes me nothing.
On the contrary, he owes everyone something because it is only through government legislation and law enforcement services that he is able to operate fearlessly behind the shield of incorporation, rather than actually having to take responsibility for his actions.
He's going to run his company in order to maximize profit; in other words, to get customers to pay him as much as possible. If he is able to make more profit by providing an inferior service, then that must be because the customers are willing to pay more for an inferior service, and therefore, have only themselves to blame. On the other hand, if the majority of customers are happy with his service, but you are not, then that is your problem.
Or, alternatively, they have no choice because that CEO - or the other CEOs he influences - don't offer any alternatives. Or they don't know about alternatives because the half a dozen guys that CEO has dinner with every other Tuesday own all the mainstream media outlets and don't publish any negative information about his services (and he, in return, gives their services priorities over any competitors).
If I build my own house, instead of moving into someone else's, is that needless duplication?
No. Nor is the comparison valid. There is value in separate housing, because different people have different needs. There is no value in (to use a relevant example) two lines of fibre optic cable lying next to each other transferring the same bits over them when one could do the same job.
You see this as wasteful because you don't like the way one of those individuals chooses to control his good. But why is your opinion of how the good should be controlled more important than his?
No, I see it as wasteful because it uses twice as many physical resources to provide exactly the same goods and services for no reason other than a bad attitude. Sorry, but physics trumps economics.
Also, don't forget that if company A controls a good in way that his customer B does not like, and B decides to duplicate that good, A will be pressured to give into B's demands. But if the government prevents B from duplicating that good (because it would be "wasteful"), then A has nothing to fear, and very little reason to give into B's demands.
Indeed. Which is why critical infrastructure and utilities should be regulated, at the very least, if not wholely government-owned. Thus preventing A from being unreasonable and allowing B to offer his services.
In contrast, a company must acquire its money by providing goods and services, and a company can not use violence or violent threats to stop competition. A company can only oppress you to the extent that you allow yourself to be oppressed.
This theory works up until the point where avoiding that company's products is a reasonable thing to do. In many cases, that isn't true.
Another poster mentioned that it's dangerous to allow a random CEO to price a provider out of the market. Yes, a CEO exercising his right to control his company's property on behalf of the shareholders is dangerous to your "freedom" to dictate to that company how they will use their property. However, I don't believe in your so-called freedom.
When that CEO and the rest of his regular golfing foursome control 99% - 100% of the avenues you have to access a particular good or service, then you probably should start caring about "so-called freedom".
Build your own damn network.
Needlessly duplicating that sort of infrastructure is a grossly wasteful and inefficient exercise.
True, but you are paying for that service. Shouldn't you expect to get what you're paying for? Not what the highest bidder is offering for the service provider to give you.
You do get what you pay for. So does the service provider on the other end.
"You should get what you pay for" is a pretty nonsensical argument. Because service providers paying to get their traffic prioritised (or not de-prioritised) is a fairly standard example of exactly that.
Why should the service companies be able to charge on both ends for a service that they are already providing to paying customers?
Same reason they can now. They have a resource that various parties want to access. According to free market ideology, they should be able to charge both parties as much as they are willing to pay.
Yes, thereabouts (I'd personally peg it at 2001-2002). Computers stopped getting twice as fast every 12-15 months right around that time. We stopped needing to replace machines every 3 years (a 386 was a lot faster then a 286 and the 486 was a big step up as well) because a 3 year old machine was no longer 1/4 to 1/8 the speed of a new one.
Personally, I think it has more to do with software maturity. Until ca. 2000, software - particularly Windows - was increasing in capability (and subsequently hardware requirements) in significant increments. That basically stopped in 2000/2001 - even Vista's only real hardware requirement above and beyond what was available in 2000/2001 is a $30 video card.
The story on Macintosh is a bit different, of course, because of relatively less powerful/more expensive hardware (for most of the last decade or so) and with OS X, a relatively more resource-intensive OS (at least until the release of Vista). Apple were ~5 years late to their "next generation OS" after a few false starts and subsequently leapfrogged Windows in a few areas, but both Vista and OS X have ended up in basically the same spot as of 2007.
The machines that we've been ordering for the office over the past year are dual-core, 2GB RAM, RAID1 hard drives running WinXP. We fully expect them to last at least 7 years (and possibly 10 years) before they need to be replaced. If we do upgrade them it will be to add one more gigabyte of RAM (to get to 3GB) and to add 22" 1680x1050 LCD displays.
Sounds quite reasonable. It's likely hardware failures will kill these machines long before lack of usefulness does.