DNS is not a locator service, but unfortunately people treat it as if it were one. They think "ok, I want to find the web site for XYZ Corporation, so all I have to do is just prepend WWW to the name and append COM and it'll be there." This line of thinking is what has created all of the fighting that goes on over domain names -- the reason we seem to treat domain names as if they were real estate. A true locator service would have a number of fields you could fill out to tell it what you're looking for, and it would find it for you. Perhaps it would simply find the domain name, which in turn would find the IP address.
It's not going to happen now, though. At least not using the IETF standards process. Back when DNS was invented, people knew how to participate -- the result is things like DNS, and SMTP, where everyone talks to everyone else. Now that the corporateheads have taken over, everything gets invented in lawyerspace, where standards take a back seat to money (or at least some corporate idiot's dream of making lots of money by owning a choke point) and you have horrid nonstandard systems that don't talk to each other (like the various independent instant messaging systems).
If you look in any well-built data center, you'll find air conditioners that are set up like this. You've got the air conditioner itself inside, which emit heat into a glycol coolant which is then fed to a chiller on the roof (basically a radiator with a fan blowing on it).
Glycol is an excellent thermal conductor, and it's just toxic enough that slime and other germies can't grow in it.
MSN Search is already integrated into Windows. You can get to it from several places in Explorer, and Internet Explorer. And if IE can't find a page, it offers to find a similar page on MSN Search. And yet, people still type www.google.com in the address bar, to get to a better search engine.
Based on the direction in which mass-market computers are moving, the bus that gets exposed to the user is getting somewhat less important. Aside from gamers and tinkerers, and people who manage big servers, how many computer users ever have a need to open up the case?
Ten years ago it was almost a given that at some point, you (or your Computer Guy) had to add or replace one of the cards -- add Ethernet, upgrade the video, whatever. Nowadays, the hardware on-board is more than sufficient, and any of those "special" accessories you get, such as storage drives for your digital camera, or a scanner, or whatever, are more likely than not going to be USB or FireWire.
It's very likely that the mainstream desktop computer is going to move to a slotless "brick" form factor. This would have the side benefit of making it much cheaper. This form factor is available already, but it's not yet cheap because it's still considered a "specialty" unit.
I'd also be happy to see the return of the Commodore 64 form factor -- just shove everything into the keyboard. Plug in your mouse and monitor and Ethernet, and go.
I agree. Spoofing IE is a problem. However, I do spoof, in an unusual way:
Now that I have Ximian Desktop 2 installed, I've got Galeon configured to spoof Netscape 7.02. Does this seem odd? I do it because I want webmasters to think "He's using Netscape." Also, I want Netscape (whose portal I use daily... you should, too) to think that I'm using their branded browser -- it will encourage them to continue pumping funds into the project.
For those interested, you can do it with the following command (do this as the user you want to run as, not as root) --
Oh yeah. Unions worked so great for blue collar work such as manufacturing, didn't they? Those labor unions became self-serving greed factories that drove up the cost of American labor so high that nearly all mass manufacturing is now done overseas.
Employers are already exploring ways to move tech jobs overseas. Let's not give them any more motivation to do it.
It is well known that terrorists use flight simulators to learn how to fly the aircraft they hijack. This one is inexpensive enough for terrorists to build themselves, and uses off-the-shelf Microsoft technology.
This confirms what we already knew: Microsoft is responsible for terrorism. I think it's time we locked up Gates and Ballmer under the Patriot Act.
There's a very good way to combat this. Don't block the default ports used by p2p programs. Instead, configure your routers or firewalls to pass traffic through those ports at a significantly degraded rate.
What ends up happening is that because the connections are allowed, the p2p software doesn't attempt to use a different port. But because the speed of the connection is so crappy, users are discouraged from using it.
It's good to have all that information there.
on
Information Obesity
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Ok, so perhaps 70 percent of all content goes unread. It's still good to have it there. Even if the site's navigation controls are terrible, even if the site is poorly organized, even if it's not updated very frequently...
The information can still be Googled.
The fact that Google and other search engines index by content rather than by title, author, or whatever, means that when someone does go to look up a particular piece of information, if there's something relevant on your site, they'll find it there. If you think about it, this is the ultimate indexing system. Microsoft has been trying to make this work in Windows for nearly a decade (remember the abomination called 'Find Fast' - not to mention their latest attempt, WinFS?) and failing miserably. Google handles it with all manner of grace and speed.
So go ahead, put up that content. Put up as much content as you like. Someday, it's going to be just the thing somebody needs to read, and when they need it, they'll find it on your site.
All this new GNOME and KDE stuff is great, but what I really want to know is, when will Ximian's release of GNOME 2.x be ready? Their GNOME 1.x release far surpassed what everyone else was doing with it at the time. If their 2.x is similarly superior, it's really going to be super slick.
Wouldn't it make sense that this kind of "the sky is falling!" doomsday preaching would be coming from a company that makes security products for a widely deployed operating system that's full of security holes?
It's in Symantec's best interest for people to be afraid. Take this with a grain of salt, people -- and always follow the money.
Gartner cannot view Linux rollouts with an open mind because Gartner insists on looking at Linux as a drop-in replacement for proprietary operating systems. Gartner refuses to alter its frame of reference.
Deployment of Linux isn't just about Linux itself. It's about changing the rules, shifting the paradigms, that sort of thing. That's the piece that Gartner misses, every single time. To deploy Linux effectively you have to treat it as Linux, leveraging its advantages and steering clear of its (rapidly diminishing) disadvantages. Gartner wants to force-fit Linux into a Windows paradigm, so it's no surprise that they keep finding that it does so very poorly. Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows! It is an alternative, just like the Macintosh is an alternative.
Only when you design for Linux and plan for Linux do you get to take advantage of its strengths.
You have to consider who would be the best steward of the OpenOffice project. One phone call from the Great Satan of Redmond and the project would immediately lose all of its resources and promotion, if it were owned by Dell or HP. That leaves IBM, who although already has their own office suite, is at least known to be heavily invested in open source.
IBM is also the obvious choice because of its commitment to Java.
The signal to noise ratio of UseNet makes it completely unusable. This is why you're more likely to find good company in smaller forums. Why not sign on to an Internet-connected BBS instead, and have discussions with people who you might actually get to know after a while? Where the users number in the hundreds rather than in the millions -- and there's not only a hope, but a good probability, that any abuse of the medium gets nipped in the bud right away?
That's for your everyday "hang out with good company online" activities, of course. For your very specific needs, mailing lists seem to do the trick.
UseNet is UseLess now. If it is to be saved, ever, it needs to be broken up into multiple smaller NNTP networks. Each could have its own culture, policies, unique content, etc. Eventually, some sort of meta-index would appear, to direct users to the content and culture they want to find.
This is only for embedded devices. You will not see Windows Media Player for the version of Linux which runs on ordinary computers. Microsoft does not have a monopoly in embedded devices, and probably never will: Linux is beating Microsoft in that market. Therefore, if Microsoft wants its media player to exist in that market, they have to (gasp!) compete by doing drastic things like offering it on other operating systems!
This isn't the first time. Microsoft offers its technologies on other platforms when they don't have a monopoly. FrontPage server extensions have been available for Apache for quite some time, for example.
When you see Windows Media Player downloadable for x86 Linux with the X Window System -- then it's news.
However, it's important to avoid using Windows Media anywhere it is found. This is an area Microsoft wants a monopoly in, and it would be a very bad thing if they achieved it. Choose MPEG, OGG, Real, etc. streams when you can find them -- b**ch and moan to webmasters when you can't find them.
People do seem to realize that "shared source" isn't open source. In the
embedded universe, even though you can read and modify the source code to
Windows CE, you still have to pay a license fee to Microsoft for each device
that you ship.
Not so with Linux. That's why Linux is currently *beating* Microsoft in the
embedded space.
Microsoft recently contracted with a third party to make Windows Media
available on embedded Linux. (Not on desktop Linux -- they'll make sure that
doesn't happen.) This shows that they're admitting that they don't plan to
have a monopoly in that space anytime soon, but that they're still working
hard to try to achieve a monopoly on digital media.
In reality -- no change. The number one rule of everyone, everywhere must
continue to be: avoid ALL Microsoft products. Think of Microsoft products
the same way you would think of cancer. You don't want even a little bit of
it, because it *never* continues to be just a little bit.
As a DirecTV customer, I'm very happy to see this happening. Any media service owned by News Corp. is one not owned by Microsoft. This is not a troll/flamebait -- I was truly worried about someday having to either switch or cancel because a company I refuse to give my money to takes over a service I use. It would be better if there were room for lots of small players, but at least the big players keep each other in check. It's best when they hate each other, too -- when they don't, they start cooperating, and that tends to screw any small/free players that are still around.
Could you please explain, for those of us who don't have nVidia cards, why a kernel module compile is necessary? I thought the whole purpose of the driver loader in XFree86 4.0 was that it was completely system independent -- an XFree86 video driver built on one x86 OS would work on any x86 OS, regardless of version etc.
Or is there something in the nVidia drivers that needs to exist in kernelspace?
If you are running a server and do not want to waste money on buying a monitor that you will only use probably once a week then you will definitely see the value here. If it's coolness factor you're looking for, then by all means go ahead and install the 5-inch LCD. But if it's "value" that you're looking for, as the article suggests, there are cheaper ways of doing it.
Headless comes to mind, of course. Nearly all new server hardware supports keyboardless/displayless operation. Or you can do "nearly headless" -- do a serial console. Again, nearly all new server hardware supports running the BIOS/POST to a serial port, and Linux supports a serial console with no trouble at all.
Of course, if you're running a Windows server, then you'd better just pony up the $100-300 for a real monitor (or in a large multi-server environment, a big KVM switch) because you're going to be spending a lot of time sitting at the console fixing broken Microsoft crap.
And before you mod me down as a zealot, please know that this is based on my experience at a mid-size managed hosting facility. Our sysadmins are constantly babysitting the Windows boxen, so we have to dedicate expensive KVM ports to each one. Linux just runs and runs without ever having a problem that requires console access, so we go serial, and we hook them up with really inexpensive used terminal servers.
This is not necessarily detrimental to non-Microsoft operating systems. The policy says that the hardware on OD's shelves must carry the sticker that says it's compatible with Windows XP. It doesn't say that the hardware must carry only that sticker.
If you manufacture a Nifty New USB Gizmo, and it carries stickers from (for example) Microsoft, Apple, and RedHat... it passes the test for stocking at Office Depot.
Now, I still think this is a poorly thought-out policy, as it excludes some very good hardware that doesn't happen to carry Bill's official blessing. But it's not the lockout some of you are making it out to be.
And in the end, it'll only hurt them. As someone else mentioned, if the increasing numbers of Apple and Linux customers are buying their gear somewhere else, it's Office Depot that's losing sales.
The usual question will come up... are they really considering Linux, or are they just proclaiming it to grab the Evil Empire's attention, hoping to be offered deep discounts on the new version of Windows?
The problem is that Microsoft says it has fixed DLL Hell with every new version of Windows. They also claim that you don't have to reboot as much as you used to when performing software installs and upgrades. And people generally look at the new version of Windows and say, "hey, they're right -- they did a good job this time."
Trouble is... this has nothing to do with a better design, and everything to do with the fact that a brand new version of Windows is going to ship with all the latest DLL's already on the system. So let's say you install, for example, Microsoft MonopoApp 2003 onto Microsoft MonopoOS 2003. They both ship with the exact same version of MAKE_NETSCAPE_RUN_SLOWER.DLL, so there's no conflict. And since that DLL is already present and running, there's no need to reboot the system to get a newer version started.
Fast forward to a couple of years later, and it's a different story. Windows still cannot replace a DLL that is bound to a currently running program. That means that when you're installing a version of Microsoft MonopoApp that's a year or two newer than the version of Microsoft MonopoOS it's running on, you've got to replace a few dozen DLL's. Some of those are already running, so... they get thrown into the queue for installation upon the next reboot, and voila! You Must Reboot Your Computer To Complete This Installation. And of course, there was some other app running on your system that wanted the old version, and Windows still doesn't have a Unix-like mechanism to keep multiple versions of a shared library around and have programs request the version they need, so... DLL Hell is back.
It's going to be the same with.NET -- without a doubt. Everything's going to be peachy-keen when it first rolls out, and you'll see Jesse Berst and the rest of the ZDnet crew talking about how wonderful it is, and how Microsoft did really well this time... but by 2005 you'll have.NET shared library hell, guaranteed. I promise you that.NET will not mature as gracefully as Java has done.
Slashdot Mirror
DNS is not a locator service, but unfortunately people treat it as if it were one. They think "ok, I want to find the web site for XYZ Corporation, so all I have to do is just prepend WWW to the name and append COM and it'll be there." This line of thinking is what has created all of the fighting that goes on over domain names -- the reason we seem to treat domain names as if they were real estate. A true locator service would have a number of fields you could fill out to tell it what you're looking for, and it would find it for you. Perhaps it would simply find the domain name, which in turn would find the IP address.
It's not going to happen now, though. At least not using the IETF standards process. Back when DNS was invented, people knew how to participate -- the result is things like DNS, and SMTP, where everyone talks to everyone else. Now that the corporateheads have taken over, everything gets invented in lawyerspace, where standards take a back seat to money (or at least some corporate idiot's dream of making lots of money by owning a choke point) and you have horrid nonstandard systems that don't talk to each other (like the various independent instant messaging systems).
Oh well.
Better yet, don't use water.
If you look in any well-built data center, you'll find air conditioners that are set up like this. You've got the air conditioner itself inside, which emit heat into a glycol coolant which is then fed to a chiller on the roof (basically a radiator with a fan blowing on it).
Glycol is an excellent thermal conductor, and it's just toxic enough that slime and other germies can't grow in it.
MSN Search is already integrated into Windows. You can get to it from several places in Explorer, and Internet Explorer. And if IE can't find a page, it offers to find a similar page on MSN Search. And yet, people still type www.google.com in the address bar, to get to a better search engine.
What, exactly, are they going to change?
Based on the direction in which mass-market computers are moving, the bus that gets exposed to the user is getting somewhat less important. Aside from gamers and tinkerers, and people who manage big servers, how many computer users ever have a need to open up the case?
Ten years ago it was almost a given that at some point, you (or your Computer Guy) had to add or replace one of the cards -- add Ethernet, upgrade the video, whatever. Nowadays, the hardware on-board is more than sufficient, and any of those "special" accessories you get, such as storage drives for your digital camera, or a scanner, or whatever, are more likely than not going to be USB or FireWire.
It's very likely that the mainstream desktop computer is going to move to a slotless "brick" form factor. This would have the side benefit of making it much cheaper. This form factor is available already, but it's not yet cheap because it's still considered a "specialty" unit.
I'd also be happy to see the return of the Commodore 64 form factor -- just shove everything into the keyboard. Plug in your mouse and monitor and Ethernet, and go.
I agree. Spoofing IE is a problem. However, I do spoof, in an unusual way:
... you should, too) to think that I'm using their branded browser -- it will encourage them to continue pumping funds into the project.
/apps/galeon/Advanced/Network/user_agent --type=string "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02"
Now that I have Ximian Desktop 2 installed, I've got Galeon configured to spoof Netscape 7.02. Does this seem odd? I do it because I want webmasters to think "He's using Netscape." Also, I want Netscape (whose portal I use daily
For those interested, you can do it with the following command (do this as the user you want to run as, not as root) --
gconftool-2 -s
Oh yeah. Unions worked so great for blue collar work such as manufacturing, didn't they? Those labor unions became self-serving greed factories that drove up the cost of American labor so high that nearly all mass manufacturing is now done overseas.
Employers are already exploring ways to move tech jobs overseas. Let's not give them any more motivation to do it.
It is well known that terrorists use flight simulators to learn how to fly the aircraft they hijack. This one is inexpensive enough for terrorists to build themselves, and uses off-the-shelf Microsoft technology.
This confirms what we already knew: Microsoft is responsible for terrorism. I think it's time we locked up Gates and Ballmer under the Patriot Act.
There's a very good way to combat this. Don't block the default ports used by p2p programs. Instead, configure your routers or firewalls to pass traffic through those ports at a significantly degraded rate.
What ends up happening is that because the connections are allowed, the p2p software doesn't attempt to use a different port. But because the speed of the connection is so crappy, users are discouraged from using it.
Ok, so perhaps 70 percent of all content goes unread. It's still good to have it there. Even if the site's navigation controls are terrible, even if the site is poorly organized, even if it's not updated very frequently...
The information can still be Googled.
The fact that Google and other search engines index by content rather than by title, author, or whatever, means that when someone does go to look up a particular piece of information, if there's something relevant on your site, they'll find it there. If you think about it, this is the ultimate indexing system. Microsoft has been trying to make this work in Windows for nearly a decade (remember the abomination called 'Find Fast' - not to mention their latest attempt, WinFS?) and failing miserably. Google handles it with all manner of grace and speed.
So go ahead, put up that content. Put up as much content as you like. Someday, it's going to be just the thing somebody needs to read, and when they need it, they'll find it on your site.
I wonder if you could run Jazilla as an applet inside a web browser?
Sure beats running Internet Explorer.
All this new GNOME and KDE stuff is great, but what I really want to know is, when will Ximian's release of GNOME 2.x be ready? Their GNOME 1.x release far surpassed what everyone else was doing with it at the time. If their 2.x is similarly superior, it's really going to be super slick.
Wouldn't it make sense that this kind of "the sky is falling!" doomsday preaching would be coming from a company that makes security products for a widely deployed operating system that's full of security holes?
It's in Symantec's best interest for people to be afraid. Take this with a grain of salt, people -- and always follow the money.
Gartner cannot view Linux rollouts with an open mind because Gartner insists on looking at Linux as a drop-in replacement for proprietary operating systems. Gartner refuses to alter its frame of reference.
Deployment of Linux isn't just about Linux itself. It's about changing the rules, shifting the paradigms, that sort of thing. That's the piece that Gartner misses, every single time. To deploy Linux effectively you have to treat it as Linux, leveraging its advantages and steering clear of its (rapidly diminishing) disadvantages. Gartner wants to force-fit Linux into a Windows paradigm, so it's no surprise that they keep finding that it does so very poorly. Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows! It is an alternative, just like the Macintosh is an alternative.
Only when you design for Linux and plan for Linux do you get to take advantage of its strengths.
You have to consider who would be the best steward of the OpenOffice project. One phone call from the Great Satan of Redmond and the project would immediately lose all of its resources and promotion, if it were owned by Dell or HP. That leaves IBM, who although already has their own office suite, is at least known to be heavily invested in open source.
IBM is also the obvious choice because of its commitment to Java.
The signal to noise ratio of UseNet makes it completely unusable. This is why you're more likely to find good company in smaller forums. Why not sign on to an Internet-connected BBS instead, and have discussions with people who you might actually get to know after a while? Where the users number in the hundreds rather than in the millions -- and there's not only a hope, but a good probability, that any abuse of the medium gets nipped in the bud right away?
That's for your everyday "hang out with good company online" activities, of course. For your very specific needs, mailing lists seem to do the trick.
UseNet is UseLess now. If it is to be saved, ever, it needs to be broken up into multiple smaller NNTP networks. Each could have its own culture, policies, unique content, etc. Eventually, some sort of meta-index would appear, to direct users to the content and culture they want to find.
This is only for embedded devices. You will not see Windows Media Player for the version of Linux which runs on ordinary computers. Microsoft does not have a monopoly in embedded devices, and probably never will: Linux is beating Microsoft in that market. Therefore, if Microsoft wants its media player to exist in that market, they have to (gasp!) compete by doing drastic things like offering it on other operating systems!
This isn't the first time. Microsoft offers its technologies on other platforms when they don't have a monopoly. FrontPage server extensions have been available for Apache for quite some time, for example.
When you see Windows Media Player downloadable for x86 Linux with the X Window System -- then it's news.
However, it's important to avoid using Windows Media anywhere it is found. This is an area Microsoft wants a monopoly in, and it would be a very bad thing if they achieved it. Choose MPEG, OGG, Real, etc. streams when you can find them -- b**ch and moan to webmasters when you can't find them.
People do seem to realize that "shared source" isn't open source. In the embedded universe, even though you can read and modify the source code to Windows CE, you still have to pay a license fee to Microsoft for each device that you ship. Not so with Linux. That's why Linux is currently *beating* Microsoft in the embedded space. Microsoft recently contracted with a third party to make Windows Media available on embedded Linux. (Not on desktop Linux -- they'll make sure that doesn't happen.) This shows that they're admitting that they don't plan to have a monopoly in that space anytime soon, but that they're still working hard to try to achieve a monopoly on digital media. In reality -- no change. The number one rule of everyone, everywhere must continue to be: avoid ALL Microsoft products. Think of Microsoft products the same way you would think of cancer. You don't want even a little bit of it, because it *never* continues to be just a little bit.
As a DirecTV customer, I'm very happy to see this happening. Any media service owned by News Corp. is one not owned by Microsoft. This is not a troll/flamebait -- I was truly worried about someday having to either switch or cancel because a company I refuse to give my money to takes over a service I use. It would be better if there were room for lots of small players, but at least the big players keep each other in check. It's best when they hate each other, too -- when they don't, they start cooperating, and that tends to screw any small/free players that are still around.
Could you please explain, for those of us who don't have nVidia cards, why a kernel module compile is necessary? I thought the whole purpose of the driver loader in XFree86 4.0 was that it was completely system independent -- an XFree86 video driver built on one x86 OS would work on any x86 OS, regardless of version etc.
Or is there something in the nVidia drivers that needs to exist in kernelspace?
MSN Search is bundled into IE. It's where you go if you hit the search button, and it's where you end up when the page you asked for isn't found.
...and people use Google anyway, even those people stupid enough to still be using Windows and IE. They actually take the time to type google.com.
From the article:
If you are running a server and do not want to waste money on buying a monitor that you will only use probably once a week then you will definitely see the value here. If it's coolness factor you're looking for, then by all means go ahead and install the 5-inch LCD. But if it's "value" that you're looking for, as the article suggests, there are cheaper ways of doing it.
Headless comes to mind, of course. Nearly all new server hardware supports keyboardless/displayless operation. Or you can do "nearly headless" -- do a serial console. Again, nearly all new server hardware supports running the BIOS/POST to a serial port, and Linux supports a serial console with no trouble at all.
Of course, if you're running a Windows server, then you'd better just pony up the $100-300 for a real monitor (or in a large multi-server environment, a big KVM switch) because you're going to be spending a lot of time sitting at the console fixing broken Microsoft crap.
And before you mod me down as a zealot, please know that this is based on my experience at a mid-size managed hosting facility. Our sysadmins are constantly babysitting the Windows boxen, so we have to dedicate expensive KVM ports to each one. Linux just runs and runs without ever having a problem that requires console access, so we go serial, and we hook them up with really inexpensive used terminal servers.
This is not necessarily detrimental to non-Microsoft operating systems. The policy says that the hardware on OD's shelves must carry the sticker that says it's compatible with Windows XP. It doesn't say that the hardware must carry only that sticker.
... it passes the test for stocking at Office Depot.
If you manufacture a Nifty New USB Gizmo, and it carries stickers from (for example) Microsoft, Apple, and RedHat
Now, I still think this is a poorly thought-out policy, as it excludes some very good hardware that doesn't happen to carry Bill's official blessing. But it's not the lockout some of you are making it out to be.
And in the end, it'll only hurt them. As someone else mentioned, if the increasing numbers of Apple and Linux customers are buying their gear somewhere else, it's Office Depot that's losing sales.
the key word is "developers".
Actually, if you ask Steve Ballmer, the keyword is: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
The usual question will come up ... are they really considering Linux, or are they just proclaiming it to grab the Evil Empire's attention, hoping to be offered deep discounts on the new version of Windows?
The problem is that Microsoft says it has fixed DLL Hell with every new version of Windows. They also claim that you don't have to reboot as much as you used to when performing software installs and upgrades. And people generally look at the new version of Windows and say, "hey, they're right -- they did a good job this time."
... this has nothing to do with a better design, and everything to do with the fact that a brand new version of Windows is going to ship with all the latest DLL's already on the system. So let's say you install, for example, Microsoft MonopoApp 2003 onto Microsoft MonopoOS 2003. They both ship with the exact same version of MAKE_NETSCAPE_RUN_SLOWER.DLL, so there's no conflict. And since that DLL is already present and running, there's no need to reboot the system to get a newer version started.
... they get thrown into the queue for installation upon the next reboot, and voila! You Must Reboot Your Computer To Complete This Installation. And of course, there was some other app running on your system that wanted the old version, and Windows still doesn't have a Unix-like mechanism to keep multiple versions of a shared library around and have programs request the version they need, so ... DLL Hell is back.
.NET -- without a doubt. Everything's going to be peachy-keen when it first rolls out, and you'll see Jesse Berst and the rest of the ZDnet crew talking about how wonderful it is, and how Microsoft did really well this time ... but by 2005 you'll have .NET shared library hell, guaranteed. I promise you that .NET will not mature as gracefully as Java has done.
Trouble is
Fast forward to a couple of years later, and it's a different story. Windows still cannot replace a DLL that is bound to a currently running program. That means that when you're installing a version of Microsoft MonopoApp that's a year or two newer than the version of Microsoft MonopoOS it's running on, you've got to replace a few dozen DLL's. Some of those are already running, so
It's going to be the same with