I think all that would happen, is that the biggest spammers would pony up, and pass the cost on to their customers. Remember, a spammer isn't selling merchandise to YOU. He's selling ADVERTISING DELIVERY to some vendor; that vendor is the spammer's real customer.
Meanwhile, legit mailing lists all go out of business, because most are not selling anything and have no way to recoup their costs.
BTW did you mean to set your email certificate cost at $10 each?
I send around 30 emails a day; should I have to post a $300 bond EVERY DAY just to speak to my friends?
USR got spun off again a few years back (if they've been re-eaten, I've not heard of it). I do remember how the modems weren't as good for a while after 3Com got 'em, tho since then seem to have recovered their old quality. I've seen 'em hold a solid connection even when it's so bad it can't be used for voice. -- I tell my clients they can buy any modem they want, but I'll only support a USR hardware modem. Amazing how many issues go away when you pitch out the crappy OEM modems.:)
Cloudmaster gives good advice... [blink] There are routers that *aren't* "packet-filtering routers"?? (Use small words. My networking expertise could be painlessly tattooed on my forehead in large block letters.:)
Yeah, when it happens it'll probably be a dedicated unit if only cuz I've got enough fans going in here already... and there are probably fewer ways to misconfigulate a dedicated solution, too.
"Long boot times are annoying when your router's also your DHCP server, and your house loses power." -- Well, it'd be on the UPS like everything else; anything plugged into the wall here is liable to get spiked to death at an early age. -- Now, explain to me about DHCP server, and why it's relevant to a router that sits between a home network and the big bad internet?
I did hook the XP and 2K machines (neither is online) together via a switch, and they can see each other but won't communicate beyond that. No idea what I did worng... or didn't configure yet, more like. Gotta get my networking buddy out here!!
Yep, I spend too much time on/. -- but I post via tin cans and string, since we can't get broadband here:(
I keep meaning to network the mess, but it's not my field and I need my brain for other things... Got a friend who's a networking expert, tho, so someday we'll have a cable-fest and it'll be done, router and all. W00t!:)
Pagefile also varies with the amount of free disk space. I usually make a junk partition of a couple gigs and point it there, so it's not actually on the WinDrive. (Or with my own boxes that have plenty of RAM, I disable swapping entirely.)
I've seen virgin installs as small as 703mb, yes you read that right! not sure why that happens, and nothing seems to be missing.
At a guess, 3GB might be counting not only pagefile, but also all the backed-up files from installing patches and SPs, and maybe even the result of copying the whole i386 directory to the HD prior to installing.
Of course, ya never know what some yahoo did to their Windows while we weren't watching [g]
Originally we were talking about virgin installs, before applying SPs and patches -- WinXP does back up the old files, so SP/patch files are added to the total. If you apply every patch under the sun, that surely comes to a lot of extra disk space.
Naturally, after installing every app known to man, the space consumed tends to grow a bit:)
[goes to look] My WinXP install is now 3 years old, and has all sorts of crap installed (mainly office and image editing suites), but has not had any SPs or patches (not an internet-connected machine, so I'm not rocking the boat). The WINDOWS directory is 1.29GB. The SysVolInfo directory (with a rolling total of 30 System Restore checkpoints) is about 1.6GB, but remember that's empty at the time of install (and can grow very large if you constantly install and uninstall stuff). The pagefile is disabled, since it never uses more than about 450mb of 768mb RAM.
The very first time I installed XP, the TOTAL disk space used was 703mb, which was a head-scratcher for sure (and everything worked). I've occasionally seen it that small on other systems too. I'm not sure what the difference is, since it usually winds up around 1.3GB.
Eh? No, you just run Defrag from Windows, no problem. It won't move read-only files (frex, the swapfile), but that's nothing new to any species of DOS or Win9x defrag. However some 3rd party defraggers can move the swapfile.
Scandisk sometimes doesn't work right when run inside of Win9x, in which case you need to exit to the DOS prompt to run it. (You find out that happened when you've just run Scandisk, and Defrag still whines about errors.)
BTW two of the machines always sit in Windows (98 and XP) and one usually sits in DOS (tho is defragged from Win95; don't want to mess up the LFNs!) But they all have Regular Jobs, so they're never turned off regardless.
Conversely the Mac, the Win2K box, and the Random *NIX Disty box (presently with Ubuntu) don't have Regular Jobs, so they're not powered on unless I want 'em for something.
That's why I use an OLD version of ZA -- 2.1.25 on pre-XP, and 2.6.36x for XP. These versions have demonstrated to me that they reliably stop both incoming and outgoing unwanteds. However, I have absolutely no faith in later versions; too many conflicts, one version that failed utterly; and a firewall should do ONE job and do it right, not be everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink like recent versions. (Why on earth would I trust them for an AV solution? Whose AV engine are they licensing? cuz I don't think a reliable AV is something you can develop overnight.)
There are probably "better" firewalls (more configurable, certainly), but in most cases I just want to throw it at the machine and reliably get the job done, and not get baffled calls from clients when some obscure message comes up, or have to muck about with port settings to make it work.
If I had broadband, or if my PCs were networked, or if I were using W2K/XP online (which I don't feel that I can see enough of what goes on behind the curtain, as I can do with Win9x, to catch everything strange they might do) you betcha there'd be a router in my life.
As we used to say in the floppy era... your PC isn't just kissing that disk -- it's also kissing every PC that disk ever kissed.:)
If I had broadband (or if my mess of PCs were networked) I'd get a router, or conscript one of the old PCs for the job. But even so, yes, I still want that software firewall on every machine. It's not just stuff coming in that can be a problem, it's also stuff going out that concerns me.
Frex, my neighbour played with an attachment and caught a virus. She had no idea, but ZA whined about some unknown process trying to access the net, and wouldn't let ANYTHING connect. -- I told her next time she commits such a folly, I'll let her suffer for a week before I come fix it.:)
Firewall, yes; I use an old version of ZoneAlarm that only does ONE job and does it well. It goes on every machine whether it has internet access or not. But the XP machine doesn't normally get used online anyway (and hasn't been in a couple years now); that's the Win98 box's job.
Plus I don't use IE/Outlook, P2P stuff, etc. When you don't engage in risky behaviour, the PC's condom doesn't need to fit so tight.:)
When Windows is unstable, 99% of the time it's either because the hardware and/or drivers are crap (causing BSODs) or lack of basic maintenance (regular defrags, etc.) Windows itself is very seldom the actual culprit. If it were, NO ONE using Windows would experience solid uptimes, not even clueful folks like you and me.
I have 3 machines that run 24/7, cuz otherwise I'd spend the whole day turning 'em on and off. Ouch!
I've heard the 3GB figure before, but in all the times I've installed XP, I've never seen it. [wild speculation] I wonder if in some cases the install silently aborts and restarts, maybe to work around a hardware glitch? that would cause a bunch of duplicate junk to be left behind.
As to the extra crapware that comes with OEM systems, that can easily top a gig of sheer garbage. I recently cleaned up a brand new HP machine for a client, and recovered 1.2GB just from killing off the preinstalled Crud.
Even so... I don't doubt that a good 25% of the default XP install is needless baggage for most people. According to the late blackviper.com's analysis, something like 3/4ths of the installed "services" have no mission in life for the average user, or even for the geek user.
Yeah, but we bitched about why Vista is behind schedule yesterday. So just for variety, today we'll bitch about why Windows is slow, even if it's not what the article is about.:)
Actually, both interpretations have generated some interesting threads and thoughts about solutions.
Yes, I did RTFA [hangs head in shame]
Re:You want faster Windows?
on
Why Windows is Slow
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Only weeks? my WinXPPro box was last rebooted in August of 2005!! and it's not nLited or XPLited, either, tho I did turn off the etch-a-sketch gunk. And it's on a lowly P3-500/768mb RAM. Runs smoothly, if not crisp. (Its jobs are Photoshop, CorelDraw, Office, multimedia, etc.; it doesn't do internet, so no one worries about patches or SPs.)
Also, the default XP install should only run about 1.3GB, including the default swapfile (or a bit over 700mb without). I've never seen one bloat up into the 3GB range, and I espect something is wrong when that happens. Or that's including swapfile, hibernation file (same size as your RAM), and maybe an arseload of undeleted temp-install files.
Even so... I've often grumbled that WinXP should have shipped as a clean Win2k-alike version that was purely the OS and needfuls (including more or less the same feature set as Win2K), and a Plus Pack for all the eye candy and consumer-glitter applets. That way everyone would have a cleaner machine to start with, and those who want the Plus Pack could install it themselves. Everybody happy!
That's an excellent thought. And ideally, Windows should ship with the VMs as part of the default install, so the user need not do anything more complex than go to "Start, Tools, Win95 VM", and up it comes, ready to go. While we're designing an ideal setup, I'd like to be able to ALT-TAB and copy/paste from the host OS to the VM-OS and its running apps, so the effect would be completely seamless for the end user.
The VMs would run the legacy apps, and M$ could throw away all the embedded backward-compatibility stuff, WITHOUT pissing off customers who still need it.
I can't tell from the screenie, and don't use js in my main browser so we ain't goin' there, but if they screw up the table structure the way they did with the last change, it will render some links unreachable for some browsers (you'll be able to SEE the link, but not CLICK on it).
That's a good thought, and certainly would be easier for non-technical consumers to understand.
It could also have a sub-scoring system useful for different types of programs. Frex, for a game it might be something like "Your PC requires a video-RAM-CPU score of 5-3-4 to run this game", whereas for an office-type app the required score might be 3-4-3.
Yep... the one-click cure for Windows for Preschoolers [g]
One disturbing thing I noticed about the translucent windows, is that the visual "bleed" from the frame of the next window tended to lead my eye away from the focus window. Made it hard to keep my eye on the work area.
Yeah, the transparency is pretty, and interesting in a vaguely artistic way, but a PC is a tool first and foremost, it is not meant to be an artistic expression. And most of the time you want your work area efficiently defined, not serving as a distraction in itself.
LOL!! Oh, man... someone has a strange sense of humour.... I remember what a pain FRIEZE was, because some incarnations of the nasty thing didn't want to unload from RAM when told to.
I skipped over Win2K, but maybe they did fix the screencap thing by then.
BTW, this article is an artifact of the KB's at-best-random organization... a couple years ago, M$ killed all the Win95 and earlier KB articles, but there are pockets of old stuff still undiscovered. -- At the time I leached the entire KB off their FTP, and IIRC it only came to about 4GB (256,000 files).
Boilerplate from the press release, and what may well be the most significant statement:
A number of assertions in this press release may be considered to be forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including timely development, and market acceptance of products and technologies, competitive market conditions, and the ability to secure additional sources of financing. The actual results Solar Energy Limited may achieve could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties.
Slashdot Mirror
I think all that would happen, is that the biggest spammers would pony up, and pass the cost on to their customers. Remember, a spammer isn't selling merchandise to YOU. He's selling ADVERTISING DELIVERY to some vendor; that vendor is the spammer's real customer.
Meanwhile, legit mailing lists all go out of business, because most are not selling anything and have no way to recoup their costs.
BTW did you mean to set your email certificate cost at $10 each?
I send around 30 emails a day; should I have to post a $300 bond EVERY DAY just to speak to my friends?
USR got spun off again a few years back (if they've been re-eaten, I've not heard of it). I do remember how the modems weren't as good for a while after 3Com got 'em, tho since then seem to have recovered their old quality. I've seen 'em hold a solid connection even when it's so bad it can't be used for voice. -- I tell my clients they can buy any modem they want, but I'll only support a USR hardware modem. Amazing how many issues go away when you pitch out the crappy OEM modems. :)
:)
Cloudmaster gives good advice... [blink] There are routers that *aren't* "packet-filtering routers"?? (Use small words. My networking expertise could be painlessly tattooed on my forehead in large block letters.
Yeah, when it happens it'll probably be a dedicated unit if only cuz I've got enough fans going in here already... and there are probably fewer ways to misconfigulate a dedicated solution, too.
"Long boot times are annoying when your router's also your DHCP server, and your house loses power." -- Well, it'd be on the UPS like everything else; anything plugged into the wall here is liable to get spiked to death at an early age. -- Now, explain to me about DHCP server, and why it's relevant to a router that sits between a home network and the big bad internet?
I did hook the XP and 2K machines (neither is online) together via a switch, and they can see each other but won't communicate beyond that. No idea what I did worng... or didn't configure yet, more like. Gotta get my networking buddy out here!!
Yep, I spend too much time on /. -- but I post via tin cans and string, since we can't get broadband here :(
:)
I keep meaning to network the mess, but it's not my field and I need my brain for other things... Got a friend who's a networking expert, tho, so someday we'll have a cable-fest and it'll be done, router and all. W00t!
Pagefile also varies with the amount of free disk space. I usually make a junk partition of a couple gigs and point it there, so it's not actually on the WinDrive. (Or with my own boxes that have plenty of RAM, I disable swapping entirely.)
I've seen virgin installs as small as 703mb, yes you read that right! not sure why that happens, and nothing seems to be missing.
At a guess, 3GB might be counting not only pagefile, but also all the backed-up files from installing patches and SPs, and maybe even the result of copying the whole i386 directory to the HD prior to installing.
Of course, ya never know what some yahoo did to their Windows while we weren't watching [g]
Originally we were talking about virgin installs, before applying SPs and patches -- WinXP does back up the old files, so SP/patch files are added to the total. If you apply every patch under the sun, that surely comes to a lot of extra disk space.
:)
Naturally, after installing every app known to man, the space consumed tends to grow a bit
[goes to look] My WinXP install is now 3 years old, and has all sorts of crap installed (mainly office and image editing suites), but has not had any SPs or patches (not an internet-connected machine, so I'm not rocking the boat). The WINDOWS directory is 1.29GB. The SysVolInfo directory (with a rolling total of 30 System Restore checkpoints) is about 1.6GB, but remember that's empty at the time of install (and can grow very large if you constantly install and uninstall stuff). The pagefile is disabled, since it never uses more than about 450mb of 768mb RAM.
The very first time I installed XP, the TOTAL disk space used was 703mb, which was a head-scratcher for sure (and everything worked). I've occasionally seen it that small on other systems too. I'm not sure what the difference is, since it usually winds up around 1.3GB.
Eh? No, you just run Defrag from Windows, no problem. It won't move read-only files (frex, the swapfile), but that's nothing new to any species of DOS or Win9x defrag. However some 3rd party defraggers can move the swapfile.
Scandisk sometimes doesn't work right when run inside of Win9x, in which case you need to exit to the DOS prompt to run it. (You find out that happened when you've just run Scandisk, and Defrag still whines about errors.)
BTW two of the machines always sit in Windows (98 and XP) and one usually sits in DOS (tho is defragged from Win95; don't want to mess up the LFNs!) But they all have Regular Jobs, so they're never turned off regardless.
Conversely the Mac, the Win2K box, and the Random *NIX Disty box (presently with Ubuntu) don't have Regular Jobs, so they're not powered on unless I want 'em for something.
That's why I use an OLD version of ZA -- 2.1.25 on pre-XP, and 2.6.36x for XP. These versions have demonstrated to me that they reliably stop both incoming and outgoing unwanteds. However, I have absolutely no faith in later versions; too many conflicts, one version that failed utterly; and a firewall should do ONE job and do it right, not be everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink like recent versions. (Why on earth would I trust them for an AV solution? Whose AV engine are they licensing? cuz I don't think a reliable AV is something you can develop overnight.)
There are probably "better" firewalls (more configurable, certainly), but in most cases I just want to throw it at the machine and reliably get the job done, and not get baffled calls from clients when some obscure message comes up, or have to muck about with port settings to make it work.
If I had broadband, or if my PCs were networked, or if I were using W2K/XP online (which I don't feel that I can see enough of what goes on behind the curtain, as I can do with Win9x, to catch everything strange they might do) you betcha there'd be a router in my life.
As we used to say in the floppy era... your PC isn't just kissing that disk -- it's also kissing every PC that disk ever kissed. :)
:)
If I had broadband (or if my mess of PCs were networked) I'd get a router, or conscript one of the old PCs for the job. But even so, yes, I still want that software firewall on every machine. It's not just stuff coming in that can be a problem, it's also stuff going out that concerns me.
Frex, my neighbour played with an attachment and caught a virus. She had no idea, but ZA whined about some unknown process trying to access the net, and wouldn't let ANYTHING connect. -- I told her next time she commits such a folly, I'll let her suffer for a week before I come fix it.
LOL! True -- beating Windows into submission can be very entertaining :)
;)
I've been outside too. It's very big.
Firewall, yes; I use an old version of ZoneAlarm that only does ONE job and does it well. It goes on every machine whether it has internet access or not. But the XP machine doesn't normally get used online anyway (and hasn't been in a couple years now); that's the Win98 box's job.
:)
Plus I don't use IE/Outlook, P2P stuff, etc. When you don't engage in risky behaviour, the PC's condom doesn't need to fit so tight.
When Windows is unstable, 99% of the time it's either because the hardware and/or drivers are crap (causing BSODs) or lack of basic maintenance (regular defrags, etc.) Windows itself is very seldom the actual culprit. If it were, NO ONE using Windows would experience solid uptimes, not even clueful folks like you and me.
I have 3 machines that run 24/7, cuz otherwise I'd spend the whole day turning 'em on and off. Ouch!
I've heard the 3GB figure before, but in all the times I've installed XP, I've never seen it. [wild speculation] I wonder if in some cases the install silently aborts and restarts, maybe to work around a hardware glitch? that would cause a bunch of duplicate junk to be left behind.
As to the extra crapware that comes with OEM systems, that can easily top a gig of sheer garbage. I recently cleaned up a brand new HP machine for a client, and recovered 1.2GB just from killing off the preinstalled Crud.
Even so... I don't doubt that a good 25% of the default XP install is needless baggage for most people. According to the late blackviper.com's analysis, something like 3/4ths of the installed "services" have no mission in life for the average user, or even for the geek user.
Yeah, but we bitched about why Vista is behind schedule yesterday. So just for variety, today we'll bitch about why Windows is slow, even if it's not what the article is about. :)
Actually, both interpretations have generated some interesting threads and thoughts about solutions.
Yes, I did RTFA [hangs head in shame]
Only weeks? my WinXPPro box was last rebooted in August of 2005!! and it's not nLited or XPLited, either, tho I did turn off the etch-a-sketch gunk. And it's on a lowly P3-500/768mb RAM. Runs smoothly, if not crisp. (Its jobs are Photoshop, CorelDraw, Office, multimedia, etc.; it doesn't do internet, so no one worries about patches or SPs.)
Also, the default XP install should only run about 1.3GB, including the default swapfile (or a bit over 700mb without). I've never seen one bloat up into the 3GB range, and I espect something is wrong when that happens. Or that's including swapfile, hibernation file (same size as your RAM), and maybe an arseload of undeleted temp-install files.
Even so... I've often grumbled that WinXP should have shipped as a clean Win2k-alike version that was purely the OS and needfuls (including more or less the same feature set as Win2K), and a Plus Pack for all the eye candy and consumer-glitter applets. That way everyone would have a cleaner machine to start with, and those who want the Plus Pack could install it themselves. Everybody happy!
That's an excellent thought. And ideally, Windows should ship with the VMs as part of the default install, so the user need not do anything more complex than go to "Start, Tools, Win95 VM", and up it comes, ready to go. While we're designing an ideal setup, I'd like to be able to ALT-TAB and copy/paste from the host OS to the VM-OS and its running apps, so the effect would be completely seamless for the end user.
The VMs would run the legacy apps, and M$ could throw away all the embedded backward-compatibility stuff, WITHOUT pissing off customers who still need it.
That explains it... he manages robots!!
You're probably right. From his page that someone below linked:
Program Manager 22 years, Raytheon(E-Systems, Inc.)
[goes to look]
Yep, and I don't like it.
I can't tell from the screenie, and don't use js in my main browser so we ain't goin' there, but if they screw up the table structure the way they did with the last change, it will render some links unreachable for some browsers (you'll be able to SEE the link, but not CLICK on it).
That's a good thought, and certainly would be easier for non-technical consumers to understand.
:/
It could also have a sub-scoring system useful for different types of programs. Frex, for a game it might be something like "Your PC requires a video-RAM-CPU score of 5-3-4 to run this game", whereas for an office-type app the required score might be 3-4-3.
Sadly, I think my PCs would all rate 0-0-0
An AC reminds us that M$ says, "These computers should readily support a composted desktop and at a minimum the Aero Express theme."
Whoa, I'm not sure I want my computer going into the compost heap!!
Oh, I see... it's either a multitasking OS, or a localhost-MMORPG :)
Great, now I have this image of a facehugger alien lurking inside every new Dell....
Yep... the one-click cure for Windows for Preschoolers [g]
One disturbing thing I noticed about the translucent windows, is that the visual "bleed" from the frame of the next window tended to lead my eye away from the focus window. Made it hard to keep my eye on the work area.
Yeah, the transparency is pretty, and interesting in a vaguely artistic way, but a PC is a tool first and foremost, it is not meant to be an artistic expression. And most of the time you want your work area efficiently defined, not serving as a distraction in itself.
That too. Personally, I *like* having a PC that I can just throw anything at, and expect it to run in more or less the expected manner :)
LOL!! Oh, man... someone has a strange sense of humour.... I remember what a pain FRIEZE was, because some incarnations of the nasty thing didn't want to unload from RAM when told to.
I skipped over Win2K, but maybe they did fix the screencap thing by then.
BTW, this article is an artifact of the KB's at-best-random organization... a couple years ago, M$ killed all the Win95 and earlier KB articles, but there are pockets of old stuff still undiscovered. -- At the time I leached the entire KB off their FTP, and IIRC it only came to about 4GB (256,000 files).
A number of assertions in this press release may be considered to be forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including timely development, and market acceptance of products and technologies, competitive market conditions, and the ability to secure additional sources of financing. The actual results Solar Energy Limited may achieve could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties.
D'oh!!