There's a pile of different CPU ARCHes out there. How many does Windows run on?
Plenty. MS still uses a HAL for Windows. They might not publically release an OS for PPC, MIPS or Alpha anymore, but they're not going to pull out the ability to do it in the future.
nVidia/ATI will end up going the way of Creative. It used to be that to get any sort of decent sound you were required to buy a PCI sound card. I'm out of the hard-core gaming scene, but I don't know anyone that uses anything but integrated sound. When I can get 7.1 sound from my motherboard, why would I consider buying something else?
Creative seriously fucked up the sound card market to try and corner it and wound up destroying audio on the PC. Most of the serious competition got bought up or put out of business by Creative's 'win by any means necessary' plan.
Most companies started puting disclaimers on the boxes saying "this product is governed by a "end user license agreement" goto Thisweb.site, read and agree to the EULA before opening this product.
I think that should be tossed out as well. It requires you to find an Internet connection and look up something on a website while standing in a store thinking 'hey, this new game looks like fun, I think I'll buy it'. It's the equivalent of the "Beware of the Leopard" display method.
There's a simple solution that absolutely no major company would ever resort to. Put the EULA on a fold out attached to the box and optionally make the end user sign it before purchase.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Taxes are passed through laws. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that yeah, this is an abridgement of speech through tax law.
Because ALL software has to run the DRM hook gauntlet. basically, the way Microsoft has set it up is that the DRM processes are ALWAYS running and CANNOT be disabled. So every single bit of data is processed through the DRM loop, slowing everything down.
And how many apps did end up using the explorer HTML renderer for anything other than the net?
Not sure why you would use HTML offline, but Windows Help, Microsoft Money and Quicken come to mind. For online, I could list a few dozen.
Not to mention that providing an easy API for third parties to use != grafting it to the kernel.
IE isn't in the kernel, it is in use all over the shell. Which makes sense, since you can go and tweak the shell using HTML, something many companies did and still do.
Incorporating IE into windows was purely done to make it impossible to be replaced by netscape.
No, that was done by licensing. MS got smacked down for forcing OEMs to only bundle IE. Nothing technical stopped Netscape from using ActiveX and integrating itself into the shell. Marc Andreessen's ego was most likely the only thing really stopping it.
That is because IE is not just the browser frontend, it is an entire framework that a lot of third party applications depend on.
This was done intentionally by Microsoft, even going so far as making important components like Explorer depend on it. This isn't really the case any more for most of Windows, but the third party programs still need it, so removing it would break a lot of programs people use.
Back in 1995, this was very important to getting the Internet to the users and people seem to forget that. You didn't have many choices back then, especially if you wanted to write an app that used HTML in any meaningful way. It was pretty original to use HTML inside applications as a simple object, and it made coding these applications very easy.
Nowadays everyone and their brother has a HTML renderer, so it's moot, but it would break all the legacy apps that use the IE components.
What Opera and other companies really want is IE off the start menu and the components left in the OS.
The whole flipping off someone is a crime thing has been tried in some states, I think NY was one of them. The courts always rule that it's unconstitutional. The cop was just trying to scare you into not doing it again.
(I'm tired, someone else can do the research on the case if they want)
This is the sort of thing that listservs seem to do pretty well.
I just wish I could convince more of my users to use them. I have one winner who sends a list using 300+ CC's. The anti-spam system on the mail server slows that list to a crawl (deliberately). They wonder why it takes 3 hours to send, and I tell them to use the list server that we set up, but it's different and they don't want to be bothered. I think I'll make it take 6 hours next time.
Actually for about 15 minutes NickJR went dark for not just Time Warner (roadrunner) customers, but apparently all of the US. There was no content and a message about a dispute with Time Warner being the reason they removed the content. I tried several different ISPs across the country (VPN/RDS/etc) and all of them were blocked, including Verizon, which had nothing to do with this dispute.
So, it appears that Viacom was ready to take their ball and go home, so to speak. I can only assume that after the millions of complaints and lost business they would have turned it back on for other ISPs and just blocked TWC/RR, but still, it's a scummy thing to do.
I'm reminded of a story told to me by an admin of a large company.
Several years ago, the IT department decided to use their notification system to send a one time message "Happy Holidays from IT" (press any key to continue). The help desk phones rang off the hook by users who wanted to know what to do. There was a new window on their screen that they had never seen before and they were afraid to touch the keyboard.
Now, this was a while ago, and before the PC became as popular as it is now, so I would estimate only 25% the calls if it happened today. The point being is that people do not like to change their workflow without training.
As for rapid migration of critical apps, you should look into how many large companies still have COBOL apps running.
You are 100% correct, if you completely ignore corporate America using Windows.
Lets take a large corporation as an example and look at the costs you ignored:
Dozens of in house Windows apps, which would either need to be re-written or at least fully tested again in an emulation environment. Training for the end users for a new OS. Training for the end users for a new Office suite. Training for the end users for any critical applications. A new desktop management software roll-out for IT. Any server changes for IT. Training for IT in the new OS/Suite/Apps/Management software/servers. Time to convert from the old systems to the new ones. and a few dozen problems that will spring up during the transition.
Now, after the millions spent on the above, you can wait a few years for the ROI in your new MS free environment.
I present to you, Queens Blvd. aka "The Blvd of Death".
Rush hour consists of 8 lanes of 30 mph bumper to bumper traffic with short timed lights, busses and pedestrian crossings. There's no such thing as not tailgating, it is literally impossible to maintain a proper distance in the nightmare that is QB rush hour.
(Trivia: The bank is the one from the first episode of Prison Break, it apparently took a short trip to Chicago that week)
Ok, my point is, the red light cameras are nothing but a ATM for the city, they know what kind of traffic nightmare they created with this road, and they exploit it.
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There's a pile of different CPU ARCHes out there. How many does Windows run on?
Plenty. MS still uses a HAL for Windows. They might not publically release an OS for PPC, MIPS or Alpha anymore, but they're not going to pull out the ability to do it in the future.
When cases like this come up, I like to do this:
Replace the word Games with the word Books. Games are an interactive story, so calling them books isn't a huge stretch.
Now, re-read the story with the new words. Worried yet?
nVidia/ATI will end up going the way of Creative. It used to be that to get any sort of decent sound you were required to buy a PCI sound card. I'm out of the hard-core gaming scene, but I don't know anyone that uses anything but integrated sound. When I can get 7.1 sound from my motherboard, why would I consider buying something else?
Creative seriously fucked up the sound card market to try and corner it and wound up destroying audio on the PC. Most of the serious competition got bought up or put out of business by Creative's 'win by any means necessary' plan.
Most companies started puting disclaimers on the boxes saying "this product is governed by a "end user license agreement" goto Thisweb.site, read and agree to the EULA before opening this product.
I think that should be tossed out as well. It requires you to find an Internet connection and look up something on a website while standing in a store thinking 'hey, this new game looks like fun, I think I'll buy it'. It's the equivalent of the "Beware of the Leopard" display method.
There's a simple solution that absolutely no major company would ever resort to. Put the EULA on a fold out attached to the box and optionally make the end user sign it before purchase.
Please show some other software that is supported that long.
Windows 2000.
I wish I did.
My shares were at least printed on nice soft paper, so I got some use out of them.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Taxes are passed through laws. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that yeah, this is an abridgement of speech through tax law.
Because ALL software has to run the DRM hook gauntlet. basically, the way Microsoft has set it up is that the DRM processes are ALWAYS running and CANNOT be disabled. So every single bit of data is processed through the DRM loop, slowing everything down.
Citation Needed.
I would go as far to say that what Opera wants is Opera pre-installed with no hints of IE whatsoever. That's understandable, they want to make money.
By leaving all those "windows only" things in there, it doesn't require sites to rewrite their IE Only apps to be AJAX / open apps
Funny, since Microsoft invented AJAX back in the late 90's. Yeah, I know what you meant, they want their apps to be W3C standard.
And how many apps did end up using the explorer HTML renderer for anything other than the net?
Not sure why you would use HTML offline, but Windows Help, Microsoft Money and Quicken come to mind. For online, I could list a few dozen.
Not to mention that providing an easy API for third parties to use != grafting it to the kernel.
IE isn't in the kernel, it is in use all over the shell. Which makes sense, since you can go and tweak the shell using HTML, something many companies did and still do.
Incorporating IE into windows was purely done to make it impossible to be replaced by netscape.
No, that was done by licensing. MS got smacked down for forcing OEMs to only bundle IE. Nothing technical stopped Netscape from using ActiveX and integrating itself into the shell. Marc Andreessen's ego was most likely the only thing really stopping it.
That is because IE is not just the browser frontend, it is an entire framework that a lot of third party applications depend on.
This was done intentionally by Microsoft, even going so far as making important components like Explorer depend on it. This isn't really the case any more for most of Windows, but the third party programs still need it, so removing it would break a lot of programs people use.
Back in 1995, this was very important to getting the Internet to the users and people seem to forget that. You didn't have many choices back then, especially if you wanted to write an app that used HTML in any meaningful way. It was pretty original to use HTML inside applications as a simple object, and it made coding these applications very easy.
Nowadays everyone and their brother has a HTML renderer, so it's moot, but it would break all the legacy apps that use the IE components.
What Opera and other companies really want is IE off the start menu and the components left in the OS.
The whole flipping off someone is a crime thing has been tried in some states, I think NY was one of them. The courts always rule that it's unconstitutional. The cop was just trying to scare you into not doing it again.
(I'm tired, someone else can do the research on the case if they want)
I think I would still enjoy it, at least for a while.
OK, just for fun, imagine if you could personally sub-contract the busywork out to some data entry drone and collect the extra money.
This is the sort of thing that listservs seem to do pretty well.
I just wish I could convince more of my users to use them. I have one winner who sends a list using 300+ CC's. The anti-spam system on the mail server slows that list to a crawl (deliberately). They wonder why it takes 3 hours to send, and I tell them to use the list server that we set up, but it's different and they don't want to be bothered. I think I'll make it take 6 hours next time.
I would kill for a the "white room" punishment. I get paid to daydream? I could do that, for at least a year.
(Yeah, I'm burned out, I would like to thank my former boss for having me work about 800 unpaid hours and having the nerve to go bankrupt)
After reading 'How to Get a Copy of Your FBI File', I liked how the site directed me to another titled 'Torturing your Sims'.
Seriously, where do you go from that?
Actually for about 15 minutes NickJR went dark for not just Time Warner (roadrunner) customers, but apparently all of the US. There was no content and a message about a dispute with Time Warner being the reason they removed the content. I tried several different ISPs across the country (VPN/RDS/etc) and all of them were blocked, including Verizon, which had nothing to do with this dispute.
So, it appears that Viacom was ready to take their ball and go home, so to speak. I can only assume that after the millions of complaints and lost business they would have turned it back on for other ISPs and just blocked TWC/RR, but still, it's a scummy thing to do.
Some of those are now offline with a note about time warner.
How about a minimum of $10/mo & you add some new channels that we might actually want?
Ummm, no, these are not ignored costs; these are simply the costs of continuing to use M$ products
Which of my points do not apply for using Sun, IBM, or any other major vendor?
I'm reminded of a story told to me by an admin of a large company.
Several years ago, the IT department decided to use their notification system to send a one time message "Happy Holidays from IT" (press any key to continue). The help desk phones rang off the hook by users who wanted to know what to do. There was a new window on their screen that they had never seen before and they were afraid to touch the keyboard.
Now, this was a while ago, and before the PC became as popular as it is now, so I would estimate only 25% the calls if it happened today. The point being is that people do not like to change their workflow without training.
As for rapid migration of critical apps, you should look into how many large companies still have COBOL apps running.
You are 100% correct, if you completely ignore corporate America using Windows.
Lets take a large corporation as an example and look at the costs you ignored:
Dozens of in house Windows apps, which would either need to be re-written or at least fully tested again in an emulation environment.
Training for the end users for a new OS.
Training for the end users for a new Office suite.
Training for the end users for any critical applications.
A new desktop management software roll-out for IT.
Any server changes for IT.
Training for IT in the new OS/Suite/Apps/Management software/servers.
Time to convert from the old systems to the new ones.
and a few dozen problems that will spring up during the transition.
Now, after the millions spent on the above, you can wait a few years for the ROI in your new MS free environment.
I'm onboard. I hate the current DNS setup, so go write a RFC.
A series of 3 or 4 large speed bumps would solve the speeding problem pretty fast and make people avoid the shortcut.
I present to you, Queens Blvd. aka "The Blvd of Death".
Rush hour consists of 8 lanes of 30 mph bumper to bumper traffic with short timed lights, busses and pedestrian crossings. There's no such thing as not tailgating, it is literally impossible to maintain a proper distance in the nightmare that is QB rush hour.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=11375&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.946584,113.90625&ie=UTF8&ll=40.721854,-73.844731&spn=0.00138,0.003476&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=40.721898,-73.844823&panoid=V1TmsenN3TEZERZbk1vLkg&cbp=12,23.939433024000493,,0,5
(Trivia: The bank is the one from the first episode of Prison Break, it apparently took a short trip to Chicago that week)
Ok, my point is, the red light cameras are nothing but a ATM for the city, they know what kind of traffic nightmare they created with this road, and they exploit it.