I imagine that in 10 years we'll be seeing studies about how too much Internet/computer/video game use will also result in ADHD
I don't think that's a fair extrapolation. If "the Internet" is going to cause ADHD, then I suppose "reading books" will too. Or "folding paper". Origami is creating a nation of obese ADHD'ers!
Internet use is sometimes like TV - but it also involves reading, decision-making, and much more concentration. Maybe it'll lead to a generation of smart kids with balanced lives?
The president of the US can't even get "serviced" in secret. I think you're over-estimating it's ability to conduct a large project (one which would, of necessity, be known about by a large number of people) without any kind of story escaping.
High powered laser, eh? Even back here on Earth -where there are no real limits on size, weight or power - nobody has a laser that's going to cut a car in half in the dramatic fashion you're imagining. Perhaps the US could put a laser up there you could feel the warmth of. And then it would take 3 weeks to recharge.
I could justify paying $50 (Canadian) for a network adapter for giggles. But not the other $50 for the second network adapter for my friend's GC. $100 is too much more a once-in-a-while novelty.
Too bad really, cause it sounds like a lot of fun. Perhaps it'll work in a year or so when GC network adapters are bargain-bin material.
An integrated network adapter should cost essentially nothing. A modular one is more expensive to make, and most of their cost was markup anyway. At most, this is a $5/console difference.
The decision on including a hard disk is a little different, as hard disks actually cost something to produce. Network adapter is pretty much about "can we make them pay for one more accessory?" vs. "can we sell more consoles by including this".
I'd like an adapter for my GameCube. I wouldn't use it to game online, but because 4 people just isn't enough with Mario Kart.
I write games as a hobby*, and it doesn't bother me one iota to see Savage win an award like this. I think S2 could reasonably be called an independent when they wrote Savage.
But they aren't any longer. I'm not sure how to codify this as a rule - but they've now "gone pro". Perhaps the best approach is the one the IGF has taken thus far - a list of companies that "aren't independent". Each year, they should add successful (even if not profitable) companies for whom new developments will no longer be considered independent.
*You can check out Jumpman Zero in my sig - it's fun, but it's probably not going to be winning any awards. Except maybe for music, which is the part I didn't do.
XP has its problems, and some things about it really bug me. I just get tired of people doomsaying about how it's always crashing and you have to reinstall Windows once a month and you have to tweak drivers to get anything to run - and other garbage that just doesn't conform to my own experience, or the experiences of the hundreds of people I know who are running it.
I think some people still have this idea that Windows users are trying to scrape things done in the 5 minute intervals between blue screens - and it just isn't that way. But what do I know - I'm a fool with no real life experience.
Screw off. I've been developing software for a long time, and I know more about PC's, Windows, and probably even Linux than you ever will. Do you know what it was like to setup DMA on an original Sound Blaster? Do you remember what changed when going to the odd Pro version with the FM synthesizer from the SB16? How about how the sprite buffer works on a Commodore 64?
Of course you don't, so shut your idiot mouth when talking to those older, more experienced, and smarter than you.
Looking over your comments, you're a boring Linux fanboy who doesn't know dick - and routinely gets modded into oblivion for his stupidity. This is quite the accomplishment for a Linux fanboy on Slashdot.
I'd love to do the Mario Kart LAN thing. I even know enough people with cubes and discs. I just can't pay $50*4 for the broadband adapters I'll never use again.
Then you ignore that for pretty much the rest of your post and talk about machine cost and non-uniform hardware.
As far as I'm concerned if a company could come out with a very high spec'd console equipment, sold it at a next-to-nothing profit(priced close to existing consoles) but made it easy to develop for, they'd 0wn the industry
What a frickin' great idea! So what you're saying is that if someone comes out with a better product and price it cheaper, they'll sell lots. That's great. Too bad those silly guys in the industry haven't thought of this.
Every version we see released we find more and more problems that are being exploited. A gamer will probably have to reinstall their system multiple times a year. Trying to get their drivers working for all games, all the settings that need to be tweaked.
Actually, every version of Windows sees less and less problems - really. Compare Windows 95 to Windows XP. Or the tweaks required to play a game under XP to the ones required under DOS 5. It gets better.
I'm not a big PC gamer (I like my Gamecube), but I play a little on my development machine. It just really doesn't give me any problems. I've been running the same machine for a while now, and the only reinstall I've done in years was moving from 2000 to XP - and it was pretty painless.
A lot of people seem to have these old ideas that Windows is still crashing all the time and has driver problems. It really just doesn't. It did at one time. Windows 95 was really an abomination. Windows XP is really pretty stable.
You can't just bring a PC game to another person's house and play them. There is a CDKEY and you aren't supposed to do that
Do you actually play many PC games? CDKeys are actually fairly rare. PC games could run off of the CD without an install if that's what gamers were clamoring for. They apparently aren't. Instead, they want the short load times of having content on the hard disk.
PC games and console games will co-exist for at least a while longer. There's games suited to each, and both options make sense for different people. Just because PC gaming isn't for you doesn't mean it's doomed.
Prince of Persia is the most polished and well put together game I have ever played. The game is visually stunning, the control scheme flawless, and a fantastic story that really ties the whole thing together
It was indeed a very solid game. All the things you mention about it are good - but it did have some problems, chiefly in terms of variety and replayability.
There was, what, 5 or 6 different enemies in the whole game? And how much did those enemies differ from one another? There was pretty much "ones that let you vault over them", "ones that you bounced off walls to kill", and pointless birds/bats.
90% of the difficulty (which there wasn't much of) in the game was either timing the back-and-forth walljumps or in the first fight with your father (which you do before you have a good handle on the controls).
That said, it had a lot of things going for it - excellent control, camera, story, and general polish. I might even call it game of the year - a dead heat with Wind Waker - but I can understand those who don't like it. It's an "experience once" sort of game, and it just isn't very long.
So, basically, my understanding is that if I put together a solid DDoS exploit for Windows using XNA
A DDoS against what exactly? Against individual machines playing these games (ie. using multiple machines to stop a person from playing a game)?
Against the server? If so, then these technologies are mostly irrelevant - servers are their own thing (and can be patched much more easily than a million clients).
Or were you thinking more about a compromising security exploit, rather than a DDoS? And, if you're confusing that kind of thing, do you want to reconsider insulting Gabe Newell for not knowing better? PS: What do you think Steam is?
From what I can see, this is mostly about making more things in gaming part of a standard gaming API. Both DirectX and the XBox Live tools have been very successful - and I could see MS being successful in expanding this strategy (both to more devices and more functionality). I don't know that it needs a new name - as it's not some big departure - but it sounds like good planning.
Many MS file formats have been mostly deciphered and are generally becoming easier to decipher. There has been word processors for a long time that have been able to deal with Word documents pretty well - but we still see Word around to the extent that many would call it a monopoly.
I'm not saying that fully open file formats wouldn't help - just that they are not necessarily the central issue.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market
Not really. For example, MS could safely release all of the WMP codecs and formats and still crush the "free market" in players by distributing a free player tied to its OS - that's why WMP is still an issue on the table with the EU folk.
Closed formats are one piece in a big puzzle. There are many other possibilities for MS to abuse.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market.
To a certain extent, they have..NET and general XML-ization have certainly made MS much more open. And MS would love to have legislators believe that these are large steps towards an open, competitive environment. Regardless of how open.NET remoting or a new Word format is, this kind of change will not make that big of a difference.
In reality, there won't be big changes in the desktop market until Linux (or someone else) steps in with a significantly better, polished product, or until some government royally tromps MS with a motion intended to bust. I don't see the US doing the busting (economically unsound), and the EU likely realizes that serious action has a good chance of sparking a trade war.
Even if MS halted all "bad behavior", their monopoly would continue for some time. As such, we'll have to wait for the slow progress of open software OS's to bash things back open.
From the first article I read, the mechanism was a little unclear and I figured it was a new bug in the renderer or something. That it's this old bug is sad in a lot of ways. I believe it also used to work with image attachments - perhaps that hole was fixed in an earlier update than the iframe one you refer to.
Almost all of the viruses from the last few years have been "open attachment to get infected" types. That this one isn't that way is fairly big news.
The Preview will execute the code contained within the mail message in exactly the same way as if you had opened it. It has been this way for a few years
What does that even mean? Execute the code? Do you mean "render the HTML"? Outlook Express doesn't execute script in the preview window or the "opened message" window. I'm guessing this new virus either forces script to execute via some exploit, performs an exploit in general HTML rendering, or performs some exploit against ActiveX. The important distinction here has never been between "previewing the e-mail" and "opening the e-mail", it's been between "looking at the e-mail" and "opening the attachments".
De Beers doesn't have a true monopoly. Neither does OPEC. De Beers is part of a functional monopoly on diamonds, whose prices are grossly inflated. This has reached the point of common knowledge - though I've heard some talk that Russian diamonds are set to start a bit of a price war - with artificial diamonds soon to follow.
I've already seen a few programs (though I can't find any examples now that I look) that have a folder with an arrow pointing into it for "save" and out of it for "open". I think that's fairly intuitive.
Many people already do not know what the floppy disk save icon is - I've heard at least two people say "click on the little TV to save".
I've never played Galaxies, so I don't know what the crafting system looks like. I can imagine it being portable and fun, but it sounds like it just isn't. That's sad either way.
I think you're right on in most of your analysis. I don't see games being truly portable across platforms in the way some people are imagining. If this is "Continuous Gaming", then it's doomed - at least for the foreseeable future. Most modern games are tied to the strengths of their target platform.
I do think, though, that there's good potential for online, persistent games (which more and more games will be) to offer some forms of play across a variety of platforms. This could take the form of playing puzzles to craft items or perhaps a stripped down player vs player fighting system (or who knows what). In any case, I think there's cases where this could definitely make sense - especially for projects that are already very large, such as the big MMORPG's. It could provide a way to get another headline feature without disrupting core gameplay.
I don't know to what extent this is viable - but I'll bet we'll see a few attempts made initially, as the novelty will have value on its own (as it has with the GBA-GC connectivity).
There's some good ideas here. Think "Puzzle Pirates". Or imagine, for example, that you could craft items in Star Wars Galaxies while sitting on the bus with just your phone. This provides a way to buff your character without commiting as much sit-down gametime - and provides a new source of content for mobile gamers. This is certainly a marketable idea.
To those who would ask "Does the world really need this?", the answer starts off with "you're stupid and lost" and ends with "you can disable games.slashdot.org".
The prestige that comes from this sort of accomplishment is important for marketing - especially in Japan. As a bonus, they get advances that may make their way into production vehicles. They also attract better caliber engineers by maintaining a reputation as an industry leader.
Not even an annoying bunch of clicks on "next" in a wizard (why should a user even have to install anything?
I guess usability has a few different meanings. For me, a camera shouldn't install any software - it should just show up as a USB mass storage under Windows. I hate hundred-screen clicky-wizards.
To others, they would have no idea how to get the photos off without reading it in the manual and using the software. And all those wizard screens are comforting, and handle a lot of possibilities they care about (ie. Would you like Windows XP to resize this picture before you e-mail it?).
Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
Certainly Windows isn't there yet, and the deeper you go, the more silly stuff you do. All I'm saying is that it's closer. I'm sure there's lots of examples to be found either way - but in my experience the difference is still pretty clear.
The Dreamcast was built around running Windows CE and DirectX 5. I can't remember how it all worked - I think most games included a rudimentary version of Windows that handled basic functions, and DirectX for doing the graphics work.
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
I like Linux too, but this is a silly argument. Variants of Windows have run on a lot of things and quite a few different processors. Ever used a Pocket PC or a Dreamcast? Portability/flexibility is great - but it's hardly the defining characteristic of Linux, nor close to the central way it's different from Windows.
Anyone who says that is hard is either talking out of their arse or a microsoft/apple fanboy.
It's possible to have a good experience setting up Linux - and it's likely if you know what you're doing and you know what things mean. If you don't, there's a good possibility you'll dig yourself into a hole and not even know it.
I just installed Mandrake on a machine a couple months ago. The little Samba config utility just didn't work. I didn't know why. I still don't. Anywho, I knew how to use Samba from the command line so it ended up not being a problem for me - but for another guy it would have been a complete showstopper. They just couldn't have used it for its intended purpose.
Watch yourself use Linux. Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
the amount of support they had to do reduced and for those times their parents couldnt fix it they could ssh right in
You've given a good example. SSH right in, eh? Imagine how meaningful those letters would be to a new user.
To do the same task under Windows XP, you'd click "Remote Assist" - and you could assist intuitively by acting on that machine the same way you act on your own. Sure, you could use VNC too - if you know what VNC is, how to enable it, and all that.
Linux is easy to use if you know what you're doing. If you're lucky, it's easy to use even if you don't - but as things currently are you'll run up against that learning curve sometime if you're really going to use the thing. Windows isn't amazing here either, but it's further down the road to usability.
My digital camera, scanner and adsl modem "just work", so do the nic cards in my partner and I's machines
If you buy the right camera, it'll work. But some won't. You may disagree, but I've tried and failed a few times with cameras (which by itself is evidence that it is more difficult than under Windows - even if it is eventually possible).
And you won't get the manufacturers programs to manage your photos. That's a plus for me - but again it's a crippling failure for others. It means the manual that came with their camera is useless.
You're just not seeing things from a new user's eyes here.
That's why you can buy Mac hardware produced by any vendor you want. Well, as long as the vendor is Apple.
It's kind of like me complaining that Dell makes "closed hardware" because I can't replace dead power supplies in some models with standard ATX replacements
Actually, that's a legitimate complaint. It would be somewhat more troubling, though, if you couldn't replace that Dell with a machine from a completely unrelated vendor. For whatever their problems, x86 is really about the only open platform right now (ie. one where all the components are available from more than one vendor).
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine that in 10 years we'll be seeing studies about how too much Internet/computer/video game use will also result in ADHD
I don't think that's a fair extrapolation. If "the Internet" is going to cause ADHD, then I suppose "reading books" will too. Or "folding paper". Origami is creating a nation of obese ADHD'ers!
Internet use is sometimes like TV - but it also involves reading, decision-making, and much more concentration. Maybe it'll lead to a generation of smart kids with balanced lives?
The president of the US can't even get "serviced" in secret. I think you're over-estimating it's ability to conduct a large project (one which would, of necessity, be known about by a large number of people) without any kind of story escaping.
High powered laser, eh? Even back here on Earth -where there are no real limits on size, weight or power - nobody has a laser that's going to cut a car in half in the dramatic fashion you're imagining. Perhaps the US could put a laser up there you could feel the warmth of. And then it would take 3 weeks to recharge.
I could justify paying $50 (Canadian) for a network adapter for giggles. But not the other $50 for the second network adapter for my friend's GC. $100 is too much more a once-in-a-while novelty.
Too bad really, cause it sounds like a lot of fun. Perhaps it'll work in a year or so when GC network adapters are bargain-bin material.
An integrated network adapter should cost essentially nothing. A modular one is more expensive to make, and most of their cost was markup anyway. At most, this is a $5/console difference.
The decision on including a hard disk is a little different, as hard disks actually cost something to produce. Network adapter is pretty much about "can we make them pay for one more accessory?" vs. "can we sell more consoles by including this".
I'd like an adapter for my GameCube. I wouldn't use it to game online, but because 4 people just isn't enough with Mario Kart.
I write games as a hobby*, and it doesn't bother me one iota to see Savage win an award like this. I think S2 could reasonably be called an independent when they wrote Savage.
But they aren't any longer. I'm not sure how to codify this as a rule - but they've now "gone pro". Perhaps the best approach is the one the IGF has taken thus far - a list of companies that "aren't independent". Each year, they should add successful (even if not profitable) companies for whom new developments will no longer be considered independent.
*You can check out Jumpman Zero in my sig - it's fun, but it's probably not going to be winning any awards. Except maybe for music, which is the part I didn't do.
..and I get a fair bit of work done on XP/Putty.
XP has its problems, and some things about it really bug me. I just get tired of people doomsaying about how it's always crashing and you have to reinstall Windows once a month and you have to tweak drivers to get anything to run - and other garbage that just doesn't conform to my own experience, or the experiences of the hundreds of people I know who are running it.
I think some people still have this idea that Windows users are trying to scrape things done in the 5 minute intervals between blue screens - and it just isn't that way. But what do I know - I'm a fool with no real life experience.
You are a fool with no real life experience.
Screw off. I've been developing software for a long time, and I know more about PC's, Windows, and probably even Linux than you ever will. Do you know what it was like to setup DMA on an original Sound Blaster? Do you remember what changed when going to the odd Pro version with the FM synthesizer from the SB16? How about how the sprite buffer works on a Commodore 64?
Of course you don't, so shut your idiot mouth when talking to those older, more experienced, and smarter than you.
Looking over your comments, you're a boring Linux fanboy who doesn't know dick - and routinely gets modded into oblivion for his stupidity. This is quite the accomplishment for a Linux fanboy on Slashdot.
I'd love to do the Mario Kart LAN thing. I even know enough people with cubes and discs. I just can't pay $50*4 for the broadband adapters I'll never use again.
You start off by saying:
windows is the problem
Then you ignore that for pretty much the rest of your post and talk about machine cost and non-uniform hardware.
As far as I'm concerned if a company could come out with a very high spec'd console equipment, sold it at a next-to-nothing profit(priced close to existing consoles) but made it easy to develop for, they'd 0wn the industry
What a frickin' great idea! So what you're saying is that if someone comes out with a better product and price it cheaper, they'll sell lots. That's great. Too bad those silly guys in the industry haven't thought of this.
Every version we see released we find more and more problems that are being exploited. A gamer will probably have to reinstall their system multiple times a year. Trying to get their drivers working for all games, all the settings that need to be tweaked.
Actually, every version of Windows sees less and less problems - really. Compare Windows 95 to Windows XP. Or the tweaks required to play a game under XP to the ones required under DOS 5. It gets better.
I'm not a big PC gamer (I like my Gamecube), but I play a little on my development machine. It just really doesn't give me any problems. I've been running the same machine for a while now, and the only reinstall I've done in years was moving from 2000 to XP - and it was pretty painless.
A lot of people seem to have these old ideas that Windows is still crashing all the time and has driver problems. It really just doesn't. It did at one time. Windows 95 was really an abomination. Windows XP is really pretty stable.
You can't just bring a PC game to another person's house and play them. There is a CDKEY and you aren't supposed to do that
Do you actually play many PC games? CDKeys are actually fairly rare. PC games could run off of the CD without an install if that's what gamers were clamoring for. They apparently aren't. Instead, they want the short load times of having content on the hard disk.
PC games and console games will co-exist for at least a while longer. There's games suited to each, and both options make sense for different people. Just because PC gaming isn't for you doesn't mean it's doomed.
Prince of Persia is the most polished and well put together game I have ever played. The game is visually stunning, the control scheme flawless, and a fantastic story that really ties the whole thing together
It was indeed a very solid game. All the things you mention about it are good - but it did have some problems, chiefly in terms of variety and replayability.
There was, what, 5 or 6 different enemies in the whole game? And how much did those enemies differ from one another? There was pretty much "ones that let you vault over them", "ones that you bounced off walls to kill", and pointless birds/bats.
90% of the difficulty (which there wasn't much of) in the game was either timing the back-and-forth walljumps or in the first fight with your father (which you do before you have a good handle on the controls).
That said, it had a lot of things going for it - excellent control, camera, story, and general polish. I might even call it game of the year - a dead heat with Wind Waker - but I can understand those who don't like it. It's an "experience once" sort of game, and it just isn't very long.
So, basically, my understanding is that if I put together a solid DDoS exploit for Windows using XNA
A DDoS against what exactly? Against individual machines playing these games (ie. using multiple machines to stop a person from playing a game)?
Against the server? If so, then these technologies are mostly irrelevant - servers are their own thing (and can be patched much more easily than a million clients).
Or were you thinking more about a compromising security exploit, rather than a DDoS? And, if you're confusing that kind of thing, do you want to reconsider insulting Gabe Newell for not knowing better? PS: What do you think Steam is?
From what I can see, this is mostly about making more things in gaming part of a standard gaming API. Both DirectX and the XBox Live tools have been very successful - and I could see MS being successful in expanding this strategy (both to more devices and more functionality). I don't know that it needs a new name - as it's not some big departure - but it sounds like good planning.
Many MS file formats have been mostly deciphered and are generally becoming easier to decipher. There has been word processors for a long time that have been able to deal with Word documents pretty well - but we still see Word around to the extent that many would call it a monopoly.
.NET and general XML-ization have certainly made MS much more open. And MS would love to have legislators believe that these are large steps towards an open, competitive environment. Regardless of how open .NET remoting or a new Word format is, this kind of change will not make that big of a difference.
I'm not saying that fully open file formats wouldn't help - just that they are not necessarily the central issue.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market
Not really. For example, MS could safely release all of the WMP codecs and formats and still crush the "free market" in players by distributing a free player tied to its OS - that's why WMP is still an issue on the table with the EU folk.
Closed formats are one piece in a big puzzle. There are many other possibilities for MS to abuse.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market.
To a certain extent, they have.
In reality, there won't be big changes in the desktop market until Linux (or someone else) steps in with a significantly better, polished product, or until some government royally tromps MS with a motion intended to bust. I don't see the US doing the busting (economically unsound), and the EU likely realizes that serious action has a good chance of sparking a trade war.
Even if MS halted all "bad behavior", their monopoly would continue for some time. As such, we'll have to wait for the slow progress of open software OS's to bash things back open.
...but it is nonetheless an "exploit".
From the first article I read, the mechanism was a little unclear and I figured it was a new bug in the renderer or something. That it's this old bug is sad in a lot of ways. I believe it also used to work with image attachments - perhaps that hole was fixed in an earlier update than the iframe one you refer to.
Almost all of the viruses from the last few years have been "open attachment to get infected" types. That this one isn't that way is fairly big news.
The Preview will execute the code contained within the mail message in exactly the same way as if you had opened it. It has been this way for a few years
What does that even mean? Execute the code? Do you mean "render the HTML"? Outlook Express doesn't execute script in the preview window or the "opened message" window. I'm guessing this new virus either forces script to execute via some exploit, performs an exploit in general HTML rendering, or performs some exploit against ActiveX. The important distinction here has never been between "previewing the e-mail" and "opening the e-mail", it's been between "looking at the e-mail" and "opening the attachments".
De Beers doesn't have a true monopoly. Neither does OPEC. De Beers is part of a functional monopoly on diamonds, whose prices are grossly inflated. This has reached the point of common knowledge - though I've heard some talk that Russian diamonds are set to start a bit of a price war - with artificial diamonds soon to follow.
I've already seen a few programs (though I can't find any examples now that I look) that have a folder with an arrow pointing into it for "save" and out of it for "open". I think that's fairly intuitive.
Many people already do not know what the floppy disk save icon is - I've heard at least two people say "click on the little TV to save".
I've never played Galaxies, so I don't know what the crafting system looks like. I can imagine it being portable and fun, but it sounds like it just isn't. That's sad either way.
I think you're right on in most of your analysis. I don't see games being truly portable across platforms in the way some people are imagining. If this is "Continuous Gaming", then it's doomed - at least for the foreseeable future. Most modern games are tied to the strengths of their target platform.
I do think, though, that there's good potential for online, persistent games (which more and more games will be) to offer some forms of play across a variety of platforms. This could take the form of playing puzzles to craft items or perhaps a stripped down player vs player fighting system (or who knows what). In any case, I think there's cases where this could definitely make sense - especially for projects that are already very large, such as the big MMORPG's. It could provide a way to get another headline feature without disrupting core gameplay.
I don't know to what extent this is viable - but I'll bet we'll see a few attempts made initially, as the novelty will have value on its own (as it has with the GBA-GC connectivity).
There's some good ideas here. Think "Puzzle Pirates". Or imagine, for example, that you could craft items in Star Wars Galaxies while sitting on the bus with just your phone. This provides a way to buff your character without commiting as much sit-down gametime - and provides a new source of content for mobile gamers. This is certainly a marketable idea.
To those who would ask "Does the world really need this?", the answer starts off with "you're stupid and lost" and ends with "you can disable games.slashdot.org".
The prestige that comes from this sort of accomplishment is important for marketing - especially in Japan. As a bonus, they get advances that may make their way into production vehicles. They also attract better caliber engineers by maintaining a reputation as an industry leader.
Not even an annoying bunch of clicks on "next" in a wizard (why should a user even have to install anything?
I guess usability has a few different meanings. For me, a camera shouldn't install any software - it should just show up as a USB mass storage under Windows. I hate hundred-screen clicky-wizards.
To others, they would have no idea how to get the photos off without reading it in the manual and using the software. And all those wizard screens are comforting, and handle a lot of possibilities they care about (ie. Would you like Windows XP to resize this picture before you e-mail it?).
Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
Certainly Windows isn't there yet, and the deeper you go, the more silly stuff you do. All I'm saying is that it's closer. I'm sure there's lots of examples to be found either way - but in my experience the difference is still pretty clear.
The Dreamcast was built around running Windows CE and DirectX 5. I can't remember how it all worked - I think most games included a rudimentary version of Windows that handled basic functions, and DirectX for doing the graphics work.
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
I like Linux too, but this is a silly argument. Variants of Windows have run on a lot of things and quite a few different processors. Ever used a Pocket PC or a Dreamcast? Portability/flexibility is great - but it's hardly the defining characteristic of Linux, nor close to the central way it's different from Windows.
Anyone who says that is hard is either talking out of their arse or a microsoft/apple fanboy.
It's possible to have a good experience setting up Linux - and it's likely if you know what you're doing and you know what things mean. If you don't, there's a good possibility you'll dig yourself into a hole and not even know it.
I just installed Mandrake on a machine a couple months ago. The little Samba config utility just didn't work. I didn't know why. I still don't. Anywho, I knew how to use Samba from the command line so it ended up not being a problem for me - but for another guy it would have been a complete showstopper. They just couldn't have used it for its intended purpose.
Watch yourself use Linux. Be honest about the number of times you do something not entirely intuitive.
the amount of support they had to do reduced and for those times their parents couldnt fix it they could ssh right in
You've given a good example. SSH right in, eh? Imagine how meaningful those letters would be to a new user.
To do the same task under Windows XP, you'd click "Remote Assist" - and you could assist intuitively by acting on that machine the same way you act on your own. Sure, you could use VNC too - if you know what VNC is, how to enable it, and all that.
Linux is easy to use if you know what you're doing. If you're lucky, it's easy to use even if you don't - but as things currently are you'll run up against that learning curve sometime if you're really going to use the thing. Windows isn't amazing here either, but it's further down the road to usability.
My digital camera, scanner and adsl modem "just work", so do the nic cards in my partner and I's machines
If you buy the right camera, it'll work. But some won't. You may disagree, but I've tried and failed a few times with cameras (which by itself is evidence that it is more difficult than under Windows - even if it is eventually possible).
And you won't get the manufacturers programs to manage your photos. That's a plus for me - but again it's a crippling failure for others. It means the manual that came with their camera is useless.
You're just not seeing things from a new user's eyes here.
I can have a glass house, and throw stones with impunity.
That's why you can buy Mac hardware produced by any vendor you want. Well, as long as the vendor is Apple.
It's kind of like me complaining that Dell makes "closed hardware" because I can't replace dead power supplies in some models with standard ATX replacements
Actually, that's a legitimate complaint. It would be somewhat more troubling, though, if you couldn't replace that Dell with a machine from a completely unrelated vendor. For whatever their problems, x86 is really about the only open platform right now (ie. one where all the components are available from more than one vendor).