Use a SIP or IAX provider, there are lots of them such as teliax, voiptalk, etc... voip-info.org is your friend.
You can connect with a software phone, giving you roughly the same flexibility as skype but far more choice of provider, or you can run through an asterisk pbx if you want more fancy features... You can do conference calling with asterisk limited only by your own bandwidth, you can bridge to physical phonelines and use multiple providers, setup incoming numbers, setup menu systems, run your own voicemail, create a list of banned caller-id's etc... Also you can use a physical IP phone instead of having to keep a computer running whenever you want to make a call.
Incredibly flexible, and well worth playing with, and most importantly of all, with SIP your not locked in to a single provider or a single client.
OEMs shovel these configs because people demand CHEAP MACHINES... Any such OEM will happily sell you a better machine with a decent videocard, but it's going to cost you. Most consumers realise at the very least, that paying more usually means you get a better product.
Ohh, and machines with lowend (but not shared memory) videocards, or even no video at all, are far more sensible for use as any kind of server. Don't want thousands of highend videocards generating heat in your datacenter!
Until quite recently any "server" class system came with something like an S3 Trio64, or an ATI Mach64 card with 2mb ram... This was great, although a serial console was often more usefull, a token videocard can be usefull if your doing an install or maintenence on a physical screen... But if every server starts shipping with a more capable videocard and 128mb of videoram, what's that going to do to the price? Extra $100 or more?
I have an 8mb PCI based card that handles 1600x1200 in 16bit with no hassle, no jerking when moving windows around etc... I probably wouldn't try dual head with another card on the same PCI bus, but so long as you have AGP or dual pci busses there shouldn't be an issue... Why not try reducing the colour depth? If your just doing development work, and your not developing games or other graphics intensive apps, reducing the colour depth may speed it up a fair bit.
32Mb ? My office computer has an 8mb videocard, and it's more than sufficient for the intended use of the machine. A faster videocard doesn't make the typical office apps run any faster. The only thing wrong with your setup, might be that the videocard shares 32mb of the system ram rather than having it's own memory, in which case it's fighting with the P4 (which has enough of a memory bottleneck already) for access to memory.
Easy. A system which was released *after* vista, and with a videocard it doesn't support out of the box.
Most modern cards aren't supported by XP nowadays, and will start up in generic VGA mode. It runs slow as shit until you install proper drivers, but a large number of even reasonably technical people never bother (!)
What a nasty kludge... Such bad programming should have been discouraged in the first place, instead of letting it propogate and creating such a situation.
I've used firefox since it was called phoenix, and beta versions of mozilla before that... I'd never heard of spyware until quite recently, i also didn't really understand the concept of popups and other intrusive stuff... I went from amigaos (fast browsers with no javascript) to unix with mozilla (and popup blocking by default) and never encountered things like popups and spyware, i had a rose tinted view of the internet...
Then i went to a friend's place, and saw him battling with IE... i was absoloutely disturbed, how could anyone's experience of the web be so horrendous, and yet he was still willing to use it! Had i first experienced the internet in that way, i'd not have had much interest in it at all.
Well IE6 compared to Firefox 1.5 is a fair comparison, both are the latest non-beta feature releases of each browser (with only security updates since, such as firefox 1.5.0.1), it's not firefox's fault that IE hasn't had any serious update in 5 years.
And they *do* let their products slide once the competition has been killed off...
Just look at IE, development had pretty much stopped after netscape was killed off, and has only been restarted because firefox was eating away their market share. If firefox disappears, IE development will stop again.
In typical microsoft fashion however, windows will be setup to nag people into installing the microsoft antivirus, and once all the other AV vendors have been driven out of business, virus writers will have a single target to disable and find bugs in, and microsoft will most likely let their product stagnate at this point anyway.
Technology like this is not aimed at home users... Nor was gigabit, or 100mb ethernet when it first became available, it took a few years.
For a while, 100mb ethernet will be used in datacenters between high performance multiple processor servers connected to large fibre channel sans... not cheap consumer hardware
Well i communicate with gtalk users through jabber. I like the idea of having my own personalised domain, like i do with email, and it's much easier if people only have a single address with which to contact me. I wouldn't like to be known by blah432432432@yahoo, blah432423432@gmail and blah321321311@hotmail.
Anything which gets more people using an open messaging system like jabber is a good thing. And if google can provide value-add features to their service while still maintaining compatibility with the rest of the network, just like they do with email, that's great!
It's usually the implementation of the ACPI DSDT (http://acpi.sourceforge.net/ which has been written for and compiled with microsoft's non standard DSDT compiler..
Intel's compiler complies with Intel's specs, while microsoft's compiler is tollerant of errors as is their implementation of ACPI in windows...
Implementations of ACPI in other os's is intollerant of errors, as per Intel's original ACPI specs, and thus often fails to work with microsoft-oriented ACPI implementations.
Also some ACPI implementations specifically check for certain versions microsoft os's.
And it's also highly likely that terrorists derive revenue from the sale of non pirated software. Large corporations have often been found to support terrorists, why would it be any different for software companies?
So the only way to not support terrorists, is to not buy the software from anyone. Make sure you pirate it for free from a p2p network or something!
Most of the problems you describe, such as the lack of integration with active directory and the inability to remove ie are microsoft's fault... All of this is done intentionally to make it difficult for you to use a different browser...
But instead of complaining and doing something about it, most people capitulate to their underhanded tactics... It's like paying off a blackmailer, they'l just screw you over even more in the future because they know they can get away with it.
Why do people stand for such treatment? They wouldn't in any other field, so why stand for it here? Do you think Ford could get away with making it difficult to put non ford branded tyres or gas on their cars? Do you think people would cave in and use ford tyres and gas? Or would there be a big public uproar and lots of people boycotting ford?
No, not ease of use, merely an interface which is more familiar to people experienced with windows... Having come from a unix/oracle background, mssql is quite an alien an unintuitive interface to pick up the first time, in contrast with MacOS (including 9 and earlier) which is reasonably intuitive and easy despite being completely different to unix.
You could say microsoft have no roots, tradition or claim to anything in many markets they have entered... Your example of SQL server is a prime one, a few years ago MS didn't even offer a database for sale. This was the domain of Oracle and IBM. Not to mention MSN, which is trying to barge in on an area which really is google's "thing".
More reliable perhaps, but the cpu usage is likely to be a lot higher... Also software raid makes it more difficult to put my root filesystem (and kernel, bootloader etc) on there. Finally, software raid isn't likely to hotswap as nicely as hardware raid does.
How so? The article states that a bug has been found, and not fixed yet... And then goes on to state that microsoft have not yet produced a fix, and that the issue doesn't occur on other types of processor.
You could blame microsoft for not making a fix available for so long, but what if they haven't done so because the problem lies with the hardware and not with their software? The problem doesn't occur on other types of processors so it's not unreasonable to suspect it may be a hardware problem... And if it truly is a hardware problem, then there's no reason Apple wouldn't be affected by it too, especially if it can't be worked around easily in software (and if it could, likely microsoft would have done so already)
Aren't the A5200 arrays JBODs ? Or do they do hardware raid like the A1000 does...
I need something that will do raid5 in hardware, and show up to the OS as a single device, just like the A1000 does... I considered an A5200 but i was told i`d need to use software raid on it.
That's what happens when your business depends on a single vendor, microsoft screw you over but you still need them... so they can do it again whenever it suits them. I'd suggest you do everything in your power to promote non microsoft alternatives to your customers, if people think linux is too hard to use then you can make more money supporting it.
The article states that the problem does not occur on single core or AMD based systems, it then goes on to question if this is really a software problem, or if it's a hardware problem in which case it would affect Apple because they use the same hardware.
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Use a SIP or IAX provider, there are lots of them such as teliax, voiptalk, etc... voip-info.org is your friend.
You can connect with a software phone, giving you roughly the same flexibility as skype but far more choice of provider, or you can run through an asterisk pbx if you want more fancy features... You can do conference calling with asterisk limited only by your own bandwidth, you can bridge to physical phonelines and use multiple providers, setup incoming numbers, setup menu systems, run your own voicemail, create a list of banned caller-id's etc...
Also you can use a physical IP phone instead of having to keep a computer running whenever you want to make a call.
Incredibly flexible, and well worth playing with, and most importantly of all, with SIP your not locked in to a single provider or a single client.
OEMs shovel these configs because people demand CHEAP MACHINES...
Any such OEM will happily sell you a better machine with a decent videocard, but it's going to cost you. Most consumers realise at the very least, that paying more usually means you get a better product.
Ohh, and machines with lowend (but not shared memory) videocards, or even no video at all, are far more sensible for use as any kind of server. Don't want thousands of highend videocards generating heat in your datacenter!
Until quite recently any "server" class system came with something like an S3 Trio64, or an ATI Mach64 card with 2mb ram...
This was great, although a serial console was often more usefull, a token videocard can be usefull if your doing an install or maintenence on a physical screen...
But if every server starts shipping with a more capable videocard and 128mb of videoram, what's that going to do to the price? Extra $100 or more?
I have an 8mb PCI based card that handles 1600x1200 in 16bit with no hassle, no jerking when moving windows around etc... I probably wouldn't try dual head with another card on the same PCI bus, but so long as you have AGP or dual pci busses there shouldn't be an issue...
Why not try reducing the colour depth? If your just doing development work, and your not developing games or other graphics intensive apps, reducing the colour depth may speed it up a fair bit.
32Mb ? My office computer has an 8mb videocard, and it's more than sufficient for the intended use of the machine.
A faster videocard doesn't make the typical office apps run any faster.
The only thing wrong with your setup, might be that the videocard shares 32mb of the system ram rather than having it's own memory, in which case it's fighting with the P4 (which has enough of a memory bottleneck already) for access to memory.
Easy.
A system which was released *after* vista, and with a videocard it doesn't support out of the box.
Most modern cards aren't supported by XP nowadays, and will start up in generic VGA mode. It runs slow as shit until you install proper drivers, but a large number of even reasonably technical people never bother (!)
What a nasty kludge...
Such bad programming should have been discouraged in the first place, instead of letting it propogate and creating such a situation.
I've used firefox since it was called phoenix, and beta versions of mozilla before that... I'd never heard of spyware until quite recently, i also didn't really understand the concept of popups and other intrusive stuff...
I went from amigaos (fast browsers with no javascript) to unix with mozilla (and popup blocking by default) and never encountered things like popups and spyware, i had a rose tinted view of the internet...
Then i went to a friend's place, and saw him battling with IE... i was absoloutely disturbed, how could anyone's experience of the web be so horrendous, and yet he was still willing to use it!
Had i first experienced the internet in that way, i'd not have had much interest in it at all.
Well IE6 compared to Firefox 1.5 is a fair comparison, both are the latest non-beta feature releases of each browser (with only security updates since, such as firefox 1.5.0.1), it's not firefox's fault that IE hasn't had any serious update in 5 years.
And they *do* let their products slide once the competition has been killed off...
Just look at IE, development had pretty much stopped after netscape was killed off, and has only been restarted because firefox was eating away their market share. If firefox disappears, IE development will stop again.
In typical microsoft fashion however, windows will be setup to nag people into installing the microsoft antivirus, and once all the other AV vendors have been driven out of business, virus writers will have a single target to disable and find bugs in, and microsoft will most likely let their product stagnate at this point anyway.
Technology like this is not aimed at home users...
Nor was gigabit, or 100mb ethernet when it first became available, it took a few years.
For a while, 100mb ethernet will be used in datacenters between high performance multiple processor servers connected to large fibre channel sans... not cheap consumer hardware
Well i communicate with gtalk users through jabber. I like the idea of having my own personalised domain, like i do with email, and it's much easier if people only have a single address with which to contact me. I wouldn't like to be known by blah432432432@yahoo, blah432423432@gmail and blah321321311@hotmail.
Anything which gets more people using an open messaging system like jabber is a good thing. And if google can provide value-add features to their service while still maintaining compatibility with the rest of the network, just like they do with email, that's great!
It's usually the implementation of the ACPI DSDT (http://acpi.sourceforge.net/ which has been written for and compiled with microsoft's non standard DSDT compiler..
Intel's compiler complies with Intel's specs, while microsoft's compiler is tollerant of errors as is their implementation of ACPI in windows...
Implementations of ACPI in other os's is intollerant of errors, as per Intel's original ACPI specs, and thus often fails to work with microsoft-oriented ACPI implementations.
Also some ACPI implementations specifically check for certain versions microsoft os's.
And it's also highly likely that terrorists derive revenue from the sale of non pirated software. Large corporations have often been found to support terrorists, why would it be any different for software companies?
So the only way to not support terrorists, is to not buy the software from anyone. Make sure you pirate it for free from a p2p network or something!
Thats because Apache is a hacker's webserver, only evil phishing sites run Apache. You should be using IIS!
Most of the problems you describe, such as the lack of integration with active directory and the inability to remove ie are microsoft's fault... All of this is done intentionally to make it difficult for you to use a different browser...
But instead of complaining and doing something about it, most people capitulate to their underhanded tactics... It's like paying off a blackmailer, they'l just screw you over even more in the future because they know they can get away with it.
Why do people stand for such treatment? They wouldn't in any other field, so why stand for it here? Do you think Ford could get away with making it difficult to put non ford branded tyres or gas on their cars? Do you think people would cave in and use ford tyres and gas? Or would there be a big public uproar and lots of people boycotting ford?
Firefox can already do this with adblock, but i only ever block ads which are intrusive (popups, flashing graphical ads etc)
No, not ease of use, merely an interface which is more familiar to people experienced with windows...
Having come from a unix/oracle background, mssql is quite an alien an unintuitive interface to pick up the first time, in contrast with MacOS (including 9 and earlier) which is reasonably intuitive and easy despite being completely different to unix.
You could say microsoft have no roots, tradition or claim to anything in many markets they have entered...
Your example of SQL server is a prime one, a few years ago MS didn't even offer a database for sale. This was the domain of Oracle and IBM. Not to mention MSN, which is trying to barge in on an area which really is google's "thing".
Microsoft's "thing" is BASIC interpreters.
More reliable perhaps, but the cpu usage is likely to be a lot higher...
Also software raid makes it more difficult to put my root filesystem (and kernel, bootloader etc) on there.
Finally, software raid isn't likely to hotswap as nicely as hardware raid does.
How so?
The article states that a bug has been found, and not fixed yet...
And then goes on to state that microsoft have not yet produced a fix, and that the issue doesn't occur on other types of processor.
You could blame microsoft for not making a fix available for so long, but what if they haven't done so because the problem lies with the hardware and not with their software? The problem doesn't occur on other types of processors so it's not unreasonable to suspect it may be a hardware problem...
And if it truly is a hardware problem, then there's no reason Apple wouldn't be affected by it too, especially if it can't be worked around easily in software (and if it could, likely microsoft would have done so already)
Aren't the A5200 arrays JBODs ? Or do they do hardware raid like the A1000 does...
I need something that will do raid5 in hardware, and show up to the OS as a single device, just like the A1000 does... I considered an A5200 but i was told i`d need to use software raid on it.
That's what happens when your business depends on a single vendor, microsoft screw you over but you still need them... so they can do it again whenever it suits them.
I'd suggest you do everything in your power to promote non microsoft alternatives to your customers, if people think linux is too hard to use then you can make more money supporting it.
The article states that the problem does not occur on single core or AMD based systems, it then goes on to question if this is really a software problem, or if it's a hardware problem in which case it would affect Apple because they use the same hardware.