Well, first of all, everybody using Steam should know going-in this one simple fact:
There is no customer service. Repeat it with me: Steam has no customer service.
...
It needs to be pointed out that whatever experience you may have had with Steam's customer service (have you had any?) is not indicative and does not represent all of the quality of Steam's support.
I had my account hacked some time ago (my own fault, wasn't paying attention and got myself redirected to a trojan page by another friend's hacked account), and my experience getting my access restored was not only successful, but very easy overall (despite my own nervous twitching and facepalming over the matter).
There should also be a distinction between what the publisher does, and what Steam is responsible for. Kral was annoyed that his game was automatically patched, and while Steam is responsible for that action it was the publisher who made the patch, that caused the issue. Also, applying updates and patches isn't mandatory on Steam, you absolutely can opt out of any game updates as set in the properties of the games list. While I'm sure Kral didn't appreciate the outcome of this particular patch, this sort of thing is an isolated incident. Overall, it's better to keep your games patched and up to date.
"To make matters worse, others are reporting that downgrading to an earlier version of Windows doesn't fix the problem."
Hey, guess what. If the problem persists in another operating system, the original operating system wasn't at fault. The only possible way Win7 could be the problem here is if it managed to physically damage the battery, which is just shy of being completely impossible.
The most pressing argument would be that XP is a ridiculously outdated OS, well over a DECADE old at this point, and that XP's default security configuration is absolutely atrocious. Because it needed to be compatible with the programs from the Win9x era, by default it sets up every user as an administrator(root), which everyone who has ever used a Unix-like OS will recognize as a cardinal sin. XP probably wouldn't have had half the viruses, trojans, and overall security threats if it had gone the route of every other sane and modern OS on the planet and set up its users as regular limited accounts. This was practically impossible in the early years of XP of course, as thanks to lazy programming which demanded admin rights nearly 100% of the time, running as limited user meant you could scarcely run an application to play an audio CD.
Later on, MS patched in the "runas" command, a function analogous to Unix "su", making it possible to run admin commands through an administrator account without having to log out completely. This was a good thing, and while it greatly eased the hassle of running a limited account, it was still not as robust as the Unix "sudo" command. While su runs as another user, sudo elevates the current user to administrative privilege, meaning if you install a program, the installer will make changes to your own profile if necessary, instead of to a different administrator's account as the runas command would do.
Windows didn't gain true sudo functionality until Vista introduced UAC, and as much as people bemoan having to click OK whenever running a task requiring admin privilege, this is exactly how a properly security multi-user OS is supposed to function. Running as a limited account in Vista/Win7 is the default operation and it is a sane, standardized security protocol. Running all the time as an administrator is a stupid, risky, boneheaded thing to do, but unfortunately in XP the only alternative is to put up with the frustration of running a semi-functional limited account.
You're not understanding the difference between "dedicated" and "official". You don't have to have a server sanctioned by the game's publisher to run a dedicated server, it's just a machine with its processes and bandwidth dedicated only to hosting one particular game for whatever clients might be connecting. It has nothing to do with whether the publisher is still supplying support for the game. Offering dedicated servers means that you have more choice in joining a game with lower latency, compared to joining local clients connected to Joe Schmoe's Home ISP, which in addition to running bandwidth to 2 or more computer clients serving traffic to youtube, twitter, facebook, and God knows what, is now also trying to host multiplayer game.
In other words, what is being proposed does nothing to address your complaints, and will be presenting you with an inferior gameplay experience in terms of ping time and latency. Not even mentioning the fact that if the person who hosts the game decides to drop out, *POOF*, they're goes everyone's session. You think you dislike joining official servers? Wait until the service of your game depends on whatever "bastards who just got the OK from their mom to play" gets to be in charge of hosting your games.
What people will remember, what everyone appears to remember or just parrot off from 3rd hand reports, was that Vista had a very mediocre if not lousy launch, primarily due to hardware OEM's who weren't ready with stable drivers (or drivers at all) and system manufacturers who loaded Vista on machines that barely met the minimum requirements.
What no one reports on, what only those with first-hand experience know, is that Vista was a perfectly fine OS around the time it hit SP1. The hardware manufacturers had up-to-date stable drivers in production, it was much easier to get the kind of hardware the Vista would run smoothly on (would you like 1GB of RAM? 2? How about 4 for a song?). That and of course, Vista's obvious advantages over the decade-old XP. XP's security was a nightmare. Any Unix admin would club a man on the head for running his system perpetually in root, but that's exactly what XP encouraged, and they have the virus/spyware record to prove it. Vista finally caught up to every other damn modern OS and set up limited accounts with UAC performing the beloved function of sudo. So much more secure by default than XP it's absurd. The hardware accelerated UI not only looks nice, it makes sense and improves day-to-day performance. Oh and hey, a 64-bit OS that doesn't suck, in case you want to actually use that 4GB of RAM (see XPx64 for a contrasting example of an OS that makes WinME look preferable).
The majority aren't going to ever look at Vista favorably, but when Win7 comes out, those that have used Vista already aren't going to notice that much of a difference. Win7 is, at best, an incremental update. If Vista hadn't gotten such negative press, it's a good bet Win7 would simply have been Vista SP2. Even its name is a misnomer; Vista is NT 6.0 Win7 is NT 6.1
I don't think you can technically call something that has been reverse engineered a copy per se, but yeah, no matter what semantics you split it with there's positively no Unix code contained within Linux.
"...just as much as IE."?
Look up the list of unsafe web addresses that Spyware Blaster puts in IE's restricted sites list and consider that statement again.
I don't know what water through the ~$400 water filter would taste like, but in a survival situation you can get practical potable drinking water by filtering the water through sand/rock/charcoal and adding a few drops of iodine or water filtration tablets. (Or by boiling of course, but in emergency situations you may not always have a heatable container handy.)
The thing of it is, 95% of the people that get machines like this don't ever bother creating their restore disks on their own. Granted, it would be better if they did, better still if the OEM's would actually press you a restore disk for the OS you paid for, but unfortunately neither one of those things is likely to happen. Even if the customer ends up paying more on their bottom line for their puchase (hopefully not more than $20), at least they actually have a set of disks. What usually happens is they have nothing, and then when their hard drive dies (remember, not if, but when), they have nothing to restore their machine with, and they end up paying for the restore disks, the shipping costs, and their repair time is delayed by a couple of days at least.
Preface: If they're lying to the customer, saying things like "The manufacturer will charge you more" or "You can't do this without our help", then yes, that's bad and it shouldn't continue.
But it isn't as if it's a horrible thing to charge people to perform mundane tasks, even if they could do it themselves.
Changing the oil in one's car is an altogether trivial matter, but damn if I don't pull in to some quick lube station every 3,000 miles or so to pay someone else to do it. It's a matter of convenience.
"There was nothing not to like about the product."
Gotta disagree with you there.
I used it way back when, and it wasn't that great for anything except ripping MP3s from CDs, and in later versions that functionality was severely gimped.
First of all it's a pretty dumb lawsuit. 95% of users are going to want the latest greatest version of Windows on their machine, and if they don't, they should be able to custom an order from HP sans OS. What really ends up icing most people's chaps is the fact that the restore for Windows on HP boxes is a partition on the hard disk with no optical media provided. The option exists to burn a set of restore disks (neither of which gives you the functionality of a full XP boot CD), but most people neglect to create this set. If their hard drive goes, they're completely screwed unless they want to pay HP for a new set of pressed restore CDs.
They already got sued for it once and settled out of court. But not only are they still practicing this BS, but they've now expanded it to their laptops since the portable drive capacities have gone up recently.
Putting this on the CN block, even on the Adult Swim block, will be like giving children crack, and then replacing their last two or three hits with bleach.
What starts out as an enjoyable, provocative, compelling series, ends up a mishmashed glob of mind-fuckary, and a distinct vacuum where one would expect to find some sort of resolution.
And it's not the good mind-fuckary either. Not the truly thought-provoking pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you series such as Serial Experiments Lain.
This is the series where every single character dies, and you never find out why.
And maybe there are some viewers that will still like an anime whose main character is a continual whiny-bitch, and turns out to be one step removed from a rapist, but I can't see the overall public opinion of this showing as anything but a disaster.
Why
does WinTel have these problems? I have heard all sorts of
explanations, and I don't subscribe to any of them. I've come up with
my own (hopefully rational) reasons WinTel will fail - and has to fail:
Windows
is complex, trying to be everything to everyone. This complexity comes
at a terrible price: downtime, help desks, upgrades, patches and the
inevitable failures.
Operating systems are complex beasts. Multi-user multitasking operating systems are even more
complex. Is he trying to say that he wants an OS that comes with less
features? Because OSX isn't it. Not only does it have all of the bells
and whistles that a home OS like XP has, but it's very groundwork is
based in a network server operating system. If you want to go back to
DOS, go back to DOS. OSX isn't going to help him with whatever point
he's trying to make here.
When a new operating system or service pack is released, there are tons of changes to the functionality.
Um. You mean like Tiger? Not much difference in the methodologies there, except Microsoft's incremental service packs and updates are free.
WinTel machines use different versions of BIOS. They are not all equal, nor do they all have the same level of compatibility.
I don't even know what he's saying here. Not every bios is exactly
alike, but they all must conform to certain specifications if they're
going to exist in the x86 platform. So long as that's true, any x86 OS
is going to run just fine on it.
Some Windows
software applications are well written; others take shortcuts.
Shortcuts may work in some environments, but not all, and ultimately
the consumer pays in lost time, availability and productivity.
This is most definitely true. It's also true no matter what hardware platform or operating system you choose to use. Why is this Intel/Microsoft's fault?
Hardware. There are hundreds of "WinTel-compatible" motherboards, each claiming to be better than the next. Whatever.
Aw.
Poor little IT supervisor couldn't be bothered to read up on the specs
of his hardware, or navigate to a hardware site and read a review.
"Whatever" indeed.
Memory. Not all RAM is equal. Some works well. Cheap stuff doesn't. Hard disks. Same problem: cheap or reliable. Your call.
True again! For any hardware you buy! Did you know you can put shitty RAM in Macs too?! OMGWTFBBQ!!1!
Here's
my answer to the WinTel problem: We need an open Simple Operating
System (SOS) that meets the needs of the majority of people who buy PCs
for everyday home and enterprise tasks. Get rid of the complexity and
simplify the interface between SOS, BIOS and hardware. In other words,
KISS. You know what it means. KISS SOS.
There's
nothing wrong with simplifying a client network environment. It can be
a big help. I would recommend using machines that all have the same
hardware and software configurations as much as possible, that kind of
thing greatly eases support and administration. Such a thing can be
done on both x86 AND PowerPC architecture. True, Windows can be tougher
to tighten up, security-wise. But with the right group policies in
place, IE can be just as secure as Firefox or Safari. In OSX you don't
really have viruses to deal with, but you could get the same result
with Linux. The problem isn't that the OS is super-duper complex
between the user and the BIOS, the main problem is that security hasn't
been Microsoft's priority for the past decade. Again, if all he wants
is a "simplified" OS, DOS runs fucking amazing on Pentium 4s. Every
modern operating system has its complexities, and if you're going to
properly administer one, you have to know its ins and outs, and you
HAVE to be able to secure it. This goes for Windows, Linux, Novell AND
MacOS. You can't just say "IT'S ALL APPLE K-I-S-S" as if it's a big
band-aid for your ignorance of how to properly administer and secure a
corporate network.
"Before downloading the beta, remember that it uses Firefox 1.0, which contains some vulnerabilities."
Addendum: Before downloading any browser, keep in mind that exploits will always be found for them, as no browser is 100% secure. If you're going to put a clause like that in, don't forget to include a like clause in for IE:
"This browser is tied in directly to the heart of your OS, so whenever a vulnerability is discovered for it, unlike other browsers, those doing the cracking now have free reign on your entire system."
"Concerns about security currently favor Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, but the market tide can shift if security breaches result from increased usage of Firefox"
Oh yes, because severity of security breaches are directly linked to the amount of usage. That's why IIS has so many fewer exploits than Apache, because it's not the big player. Oh wait, it doesn't.
Firefox, like any browser, will have exploits. The question is, are the exploits worthwhile? For IE, the answer is almost always yes, because IE is a web-ready app built into the shell with root permissions. Not so with Firefox. You won't see viruses and malware spreading through the Gecko engine. It won't happen, because FF is built upon a reasonable security model. Microsoft threw away IE's security model when it tried to use it to win an antitrust suit. It's not insecure because everyone uses it, it's because it was flawed to begin with.
They had Miranda on their previous release. To be honest, aside from an issue with not being able to modify the font sizes, Gaim looked much more clean and polished than Miranda.
And they're certainly not going to flinch for including a project that uses gtk, as they've included GIMP on there for a long while.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, first of all, everybody using Steam should know going-in this one simple fact:
There is no customer service. Repeat it with me: Steam has no customer service.
It needs to be pointed out that whatever experience you may have had with Steam's customer service (have you had any?) is not indicative and does not represent all of the quality of Steam's support.
I had my account hacked some time ago (my own fault, wasn't paying attention and got myself redirected to a trojan page by another friend's hacked account), and my experience getting my access restored was not only successful, but very easy overall (despite my own nervous twitching and facepalming over the matter).
There should also be a distinction between what the publisher does, and what Steam is responsible for. Kral was annoyed that his game was automatically patched, and while Steam is responsible for that action it was the publisher who made the patch, that caused the issue. Also, applying updates and patches isn't mandatory on Steam, you absolutely can opt out of any game updates as set in the properties of the games list. While I'm sure Kral didn't appreciate the outcome of this particular patch, this sort of thing is an isolated incident. Overall, it's better to keep your games patched and up to date.
NM, answered below
What game was this, exactly?
Hey, guess what. If the problem persists in another operating system, the original operating system wasn't at fault. The only possible way Win7 could be the problem here is if it managed to physically damage the battery, which is just shy of being completely impossible.
The most pressing argument would be that XP is a ridiculously outdated OS, well over a DECADE old at this point, and that XP's default security configuration is absolutely atrocious. Because it needed to be compatible with the programs from the Win9x era, by default it sets up every user as an administrator(root), which everyone who has ever used a Unix-like OS will recognize as a cardinal sin. XP probably wouldn't have had half the viruses, trojans, and overall security threats if it had gone the route of every other sane and modern OS on the planet and set up its users as regular limited accounts. This was practically impossible in the early years of XP of course, as thanks to lazy programming which demanded admin rights nearly 100% of the time, running as limited user meant you could scarcely run an application to play an audio CD.
Later on, MS patched in the "runas" command, a function analogous to Unix "su", making it possible to run admin commands through an administrator account without having to log out completely. This was a good thing, and while it greatly eased the hassle of running a limited account, it was still not as robust as the Unix "sudo" command. While su runs as another user, sudo elevates the current user to administrative privilege, meaning if you install a program, the installer will make changes to your own profile if necessary, instead of to a different administrator's account as the runas command would do.
Windows didn't gain true sudo functionality until Vista introduced UAC, and as much as people bemoan having to click OK whenever running a task requiring admin privilege, this is exactly how a properly security multi-user OS is supposed to function. Running as a limited account in Vista/Win7 is the default operation and it is a sane, standardized security protocol. Running all the time as an administrator is a stupid, risky, boneheaded thing to do, but unfortunately in XP the only alternative is to put up with the frustration of running a semi-functional limited account.
You're not understanding the difference between "dedicated" and "official". You don't have to have a server sanctioned by the game's publisher to run a dedicated server, it's just a machine with its processes and bandwidth dedicated only to hosting one particular game for whatever clients might be connecting. It has nothing to do with whether the publisher is still supplying support for the game. Offering dedicated servers means that you have more choice in joining a game with lower latency, compared to joining local clients connected to Joe Schmoe's Home ISP, which in addition to running bandwidth to 2 or more computer clients serving traffic to youtube, twitter, facebook, and God knows what, is now also trying to host multiplayer game.
In other words, what is being proposed does nothing to address your complaints, and will be presenting you with an inferior gameplay experience in terms of ping time and latency. Not even mentioning the fact that if the person who hosts the game decides to drop out, *POOF*, they're goes everyone's session. You think you dislike joining official servers? Wait until the service of your game depends on whatever "bastards who just got the OK from their mom to play" gets to be in charge of hosting your games.
What people will remember, what everyone appears to remember or just parrot off from 3rd hand reports, was that Vista had a very mediocre if not lousy launch, primarily due to hardware OEM's who weren't ready with stable drivers (or drivers at all) and system manufacturers who loaded Vista on machines that barely met the minimum requirements.
What no one reports on, what only those with first-hand experience know, is that Vista was a perfectly fine OS around the time it hit SP1. The hardware manufacturers had up-to-date stable drivers in production, it was much easier to get the kind of hardware the Vista would run smoothly on (would you like 1GB of RAM? 2? How about 4 for a song?). That and of course, Vista's obvious advantages over the decade-old XP. XP's security was a nightmare. Any Unix admin would club a man on the head for running his system perpetually in root, but that's exactly what XP encouraged, and they have the virus/spyware record to prove it. Vista finally caught up to every other damn modern OS and set up limited accounts with UAC performing the beloved function of sudo. So much more secure by default than XP it's absurd. The hardware accelerated UI not only looks nice, it makes sense and improves day-to-day performance. Oh and hey, a 64-bit OS that doesn't suck, in case you want to actually use that 4GB of RAM (see XPx64 for a contrasting example of an OS that makes WinME look preferable).
The majority aren't going to ever look at Vista favorably, but when Win7 comes out, those that have used Vista already aren't going to notice that much of a difference. Win7 is, at best, an incremental update. If Vista hadn't gotten such negative press, it's a good bet Win7 would simply have been Vista SP2. Even its name is a misnomer; Vista is NT 6.0 Win7 is NT 6.1
I don't think you can technically call something that has been reverse engineered a copy per se, but yeah, no matter what semantics you split it with there's positively no Unix code contained within Linux.
"...just as much as IE."?
Look up the list of unsafe web addresses that Spyware Blaster puts in IE's restricted sites list and consider that statement again.
I don't know what water through the ~$400 water filter would taste like, but in a survival situation you can get practical potable drinking water by filtering the water through sand/rock/charcoal and adding a few drops of iodine or water filtration tablets. (Or by boiling of course, but in emergency situations you may not always have a heatable container handy.)
http://www.aircav.com/survival/asch06/asch06p05.html#s3
The thing of it is, 95% of the people that get machines like this don't ever bother creating their restore disks on their own. Granted, it would be better if they did, better still if the OEM's would actually press you a restore disk for the OS you paid for, but unfortunately neither one of those things is likely to happen. Even if the customer ends up paying more on their bottom line for their puchase (hopefully not more than $20), at least they actually have a set of disks. What usually happens is they have nothing, and then when their hard drive dies (remember, not if, but when), they have nothing to restore their machine with, and they end up paying for the restore disks, the shipping costs, and their repair time is delayed by a couple of days at least.
Preface: If they're lying to the customer, saying things like "The manufacturer will charge you more" or "You can't do this without our help", then yes, that's bad and it shouldn't continue.
But it isn't as if it's a horrible thing to charge people to perform mundane tasks, even if they could do it themselves.
Changing the oil in one's car is an altogether trivial matter, but damn if I don't pull in to some quick lube station every 3,000 miles or so to pay someone else to do it. It's a matter of convenience.
I haven't heard of this before, (just found it, actually), but would this be a reasonable facsimile?
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=913086&SD=tech
...but it's nice to hear the industry say what everyone else has been thinking, especially when they have the Steam user statistics to back it up.
"There was nothing not to like about the product."
Gotta disagree with you there. I used it way back when, and it wasn't that great for anything except ripping MP3s from CDs, and in later versions that functionality was severely gimped.
Use Winamp, or foobar2000 if you're a power user.
Or at least drew it first in Kiki's Delivery Service.
First of all it's a pretty dumb lawsuit. 95% of users are going to want the latest greatest version of Windows on their machine, and if they don't, they should be able to custom an order from HP sans OS. What really ends up icing most people's chaps is the fact that the restore for Windows on HP boxes is a partition on the hard disk with no optical media provided. The option exists to burn a set of restore disks (neither of which gives you the functionality of a full XP boot CD), but most people neglect to create this set. If their hard drive goes, they're completely screwed unless they want to pay HP for a new set of pressed restore CDs.
They already got sued for it once and settled out of court. But not only are they still practicing this BS, but they've now expanded it to their laptops since the portable drive capacities have gone up recently.
My immune system needs practice.
Since I don't really have any major polluted rivers to swim in, and such.
Putting this on the CN block, even on the Adult Swim block, will be like giving children crack, and then replacing their last two or three hits with bleach.
What starts out as an enjoyable, provocative, compelling series, ends up a mishmashed glob of mind-fuckary, and a distinct vacuum where one would expect to find some sort of resolution.
And it's not the good mind-fuckary either. Not the truly thought-provoking pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you series such as Serial Experiments Lain. This is the series where every single character dies, and you never find out why.
And maybe there are some viewers that will still like an anime whose main character is a continual whiny-bitch, and turns out to be one step removed from a rapist, but I can't see the overall public opinion of this showing as anything but a disaster.
You mean like Tiger?
Not much difference in the methodologies there, except Microsoft's incremental service packs and updates are free. I don't even know what he's saying here. Not every bios is exactly alike, but they all must conform to certain specifications if they're going to exist in the x86 platform. So long as that's true, any x86 OS is going to run just fine on it.
This is most definitely true.
It's also true no matter what hardware platform or operating system you choose to use. Why is this Intel/Microsoft's fault? Aw. Poor little IT supervisor couldn't be bothered to read up on the specs of his hardware, or navigate to a hardware site and read a review. "Whatever" indeed. True again! For any hardware you buy!
Did you know you can put shitty RAM in Macs too?! OMGWTFBBQ!!1! There's nothing wrong with simplifying a client network environment. It can be a big help. I would recommend using machines that all have the same hardware and software configurations as much as possible, that kind of thing greatly eases support and administration. Such a thing can be done on both x86 AND PowerPC architecture. True, Windows can be tougher to tighten up, security-wise. But with the right group policies in place, IE can be just as secure as Firefox or Safari. In OSX you don't really have viruses to deal with, but you could get the same result with Linux. The problem isn't that the OS is super-duper complex between the user and the BIOS, the main problem is that security hasn't been Microsoft's priority for the past decade. Again, if all he wants is a "simplified" OS, DOS runs fucking amazing on Pentium 4s. Every modern operating system has its complexities, and if you're going to properly administer one, you have to know its ins and outs, and you HAVE to be able to secure it. This goes for Windows, Linux, Novell AND MacOS. You can't just say "IT'S ALL APPLE K-I-S-S" as if it's a big band-aid for your ignorance of how to properly administer and secure a corporate network.
"This browser is tied in directly to the heart of your OS, so whenever a vulnerability is discovered for it, unlike other browsers, those doing the cracking now have free reign on your entire system."
Oh wait, it doesn't.
Firefox, like any browser, will have exploits. The question is, are the exploits worthwhile? For IE, the answer is almost always yes, because IE is a web-ready app built into the shell with root permissions. Not so with Firefox. You won't see viruses and malware spreading through the Gecko engine. It won't happen, because FF is built upon a reasonable security model. Microsoft threw away IE's security model when it tried to use it to win an antitrust suit. It's not insecure because everyone uses it, it's because it was flawed to begin with.
There are three main bootable CDs (amonst a few others) that are in my software toolkit at all times: Knoppix, The Ultimate Boot CD, and The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows XP. All three are invaluable diag/repair tools.
Irrelevant, as the link will take you to the mozilla download page (and yes, Firefox 1.0 is listed at the top of the page).
They had Miranda on their previous release. To be honest, aside from an issue with not being able to modify the font sizes, Gaim looked much more clean and polished than Miranda.
And they're certainly not going to flinch for including a project that uses gtk, as they've included GIMP on there for a long while.