Current builds have next to nothing of the new techonologies being built into Longhorn, except for a lot of the underlying kernel changes (which are not small, but not going to impress anyone other than OS people). Actually, last I heard the next beta was August, so I'm not sure where these people got their preview...
I work on Longhorn networking, and I can say that Longhorn will have some awesome networking features not really available on linux or mac. But out bits won't make it into the build until the real Beta in August. So anyone running the current build would think that Longhorn networking will be the same as XP networking, which is pretty far from true.
The same goes for Avalon, the new longohorn UI. The current UI is what you'll see when you opt out of Avalon, and even that may change in the next year before release.
I know it really makes you guys feel great to believe that Longhorn will be a total disaster, but let's wait until actual oficial releases are out the door, and not leaked incomplete builds.
I'm no Nintendo fanboy, but it's a fallacy to say that they insist on not having mature games. It just so happens that their most popular games are made by Nintendo proper, whose designers opt for family friendly content. But developers for the console are free to develop games as they please. Most notably, Resident Evil 4 was released on the GC recently. It's an amazing game, and pretty far from child-friendly. Unless your child loves unabashed zombie gore.:)
You have to remember they recently paid out dividends on their stocks, explaining the 'flatness' as of late. Anyway, irrespective of how the stock is doing, love em or hate em, the company is doing quite well.
Microsoft as a whole is a great company when it comes to charity.
To start, Microsoft matches every donation we make, dollar for dollar, during the whole year. I was able to make some sizable contributions to local charities organizations, since however much I donated was automatically doubled.
Also, a few months ago we had the annual charity fund drive within Microsoft, where the company hounds their employees for the whole month, asking them to give money to charities. Throughout this time they keep the company up to date as to how much has been donated. It's actually quite cool. We ended up raising $36 million in employee contributions (just for that month).
There's a reason why I can still use a 6 year old mac with the current OS.
XP runs just fine on the PIII 300mhz machines we have lying around.
As always, people misunderstand aero. Longhorn will have the classic interface for those with older machines. If the machine has muscle, it will scale UP to the aero interface. Is it going to be slow and bloated? Only time will tell, for now it's all conjecture.
I know you are trying to be funny, but that screen is from the developers kit. At CES BillG got a nice big blue screen when a tech was demoing some beta racing game on the xbox.
My head asplode reading your post... Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 are horrible movies. Dialog is bad, the story moves at a turtles pace, is (for the most part) boring as all hell, the acting is pitiful, etc... Yeah, the effects are NEATO, but a good movie that does not make. Just as you say that we bash it because it is a dissapointment to our expectations, the reverse holds true -- if our expectations weren't as high, and there wasn't a 'star wars' name attached to these films, they would have probably gotten even worse reviews, and been spectacular flops in the theatres.
I remember when I was growing up during the run of 'meatball' and the like movies, PG-13 meant that there was at least one boobie shot in the picture, guaranteed.
I haven't had that problem (yet). If that's true then it's certainly a shitty system. But I don't think there's anything wrong with authenticating a purchased copy of software (as long as it works and is convenient).
Needing to authenticate to play a game offline is the greatest crime against gamers I can think ok
Why? You have an internet account, right? You paid for the game... right? Then what's the big deal if they require you to activate the game the first time you run it? I don't get it.
If any one company out there has the install base to actually do something technical about spam, it's Microsoft, yet they'd rather sue than improve their product.
Do you mean they should implement a new SMTP standard on their servers? Break from current standards in the way Outlook handles e-mail? I'm sure the slashdot crowd would just love that!:}
While I agree with you that we are still a long way from having a great automated grammar checker, I often find the grammar checker on Word useful. Not because it brings in any amazing grammar insight, but specifically because spanish is my native language, and often when I write in english I will mis-use a verb tense or write a sentence in spanish structure and not english structure. Word is decent at detecting this and suggesting I move around some words. .
Well, people I know who is involved in tech hiring often google the individual. Right now Doug+Steigerwald+Software brings up the news story. In a few days, as the story gets more coverage and google updates its cache, I can only assume the story will be a top match when you search Doug+Steigerwald.
from TFA: Steigerwald is actually not a student, but a recent graduate of North Carolina State University who is currently looking for a job.
Well, thanks to this story he has officially been transitioned to the permanent tech no-hire pool. I don't think any company would want to hire someone who so blatantly broke an NDA, and made the headlines for it.
I hear those people who drive snow plows make a killing. Maybe he can do that instead of software development.
There are RUMORS people. The fact is, MS hasn't made any definite statements about IE7, except for announcing that there will be one. They've been very tight lipped about it, even within our internal-only IE discussion lists. Lets not waste our breath discussing this 'issue'.
Haha, yeah. I have to admit my post is kind of lame. 'oooh they talked about... uhm... stuff!! top secret! r0xx0r'.
But seriously, I was really worried that LH didn't really offer much until I actually was able to sit down and peer into what is going into the system. It's not a 95 to 98 jump, but a 98 to NT. Should be interesting when the official beta comes out, 'sall I'm saying!:)
Admit it... you don't know much about windows, do you? Log into windows XP SP2 (or for bonus points Windows 2003) as a Limited user account (read: Not Administrator), and write me a program that can modify low-level features of the machine, or any system configuration for that matter (outside the config specific for your user). You can't. Windows has robust Access Control system (more granular than many standard linux distros that depend on unix filesystem perms for security [yes i know patched kernels exist with ACLs, which is great]).
It's just a pity that the managers for XP chose to have everyone run as Administrator so as not to confuse grandma. Thankfully, Longhorn will, out of the box, make your desktop account non-admin.
Aero will definitely be the most immediate reason for consumers to upgrade, since it will give the windows UI some 'pizzazz'. The underlying kernel is completely revamped, but unfortunately that's something that the desktop user won't notice (except for, one hopes, increased stability, etc...). Visually, the upgrade from 98 to 2000 wasn't very convincing, while the underlying kernel outclassed 98 in every respect.
I'm going to have to agree with the parent poster. I work at MS, and just recently saw a pretty thorough ppt on Longhorn features, a lot of which didn't depend on the pillars. It took an hour just to talk about all the security revamps in the kernel. Unfortunately, its all 'MS confidential' for now... The first Beta should be out during the summer, lets reserve our judgements of Longhorn until then.
Apple may lock people into hardware and software but the difference between them and Microsoft is that Apple has roughly 10 percent of the market whilst Microsoft has virtually all of it. Hence it's a lot harder for Apple to be guilty of monopolistic practices than it is for Microsoft, simply because Apple doesn't have the market share that Microsoft does.
Nice. Apple has 10% of the market, so it's OK for them to lock people into their software and hardware and not allow competition in their small market share. How does that work? If MS loses their market and is reduced to 10% of the market share, will you start apologizing for their actions then?
Pullying the clones was a sensible move. Rather than expanding the marketshare of Apple's OS by attracting Windows-based users to the MacOS fold, all the clones succeeded in doing was stealing hardware sales from Apple itself, which was harming Apple's income. The clones experiment was too little too late to make any dent in the Windows juggernaut and was hurting Apple more than it was helping it, so it had to end.
Don't you see what an apologist you are being? You can reapply your logic to Microsoft and say that pulling support for Lotus 1-2-3/Wordperfect/etc... was a sensible move, because it was harming Microsoft's income by reducing the marketshare of Office.
The fact is, if Apple had 90% of the market share and behaved as they do now, they'd be employed in some pretty nasty anti-trust lawsuits all over the world. As other, more insightful, posters have said before, MS locks people into software. Apple locks people into software and *hardware*. Hardware whose price, I might add, is unvelievably inflated. But since there is absolutely no chance of any competition, the price will not drop any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Current builds have next to nothing of the new techonologies being built into Longhorn, except for a lot of the underlying kernel changes (which are not small, but not going to impress anyone other than OS people). Actually, last I heard the next beta was August, so I'm not sure where these people got their preview...
I work on Longhorn networking, and I can say that Longhorn will have some awesome networking features not really available on linux or mac. But out bits won't make it into the build until the real Beta in August. So anyone running the current build would think that Longhorn networking will be the same as XP networking, which is pretty far from true.
The same goes for Avalon, the new longohorn UI. The current UI is what you'll see when you opt out of Avalon, and even that may change in the next year before release.
I know it really makes you guys feel great to believe that Longhorn will be a total disaster, but let's wait until actual oficial releases are out the door, and not leaked incomplete builds.
MS First Party game: Halo, Halo 2
They have also a handful of other first party franchises, like OddWorld, I believe.
Nintendo definitely has many more successful first party titles, but MS does pretty well with their own first party sales.
I'm no Nintendo fanboy, but it's a fallacy to say that they insist on not having mature games. It just so happens that their most popular games are made by Nintendo proper, whose designers opt for family friendly content. But developers for the console are free to develop games as they please. Most notably, Resident Evil 4 was released on the GC recently. It's an amazing game, and pretty far from child-friendly. Unless your child loves unabashed zombie gore. :)
Revenue is up 7% 2nd quarter, at 11 billion dollars.
Previous quarter saw 12% increase of revenue, bringing in 9.2 billion.
Hell, even during the tech bust they had 14% increase in revenue. How do you do that?!
You have to remember they recently paid out dividends on their stocks, explaining the 'flatness' as of late. Anyway, irrespective of how the stock is doing, love em or hate em, the company is doing quite well.
Microsoft as a whole is a great company when it comes to charity.
To start, Microsoft matches every donation we make, dollar for dollar, during the whole year. I was able to make some sizable contributions to local charities organizations, since however much I donated was automatically doubled.
Also, a few months ago we had the annual charity fund drive within Microsoft, where the company hounds their employees for the whole month, asking them to give money to charities. Throughout this time they keep the company up to date as to how much has been donated. It's actually quite cool. We ended up raising $36 million in employee contributions (just for that month).
There's a reason why I can still use a 6 year old mac with the current OS.
XP runs just fine on the PIII 300mhz machines we have lying around.
As always, people misunderstand aero. Longhorn will have the classic interface for those with older machines. If the machine has muscle, it will scale UP to the aero interface. Is it going to be slow and bloated? Only time will tell, for now it's all conjecture.
How often are details to critical vulnerabilities in linux released for mass consumption before a fix exists?
I know you are trying to be funny, but that screen is from the developers kit. At CES BillG got a nice big blue screen when a tech was demoing some beta racing game on the xbox.
My head asplode reading your post... Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 are horrible movies. Dialog is bad, the story moves at a turtles pace, is (for the most part) boring as all hell, the acting is pitiful, etc... Yeah, the effects are NEATO, but a good movie that does not make. Just as you say that we bash it because it is a dissapointment to our expectations, the reverse holds true -- if our expectations weren't as high, and there wasn't a 'star wars' name attached to these films, they would have probably gotten even worse reviews, and been spectacular flops in the theatres.
I remember when I was growing up during the run of 'meatball' and the like movies, PG-13 meant that there was at least one boobie shot in the picture, guaranteed.
Princess Amidala... I'm looking at you.
I haven't had that problem (yet). If that's true then it's certainly a shitty system. But I don't think there's anything wrong with authenticating a purchased copy of software (as long as it works and is convenient).
Needing to authenticate to play a game offline is the greatest crime against gamers I can think ok
Why? You have an internet account, right? You paid for the game... right? Then what's the big deal if they require you to activate the game the first time you run it? I don't get it.
If any one company out there has the install base to actually do something technical about spam, it's Microsoft, yet they'd rather sue than improve their product.
:}
Do you mean they should implement a new SMTP standard on their servers? Break from current standards in the way Outlook handles e-mail? I'm sure the slashdot crowd would just love that!
While I agree with you that we are still a long way from having a great automated grammar checker, I often find the grammar checker on Word useful. Not because it brings in any amazing grammar insight, but specifically because spanish is my native language, and often when I write in english I will mis-use a verb tense or write a sentence in spanish structure and not english structure. Word is decent at detecting this and suggesting I move around some words. .
Well, people I know who is involved in tech hiring often google the individual. Right now Doug+Steigerwald+Software brings up the news story. In a few days, as the story gets more coverage and google updates its cache, I can only assume the story will be a top match when you search Doug+Steigerwald.
from TFA: Steigerwald is actually not a student, but a recent graduate of North Carolina State University who is currently looking for a job.
Well, thanks to this story he has officially been transitioned to the permanent tech no-hire pool. I don't think any company would want to hire someone who so blatantly broke an NDA, and made the headlines for it.
I hear those people who drive snow plows make a killing. Maybe he can do that instead of software development.
There are RUMORS people. The fact is, MS hasn't made any definite statements about IE7, except for announcing that there will be one. They've been very tight lipped about it, even within our internal-only IE discussion lists. Lets not waste our breath discussing this 'issue'.
kedora.net is teh dead.
Haha, yeah. I have to admit my post is kind of lame. 'oooh they talked about... uhm... stuff!! top secret! r0xx0r'.
:)
But seriously, I was really worried that LH didn't really offer much until I actually was able to sit down and peer into what is going into the system. It's not a 95 to 98 jump, but a 98 to NT. Should be interesting when the official beta comes out, 'sall I'm saying!
Admit it... you don't know much about windows, do you? Log into windows XP SP2 (or for bonus points Windows 2003) as a Limited user account (read: Not Administrator), and write me a program that can modify low-level features of the machine, or any system configuration for that matter (outside the config specific for your user). You can't. Windows has robust Access Control system (more granular than many standard linux distros that depend on unix filesystem perms for security [yes i know patched kernels exist with ACLs, which is great]).
It's just a pity that the managers for XP chose to have everyone run as Administrator so as not to confuse grandma. Thankfully, Longhorn will, out of the box, make your desktop account non-admin.
Aero will definitely be the most immediate reason for consumers to upgrade, since it will give the windows UI some 'pizzazz'. The underlying kernel is completely revamped, but unfortunately that's something that the desktop user won't notice (except for, one hopes, increased stability, etc...). Visually, the upgrade from 98 to 2000 wasn't very convincing, while the underlying kernel outclassed 98 in every respect.
I'm going to have to agree with the parent poster. I work at MS, and just recently saw a pretty thorough ppt on Longhorn features, a lot of which didn't depend on the pillars. It took an hour just to talk about all the security revamps in the kernel. Unfortunately, its all 'MS confidential' for now... The first Beta should be out during the summer, lets reserve our judgements of Longhorn until then.
Google is pretty awesome at that too. Do then have any products that aren't in beta?? :)
Apple may lock people into hardware and software but the difference between them and Microsoft is that Apple has roughly 10 percent of the market whilst Microsoft has virtually all of it. Hence it's a lot harder for Apple to be guilty of monopolistic practices than it is for Microsoft, simply because Apple doesn't have the market share that Microsoft does.
Nice. Apple has 10% of the market, so it's OK for them to lock people into their software and hardware and not allow competition in their small market share. How does that work? If MS loses their market and is reduced to 10% of the market share, will you start apologizing for their actions then?
Pullying the clones was a sensible move. Rather than expanding the marketshare of Apple's OS by attracting Windows-based users to the MacOS fold, all the clones succeeded in doing was stealing hardware sales from Apple itself, which was harming Apple's income. The clones experiment was too little too late to make any dent in the Windows juggernaut and was hurting Apple more than it was helping it, so it had to end.
Don't you see what an apologist you are being? You can reapply your logic to Microsoft and say that pulling support for Lotus 1-2-3/Wordperfect/etc... was a sensible move, because it was harming Microsoft's income by reducing the marketshare of Office.
The fact is, if Apple had 90% of the market share and behaved as they do now, they'd be employed in some pretty nasty anti-trust lawsuits all over the world. As other, more insightful, posters have said before, MS locks people into software. Apple locks people into software and *hardware*. Hardware whose price, I might add, is unvelievably inflated. But since there is absolutely no chance of any competition, the price will not drop any time soon.