If you write consumer software and it doesn't run on Windows, you aren't getting more than 1% market-share. Ever.
It doesn't matter how many of you put penguin bumper stickers on your car. The world is going to do what it has always done to hardcore computer nerds who act like this is some sort of struggle between good and evil....
Ignore you.
The rest of us have more important things to do with our lives.
DOS was never written by Microsoft in the beginning. Instead it was purchased from an individual who wrote it in his spare time. If I am correct the individual was a college professor?
You are correct that MS did not invent (or write) DOS. But DOS made quite a few changes from version 1.0 to the end (6.22, I believe) that MS DID do (stealing compression routines from Stac notwithstanding). Unix wasn't written by Linus either, but he's done quite a bit with his "clone" of the OS, right?
People bitch a lot about MS's incompetence and stealing of ideas, but that's "competition." Remember, there was once someone out there who put windshield wipers on a car and sold it at a premium for being an "all weather vehicle." Nowadays, you don't question the fact that all vehicles have windshield wipers do you?
MS's code is sucky a LOT of the time because they are SO AMBITIOUS. They take what others have done and promise that, the entire world, and a bag of chips to go along with it. Do they get it right the first time around? Does anybody? I'm sure they'd get everything right the first time around if it weren't for deadlines, profit margins, employee compensation, and, oh yeah, the bottom line (something a lot of OSS shops simply don't have).
I'm not an MS apologist, but the capitalist in me is on their side (even if the computer nerd in me isn't so much). I am a realist, not an idealist, which is why I have learned to tolerate MS. And I'm also not above giving credit where credit is due. If it were not for MS, we'd all be using OS/3, and it'd cost about $350/copy (hell, OS/2 is still $285!). Remember, they were a competitor at one point in time (although it's been several years now). The marketplace decided. But with all these people bitching about how MS hasn't done anything, I take notice. I just did quite a bit of work upgrading some old 486 machines running Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. There is NO WAY IN HELL that you can tell me they haven't made progress. Even from Windows 95. As I sit in front of my XP box, I look back and am actually thankful they have done so much. My computer is a pleasure to use, never crashes (the advantage to building your own machine, using ALL of your own components to ensure compatibility), and starts up very quickly. There's not much more that I could ask for right now.
Pretty much general users want to be able to use the computer like a TV: sit down, press a button, and have things immediately available. When the user's done, hit the button again and walk away. Not everyone leaves their computer on 24/7.
I agree with this, just like the earlier part about having an inconsistent behavior. But, your analogy to the TV is a bit of a misnomer. A TV turns on so quickly because it's ALWAYS on. The insides are always kept "warm," which is why you don't have to wait for your TV to turn on like in the old days.
But with computers, there could be problems with leaving it "on" and not really "on". Think of all the cheap-ass PC's people buy today. A lot of their problems are caused not by Windows, but by sub-standard hardware and drivers. Leaving this hardware active (think of the IBM DeskStar drives, rated to run only 11 hours per day) could wreak havoc on the durability and lifespan of computer systems.
I know these devices can be shut down, but that requires "proper" drivers and such. I'm still working with some hardware vendors (not by choice) that can't even get their PERIPHERAL working properly, let alone suspend/resume/power down of that device. Instant-on is still a ways away, and them trying to implement it more quickly is only making the lives of those of us that support computers that much more difficult.
DOS was respectable. It did only what you told it, and crashed only when you screwed up. That's realiable in my book. Sure it didn't support large amounts of memory or storage, device drivers were mostly an afterthought, and multitasking was something you did at your desk and NOT on your computer, but damn it, I got a TON of work done on DOS.
Too many of you people are too young. You think that MS is and has always been the monopoly that it is. You guys all forget about the IBM monopoly that was. Desktops that cost $5000+, very expensive EVERYTHING... Then competition fixed the problem. If we go back to an IBM controlled monopoly, things will be no better. Hell, in ten years we'll all be 'covertly' using MS software to 'fight' the machine that is IBM.
And then all the sudden they bring out this dog and pony show and you discard your lessons from the past and without any results or evidence in hand
My computer has received 10+ security updates from MS since the beginning of February. Prior to that they came out few and far between (every few months). I would say that from an end-user's perspective, I can see a major difference. And I had noticed the increased updates without seeing any of their "Dog and Pony Show." It remains to be seen whether or not these updates prove useful, and also just how many more updates will come out (how many are needed?), but I can see that they're doing *SOMETHING*, which is more than I've seen in the past.
That's the same sort of dishonesty they perpetrate with their "just reboot/reinstall to solve bug X, Y, or Z" approach
This is not their fault. A large percentage of windows problems are caused by problems with the Registry (mostly invalid entries). There is NO WAY for the average Joe-schmo computer user to KNOW what has been altered in the registry in order to fix it. There is certainly no way for MS to know what has been changed and what the correct value should be. What is the solution? Re-install and start from scratch. Is this the best solution? Right now, yes. Would MS go back and alter the way the registry is implemented if they could? I would bet they would do a few things differently. But now that you've got several thousands of software applications that use the Registry as it currently exists, it's kind of hard to go back and make changes.
Of course they could change it, and require everyone to upgrade to a new version of Windows, and buy all new applications, but that wouldn't make the consumer very happy would it? Sounds like a Catch-22 to me. Sort of like having to still (even in XP) maintain backwards compatibility with Windows 3.1. It was released in 1993 for heaven's sakes!
No there will be real testing because it will be necessary. As the parent post states-- a simulation is useful but cannot replace the real thing.
No there won't, and if you had bothered to read the article closely, or you followed world politics at all, you'd know there has been an international ban on testing nuclear weapons since 1992. Why do you think our relations with N. Korea, India & Pakistan were so stressed (pre-9/11)? Because they were testing nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The simple fact is that MS will never have to even acknowledge the open-source movement if they don't want to. Why? Because they're focused on the war (total technological presence), not the battle (Linux vs. Windows). That is why MS wins. Because people get hung up on minor issues (Netscape vs. IE, Java vs. C#) when they're really just pieces of a much larger and more elaborate puzzle. MS wants to bring you the digital universe. From CD players to refrigerators to microwaves. They want a slice of every pie. And they'll probably get it. Simply because they're pushing these areas. Behind the scenes, a lot of their work goes toward the future and future uses of the PC. Windows will become less and less of an important characteristic. In fact, the underlying operating system will become less and less important in the future of computing. Much in the same way that BIOS's are now (fairly) standardized. Eventually the OS will reach it's theoretical design "perfection" and will be relegated to hardware or flash ROM. The money is in providing a truly digital lifestyle to the average consumer at a reasonable price. That is MS's war, and they have a long way to go. But don't get so caught up in the current battle, for it will soon be distant history. For reference, just go back to the early 90's and read some of the articles on Windows & OS/2. See what the opinion of the future of *NIX was back then. All it takes is one breakthrough or one consumer craze to change the entire way the industry works. Don't think for a second MS isn't eyeing the *real* prize.
While looking through the specs, I also noticed that the UNIX-based boxes have the hot-swap drive advantage over the Windows boxes. That's a very nice incentive to buy one.
If this is the case, then it's a design flaw. Sheesh, the two Compaq Proliant Servers we had a few years back (PII-333/256MB/18GB) had hot swappable SCSI drives. And that was running NT4 SP1 !! (Well, it eventually got to SP6).
april fool! it so funny! pigeons typing...too funny fo me! (btw, is it a slashdot april fools to disable anonymous posting, or is that how its gonna be?)
This is one of those days where anonymous posting would do much more harm than good. In fact, I'm not surprised at all. Although it's probably just for "April Fools" stories, not regular news bytes.
Access to the knowledgebase is free, and does not require passport to my knowledge. And no, I wasn't bashing the kernel developers, I was merely pointing out that there is no single repository of information on Linux that is as good. There are many that are better in a specific context, but over a broad spectrum, it's hard to beat MS's. And Highpoint provides a pretty detailed installation guide for use with RedHat 7.2, but it still doesn't work right (I get kernel panic during startup). It could be due to my lack of knowledge (in fact, I'm betting on it), but it would be nice to see info from others who have had the same problem in a single, convenient place.
MSN Messenger ships with WIndows XP and likes bothering you to register a passport account. This is a pain in the ass, and it doesn't appear in the add/remove programs list. Luckily if you edit the sysoc.inf files you can find the msmsgs line and remove the 'hidden' option from it. Then you CAN remove it through add/remove programs. It seems to me that Microsoft is being intentionally misleading about what parts of their operating system can be safely removed and which can't.
I'm sick of reading this stupid shit. You consider yourself a computer user? I had the same problem, and went straight to MS's knowledge base. I ran a search on 'disable messenger XP' and was immeidately pointed to article Q302089 entitled "How to Prevent Windows Messenger from Running on an XP Based Computers." 3 Ways to do it, none of which take more than 3 minutes. Pretty fucking hard. Cry me a damn river.
Meanwhile, 3GB worth of installation, seven hours of work, FAQ's, forums, etc. and my RAID card still won't work under RedHat 7.2. Show me a database of issues as complete and comprehensive as the MS Knowledge base (where they often disclose issues and solutions and reasoning behind issues well before the press gets ahold of them) for Linux and I'll be a happy man.
Because most of the flunky-ass software writers out there are not talented enough, nor do they have the time to write a video player and codecs and deal with all of the associated driver issues, etc. If you wrote an app to play or edit a movie, you'd be damned well happy that you didn't have to worry about all of the little details. That's why it's part of the OS. And I bet you see a lot more applications that handle/play/use video on Windows than in any other OS (sans Mac, which has QuickTime built in).
Yeah, Microsoft going after Codeweavers for writing this would be kind of like, say, some organization going after an individual who had written code that would allow for DVDs to be played under Linux. We all know they's go after the people doing the playing, instead.
Or like Sony going after someone making it possible to run Playstation software without a Playstation. What's the difference?
No Admin in his right mind (Linux user or not) wants his clients running Linux. Hell, I have a hard enough time getting them to type "ipconfig/all | more" let alone actually doing something useful.
It's human nature to pull for the underdog. I liked OS/2, I use Linux from time to time. But I am realistic about this whole thing. It's not my religion, and I don't need to spend 20 hours a day in front of my PC. I need to sit down, get some work done, then get on with my life. The day that Linux can match Windows in that regard is the day that Linux surpasses Windows. More power to them, but they're always facing an uphill climb. You must remember that MS has a LOT of programmers, and a lot of TALENTED programmers at that. In fact, I'm sure most of them are CS graduates. If only that were true with Linux.
NT stands for Northern Telecom (Nortel) who originally developed it. However, after MS acquired it, they also referred to it as "New Technology." It's not in any sense a unix implementation, although it is in some senses a VMS implementation. Digital Equipment sued over that and got paid off several years ago.
Stop smoking crack. NT was trademarked because that was their name. It has NOTHING to do with them developing Windows. They are a telecom equipment provider. I wonder how many people read your message and actually believed Nortel (Northern Telecom) actually developed Windows NT. You really should check your facts. It was nothing more than a naming conflict. Hence the name change to Windows 2000...
The real question is what is X-erminal going to do for me and the $5,000+ I have invested in Windows software? And further, if it will not run any of them, then can you kindly point me to an available real estate appraisal package based on Linux?
You are right in that the entire form does not need to be represented. However, many folks in this business are older and the PDA screens are just too small. The other problem is you still cannot do your sketching on the PDA. So, you still have to carry a regular pen and paper with you. Not a great solution either way you slice it. Now a 1.5 lb. tablet PC running the actual software (instead of a limited subset of it) would be a godsend.
This could potentially be a good idea. I work in real estate Appraisal, and one of our industry's longstanding problems has been going from field notes to data entry. Newer solutions exist that run on Palm OS devices, but the fact of the matter is that the 2-4 page legal sized forms we have to fill out are represented terribly on the little screen. A laptop would be a great solution, but they're bulky. And being in a cold, northern climate doesn't lend itself to lugging around a lot of technology in the snow. With a device like this, I could leave the laptop itself in the warn confines of my car, and use the touch screen tablet to do my data entry. I guess this would only work if the display doesn't weigh very much though.
I've also been looking into AquaPad's, but I don't think they have enough storage for the OS and all of our appraisal software (of course it's all Windows-based... And it probably always will be.. Hell, it took most companies 7 years just to make 32-bit versions of their software.). Toshiba also has a laptop coming out that's supposed to be >3 lbs. and has a rotatable (sp?) lcd. When the lcd is rotated around so that the laptop is closed but the screen is on the outside, it uses a stylus for data entry. If this thing is not too cumbersome this might also work.
It's nice to see that there are people out there working on these things, and I imagine that in 5 years truly usable handheld tablet devices will be ready for the mainstream. Hey look at the bright side-- that's only 15 years after they were announced.
Then why do so many of the "new" window managers that Linux zealots are promoting look so much like Windows?
I can see it now..
Linux Zealot: Boss, we've got to change all of our desktops to Linux now! It's finally ready for the desktop.
Boss: I thought it was hard to use.
Linux Zealot: Not at all. It's MUCH better than anything a company of professional developers working full time could create. And it doesn't have ANY security vulnerabilities, and it NEVER crashes.
Boss: Sounds pretty good. Have they made the User Interface any better?
Linux Zealot: Oh yes, much better. KDE has added a start menu, right-click context menus, My Computer, Control Panels and even a way to (almost) automatically install/uninstall programs.
Boss: Sounds like Windows 95 that was released 7 years ago. I guess that's ok, but does Linux support our hardware?
Linux Zealot: Not all of it, but there are some close driver matches, and if I hack away at it enough, maybe our hardware will work. There's also a guy in his basement in Cleveland working on a driver for our video cards. His latest post to/. says he'll be done in a few weeks.
Boss: Well, I don't like the idea of not knowing when/if our hardware will be supported, but we'll be upgrading soon, so that's not a really big deal. What about software? We've got hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in several custom VB applications that make our lives 1000x easier. Will they run?
Linux Zealot: No, not yet. But there's a new project started by some college kids in Arizona that will allow us to quickly convert VB applications to X applications. Right now it doesn't do shit, but I'm sure in a few years they'll get it to run flawlessly!
Boss: Well, what about all of the documents and spreadsheets we've typed over the last 10 years. Will we be able to read those? Oh yeah, and if we switch, will we still be able to use Office?
Linux Zealot: Office? What is that? Oh, Star Office, yeah, it'll run just fine...
Boss: No.. Word. Excel. Powerpoint. The tools that the entire civilized world relies upon to get WORK done?
Linux Zealot: Well, not yet, but there's some guys working on this thing called WINE that...
I'm sure you get the point. I'm also quite certain that this post will "disappear." Don't belive it happens? ANY post too MS or too anti-OSS seems to magically vanish from/. Seems as though Open Source advocates aren't as "Open" as they claim.
This whole comment on plagarism just pisses me off. Get a fscking clue.
The only time I've LOST files off of any FAT16/32/NTFS drive was back in the FAT16 days. I made the youthful mistake of getting DOS 6.2 from a BBS (at 14.4 those days... thank goodness.. well, compared to a 2400). I then proceeded to install a DoubleSpace drive. Then, I got tired of it, removed the driver from config.sys, and deleted the DoubleSpace file. Well, after random files started disappearing from our computer, I called Gateway 2000 and their tech informed me that that MS had something going on "behind the scenes" that would seriously screw up if you deleted the compressed drive file. Well, this was my father's computer (with all of his law firm's documents on it), so I had to spend the ENTIRE night copying all of his files to 250 1.2MB 5.25" floppies. Then I had to fdisk, format, and re-install DOS/Win. Needless to say, I have NEVER messed with drive compression since.
Sorry for the long post. Crazy flashback. It was one of those moments where you are infinitely wiser immediately afterward. Now that I look back on it, the only reason I'm so comfortable with computers is that I broke them so often. Eventually there was no one else to call, no more books to read, and no INTERNET (well, shell dialup doesn't count). The fear of a 260 lb. 6 foot 5 father who's law firm is on the line is an amazing motivator.
I beg to differ. You are looking at their choice from the wrong point of view. It has everything to do with the license and nothing to do with the "covert M$ war." Think about it from a profit-oriented, closed-source company. They are free to use freeBSD, as a platform, or to rip code from, and they don't have to pay anyone, nor do they have to re-distribute the source. It's a win-win situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop being an idiot.
If you write consumer software and it doesn't run on Windows, you aren't getting more than 1% market-share. Ever.
It doesn't matter how many of you put penguin bumper stickers on your car. The world is going to do what it has always done to hardcore computer nerds who act like this is some sort of struggle between good and evil....
Ignore you.
The rest of us have more important things to do with our lives.
DOS was never written by Microsoft in the beginning. Instead it was purchased from an individual who wrote it in his spare time. If I am correct the individual was a college professor?
;-P
You are correct that MS did not invent (or write) DOS. But DOS made quite a few changes from version 1.0 to the end (6.22, I believe) that MS DID do (stealing compression routines from Stac notwithstanding). Unix wasn't written by Linus either, but he's done quite a bit with his "clone" of the OS, right?
People bitch a lot about MS's incompetence and stealing of ideas, but that's "competition." Remember, there was once someone out there who put windshield wipers on a car and sold it at a premium for being an "all weather vehicle." Nowadays, you don't question the fact that all vehicles have windshield wipers do you?
MS's code is sucky a LOT of the time because they are SO AMBITIOUS. They take what others have done and promise that, the entire world, and a bag of chips to go along with it. Do they get it right the first time around? Does anybody? I'm sure they'd get everything right the first time around if it weren't for deadlines, profit margins, employee compensation, and, oh yeah, the bottom line (something a lot of OSS shops simply don't have).
I'm not an MS apologist, but the capitalist in me is on their side (even if the computer nerd in me isn't so much). I am a realist, not an idealist, which is why I have learned to tolerate MS. And I'm also not above giving credit where credit is due. If it were not for MS, we'd all be using OS/3, and it'd cost about $350/copy (hell, OS/2 is still $285!). Remember, they were a competitor at one point in time (although it's been several years now). The marketplace decided. But with all these people bitching about how MS hasn't done anything, I take notice. I just did quite a bit of work upgrading some old 486 machines running Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. There is NO WAY IN HELL that you can tell me they haven't made progress. Even from Windows 95. As I sit in front of my XP box, I look back and am actually thankful they have done so much. My computer is a pleasure to use, never crashes (the advantage to building your own machine, using ALL of your own components to ensure compatibility), and starts up very quickly. There's not much more that I could ask for right now.
Except head.
But that's a few years away.
Pretty much general users want to be able to use the computer like a TV: sit down, press a button, and have things immediately available. When the user's done, hit the button again and walk away. Not everyone leaves their computer on 24/7.
I agree with this, just like the earlier part about having an inconsistent behavior. But, your analogy to the TV is a bit of a misnomer. A TV turns on so quickly because it's ALWAYS on. The insides are always kept "warm," which is why you don't have to wait for your TV to turn on like in the old days.
But with computers, there could be problems with leaving it "on" and not really "on". Think of all the cheap-ass PC's people buy today. A lot of their problems are caused not by Windows, but by sub-standard hardware and drivers. Leaving this hardware active (think of the IBM DeskStar drives, rated to run only 11 hours per day) could wreak havoc on the durability and lifespan of computer systems.
I know these devices can be shut down, but that requires "proper" drivers and such. I'm still working with some hardware vendors (not by choice) that can't even get their PERIPHERAL working properly, let alone suspend/resume/power down of that device. Instant-on is still a ways away, and them trying to implement it more quickly is only making the lives of those of us that support computers that much more difficult.
Maybe I'm just paranoid.
Probably not though.
DOS was respectable. It did only what you told it, and crashed only when you screwed up. That's realiable in my book. Sure it didn't support large amounts of memory or storage, device drivers were mostly an afterthought, and multitasking was something you did at your desk and NOT on your computer, but damn it, I got a TON of work done on DOS.
Too many of you people are too young. You think that MS is and has always been the monopoly that it is. You guys all forget about the IBM monopoly that was. Desktops that cost $5000+, very expensive EVERYTHING... Then competition fixed the problem. If we go back to an IBM controlled monopoly, things will be no better. Hell, in ten years we'll all be 'covertly' using MS software to 'fight' the machine that is IBM.
The players change, but the game? Not so much.
And then all the sudden they bring out this dog and pony show and you discard your lessons from the past and without any results or evidence in hand
My computer has received 10+ security updates from MS since the beginning of February. Prior to that they came out few and far between (every few months). I would say that from an end-user's perspective, I can see a major difference. And I had noticed the increased updates without seeing any of their "Dog and Pony Show." It remains to be seen whether or not these updates prove useful, and also just how many more updates will come out (how many are needed?), but I can see that they're doing *SOMETHING*, which is more than I've seen in the past.
That's the same sort of dishonesty they perpetrate with their "just reboot/reinstall to solve bug X, Y, or Z" approach
This is not their fault. A large percentage of windows problems are caused by problems with the Registry (mostly invalid entries). There is NO WAY for the average Joe-schmo computer user to KNOW what has been altered in the registry in order to fix it. There is certainly no way for MS to know what has been changed and what the correct value should be. What is the solution? Re-install and start from scratch. Is this the best solution? Right now, yes. Would MS go back and alter the way the registry is implemented if they could? I would bet they would do a few things differently. But now that you've got several thousands of software applications that use the Registry as it currently exists, it's kind of hard to go back and make changes.
Of course they could change it, and require everyone to upgrade to a new version of Windows, and buy all new applications, but that wouldn't make the consumer very happy would it? Sounds like a Catch-22 to me. Sort of like having to still (even in XP) maintain backwards compatibility with Windows 3.1. It was released in 1993 for heaven's sakes!
I stand corrected. Thank you for updating me as to the current situation.
I'm not too big to admit that I was wrong.
No there will be real testing because it will be necessary. As the parent post states-- a simulation is useful but cannot replace the real thing.
No there won't, and if you had bothered to read the article closely, or you followed world politics at all, you'd know there has been an international ban on testing nuclear weapons since 1992. Why do you think our relations with N. Korea, India & Pakistan were so stressed (pre-9/11)? Because they were testing nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The simple fact is that MS will never have to even acknowledge the open-source movement if they don't want to. Why? Because they're focused on the war (total technological presence), not the battle (Linux vs. Windows). That is why MS wins. Because people get hung up on minor issues (Netscape vs. IE, Java vs. C#) when they're really just pieces of a much larger and more elaborate puzzle. MS wants to bring you the digital universe. From CD players to refrigerators to microwaves. They want a slice of every pie. And they'll probably get it. Simply because they're pushing these areas. Behind the scenes, a lot of their work goes toward the future and future uses of the PC. Windows will become less and less of an important characteristic. In fact, the underlying operating system will become less and less important in the future of computing. Much in the same way that BIOS's are now (fairly) standardized. Eventually the OS will reach it's theoretical design "perfection" and will be relegated to hardware or flash ROM. The money is in providing a truly digital lifestyle to the average consumer at a reasonable price. That is MS's war, and they have a long way to go. But don't get so caught up in the current battle, for it will soon be distant history. For reference, just go back to the early 90's and read some of the articles on Windows & OS/2. See what the opinion of the future of *NIX was back then. All it takes is one breakthrough or one consumer craze to change the entire way the industry works. Don't think for a second MS isn't eyeing the *real* prize.
While looking through the specs, I also noticed that the UNIX-based boxes have the hot-swap drive advantage over the Windows boxes. That's a very nice incentive to buy one.
If this is the case, then it's a design flaw. Sheesh, the two Compaq Proliant Servers we had a few years back (PII-333/256MB/18GB) had hot swappable SCSI drives. And that was running NT4 SP1 !! (Well, it eventually got to SP6).
april fool! it so funny! pigeons typing...too funny fo me! (btw, is it a slashdot april fools to disable anonymous posting, or is that how its gonna be?)
This is one of those days where anonymous posting would do much more harm than good. In fact, I'm not surprised at all. Although it's probably just for "April Fools" stories, not regular news bytes.
Access to the knowledgebase is free, and does not require passport to my knowledge. And no, I wasn't bashing the kernel developers, I was merely pointing out that there is no single repository of information on Linux that is as good. There are many that are better in a specific context, but over a broad spectrum, it's hard to beat MS's. And Highpoint provides a pretty detailed installation guide for use with RedHat 7.2, but it still doesn't work right (I get kernel panic during startup). It could be due to my lack of knowledge (in fact, I'm betting on it), but it would be nice to see info from others who have had the same problem in a single, convenient place.
MSN Messenger ships with WIndows XP and likes bothering you to register a passport account. This is a pain in the ass, and it doesn't appear in the add/remove programs list. Luckily if you edit the sysoc.inf files you can find the msmsgs line and remove the 'hidden' option from it. Then you CAN remove it through add/remove programs. It seems to me that Microsoft is being intentionally misleading about what parts of their operating system can be safely removed and which can't.
I'm sick of reading this stupid shit. You consider yourself a computer user? I had the same problem, and went straight to MS's knowledge base. I ran a search on 'disable messenger XP' and was immeidately pointed to article Q302089 entitled "How to Prevent Windows Messenger from Running on an XP Based Computers." 3 Ways to do it, none of which take more than 3 minutes. Pretty fucking hard. Cry me a damn river.
Meanwhile, 3GB worth of installation, seven hours of work, FAQ's, forums, etc. and my RAID card still won't work under RedHat 7.2. Show me a database of issues as complete and comprehensive as the MS Knowledge base (where they often disclose issues and solutions and reasoning behind issues well before the press gets ahold of them) for Linux and I'll be a happy man.
Because most of the flunky-ass software writers out there are not talented enough, nor do they have the time to write a video player and codecs and deal with all of the associated driver issues, etc. If you wrote an app to play or edit a movie, you'd be damned well happy that you didn't have to worry about all of the little details. That's why it's part of the OS. And I bet you see a lot more applications that handle/play/use video on Windows than in any other OS (sans Mac, which has QuickTime built in).
Dipshits.
Yeah, Microsoft going after Codeweavers for writing this would be kind of like, say, some organization going after an individual who had written code that would allow for DVDs to be played under Linux. We all know they's go after the people doing the playing, instead.
Or like Sony going after someone making it possible to run Playstation software without a Playstation. What's the difference?
Amen Brother!
/all | more" let alone actually doing something useful.
No Admin in his right mind (Linux user or not) wants his clients running Linux. Hell, I have a hard enough time getting them to type "ipconfig
It's human nature to pull for the underdog. I liked OS/2, I use Linux from time to time. But I am realistic about this whole thing. It's not my religion, and I don't need to spend 20 hours a day in front of my PC. I need to sit down, get some work done, then get on with my life. The day that Linux can match Windows in that regard is the day that Linux surpasses Windows. More power to them, but they're always facing an uphill climb. You must remember that MS has a LOT of programmers, and a lot of TALENTED programmers at that. In fact, I'm sure most of them are CS graduates. If only that were true with Linux.
NT stands for Northern Telecom (Nortel) who originally developed it. However, after MS acquired it, they also referred to it as "New Technology." It's not in any sense a unix implementation, although it is in some senses a VMS implementation. Digital Equipment sued over that and got paid off several years ago.
Stop smoking crack. NT was trademarked because that was their name. It has NOTHING to do with them developing Windows. They are a telecom equipment provider. I wonder how many people read your message and actually believed Nortel (Northern Telecom) actually developed Windows NT. You really should check your facts. It was nothing more than a naming conflict. Hence the name change to Windows 2000...
The real question is what is X-erminal going to do for me and the $5,000+ I have invested in Windows software? And further, if it will not run any of them, then can you kindly point me to an available real estate appraisal package based on Linux?
Oh yeah, there isn't one.
You are right in that the entire form does not need to be represented. However, many folks in this business are older and the PDA screens are just too small. The other problem is you still cannot do your sketching on the PDA. So, you still have to carry a regular pen and paper with you. Not a great solution either way you slice it. Now a 1.5 lb. tablet PC running the actual software (instead of a limited subset of it) would be a godsend.
This could potentially be a good idea. I work in real estate Appraisal, and one of our industry's longstanding problems has been going from field notes to data entry. Newer solutions exist that run on Palm OS devices, but the fact of the matter is that the 2-4 page legal sized forms we have to fill out are represented terribly on the little screen. A laptop would be a great solution, but they're bulky. And being in a cold, northern climate doesn't lend itself to lugging around a lot of technology in the snow. With a device like this, I could leave the laptop itself in the warn confines of my car, and use the touch screen tablet to do my data entry. I guess this would only work if the display doesn't weigh very much though.
I've also been looking into AquaPad's, but I don't think they have enough storage for the OS and all of our appraisal software (of course it's all Windows-based... And it probably always will be.. Hell, it took most companies 7 years just to make 32-bit versions of their software.). Toshiba also has a laptop coming out that's supposed to be >3 lbs. and has a rotatable (sp?) lcd. When the lcd is rotated around so that the laptop is closed but the screen is on the outside, it uses a stylus for data entry. If this thing is not too cumbersome this might also work.
It's nice to see that there are people out there working on these things, and I imagine that in 5 years truly usable handheld tablet devices will be ready for the mainstream. Hey look at the bright side-- that's only 15 years after they were announced.
Uhhh...
/. says he'll be done in a few weeks.
/. Seems as though Open Source advocates aren't as "Open" as they claim.
Then why do so many of the "new" window managers that Linux zealots are promoting look so much like Windows?
I can see it now..
Linux Zealot: Boss, we've got to change all of our desktops to Linux now! It's finally ready for the desktop.
Boss: I thought it was hard to use.
Linux Zealot: Not at all. It's MUCH better than anything a company of professional developers working full time could create. And it doesn't have ANY security vulnerabilities, and it NEVER crashes.
Boss: Sounds pretty good. Have they made the User Interface any better?
Linux Zealot: Oh yes, much better. KDE has added a start menu, right-click context menus, My Computer, Control Panels and even a way to (almost) automatically install/uninstall programs.
Boss: Sounds like Windows 95 that was released 7 years ago. I guess that's ok, but does Linux support our hardware?
Linux Zealot: Not all of it, but there are some close driver matches, and if I hack away at it enough, maybe our hardware will work. There's also a guy in his basement in Cleveland working on a driver for our video cards. His latest post to
Boss: Well, I don't like the idea of not knowing when/if our hardware will be supported, but we'll be upgrading soon, so that's not a really big deal. What about software? We've got hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in several custom VB applications that make our lives 1000x easier. Will they run?
Linux Zealot: No, not yet. But there's a new project started by some college kids in Arizona that will allow us to quickly convert VB applications to X applications. Right now it doesn't do shit, but I'm sure in a few years they'll get it to run flawlessly!
Boss: Well, what about all of the documents and spreadsheets we've typed over the last 10 years. Will we be able to read those? Oh yeah, and if we switch, will we still be able to use Office?
Linux Zealot: Office? What is that? Oh, Star Office, yeah, it'll run just fine...
Boss: No.. Word. Excel. Powerpoint. The tools that the entire civilized world relies upon to get WORK done?
Linux Zealot: Well, not yet, but there's some guys working on this thing called WINE that...
I'm sure you get the point. I'm also quite certain that this post will "disappear." Don't belive it happens? ANY post too MS or too anti-OSS seems to magically vanish from
This whole comment on plagarism just pisses me off. Get a fscking clue.
The only time I've LOST files off of any FAT16/32/NTFS drive was back in the FAT16 days. I made the youthful mistake of getting DOS 6.2 from a BBS (at 14.4 those days... thank goodness.. well, compared to a 2400). I then proceeded to install a DoubleSpace drive. Then, I got tired of it, removed the driver from config.sys, and deleted the DoubleSpace file. Well, after random files started disappearing from our computer, I called Gateway 2000 and their tech informed me that that MS had something going on "behind the scenes" that would seriously screw up if you deleted the compressed drive file. Well, this was my father's computer (with all of his law firm's documents on it), so I had to spend the ENTIRE night copying all of his files to 250 1.2MB 5.25" floppies. Then I had to fdisk, format, and re-install DOS/Win. Needless to say, I have NEVER messed with drive compression since.
Sorry for the long post. Crazy flashback. It was one of those moments where you are infinitely wiser immediately afterward. Now that I look back on it, the only reason I'm so comfortable with computers is that I broke them so often. Eventually there was no one else to call, no more books to read, and no INTERNET (well, shell dialup doesn't count). The fear of a 260 lb. 6 foot 5 father who's law firm is on the line is an amazing motivator.
me walks through an office yelling FORMAT! CEE-COLON! YES!
why bother walking through an office? yell it on your radio show, espcially if it's being webcast.
Come on guys, this is ridiculous. It's not like XP is so fucking stupid it's going to actually format someone's C: drive.
I beg to differ. You are looking at their choice from the wrong point of view. It has everything to do with the license and nothing to do with the "covert M$ war." Think about it from a profit-oriented, closed-source company. They are free to use freeBSD, as a platform, or to rip code from, and they don't have to pay anyone, nor do they have to re-distribute the source. It's a win-win situation.