"Edit: Slashdot seems to have picked up on this, and in typical style, has completely misunderstood the post. To be clear, I do not think that Apple is in any way trying to purposely "cripple" non-Apple software. I also do not think that undocumented APIs give Safari any kind of "significant performance advantage" (as Firefox 3 should show!). However, as I said, the undocumented functionality could be useful for Firefox and other apps to implement things in an simpler (and potentially more efficient) manner. I don't think this is malicious, it's just an unfortunate cutting of corners that is way too easy for a company that's not fully open to do."
Slashdot has a reputation: "Slashdot... in typical style, has completely misunderstood the post."
It amazes me that, after all these years, Slashdot editors still apparently do not do any research before they post the stories. That has reduced the value of Slashdot as an advertising medium enormously.
The cause of the violence is people who have control over the U.S. government wanting to make a profit. I don't have time now to give a lot of links, but there are some below.
What started the violence between the U.S. government and Arabs was the U.S. government, not the Arabs. Having the U.S. taxpayer pay for violence to make a profit works only because most voters don't know the history of U.S. government action.
See, for example,
Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA. Most or all of that corruption
happened for profit, such as kickbacks of U.S. government foreign aid. When
the governments of Israel or Pakistan buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers
using money from "foreign aid", that is embezzlement of taxpayer money.
Apparently Slashdot editors agree with at least some of this, because now and for the last 2 months or more, this has been on the main Slashdot page, on the right, under Book Reviews: "The
Creature from Jekyll Island is a compelling look at the history of
the Federal Reserve system and asks if it's a system that has run it's
course. (Michael J.
Ross's review)"
"The Creature from Jekyll Island" discusses how the U.S. monetary system is
manipulated by rich and powerful people for their own profit. It says that wars are
started for profit.
The poorly edited but very interesting free movie Zeitgeist explains in three
parts that 1) People who believe in myths are easily manipulated. 2) It is
common that people are manipulated through fear. 3) The U.S. monetary system
is controlled for the profit of a few individuals. (Note that the movie used
respected sources for the first part which were later shown to be somewhat in error.
The underlying issues are correct, however.)
When you talk about U.S. government action, don't say "we". Whoever does the secret decision making would kill
you and your family if they thought you would cause trouble for them.
When people try to calculate the total number the U.S. government killed, they arrive at figures
like perhaps 3 million killed directly since the end of the 2nd world war, and perhaps 8 to 11 million total if the
people killed by the destabilization the U.S. government caused are also included, not including the people killed in Iraq. Partly the killing happened as a result of the U.S. government invading or bombing 25 countries.
It's not government by the military, it is government by oil and weapons investors. The military just kills those who would not allow oil and weapons profits.
The only way to peace is to make relationships. Violence only breeds more violence.
nVidia is NOT required to provide a driver?
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 1
"nVidia is NOT required to provide a driver for your laptop at all."
That's an interesting position taken by many suppliers. However, it isn't a sensible or workable position. When an nVidia driver fails to provide necessary performance, nVidia's reputation is damaged.
The laptop I mentioned came with a driver that was capable of many resolutions, but left out the most important for a large monitor, even though there were bigger resolutions supported. That's a nasty way to treat the customer. nVidia cannot avoid being considered at least partly responsible, even if they didn't have a good enough contract with buyers.
Sounds impressive. I understand they have fixed many memory handling bugs,
too. But for me the big problem with Firefox is not slowness with
JavaScript.
For me the big problem is the CPU hogging bug. The CPU hogging is much
less of a problem with the most recent released version of Firefox, 2.0.0.12,
but right now, on the computer I am using to type this, with 17 windows and 88
tabs open, Process Explorer shows Firefox to be spiking up to 75% of the CPU,
with no activity.
Those of us who spend a lot of the day doing research, and can't
resolve one issue before we must consider another, often have a LOT of tabs
open.
I think the CPU hogging bug is very interesting, but I'm not in a
position to try to fix it myself. What is interesting is that it seems to be a
bug in Firefox that interacts with a bug or shortcoming in Windows XP SP2. So,
someone taking the time to fix it may become semi-famous for understanding a
severe OS limitation or bug.
What is interesting is that the CPU hogging bug is shared between
Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey. Often opening a lot of tabs in Firefox,
and keeping them open for days, causes Thunderbird or Seamonkey to begin to
hog the CPU, even though those programs are not being used heavily.
The history of memory and resource management in Firefox is that it
has been VERY buggy. The Firefox development pages have claimed that they have
fixed "hundreds" of bugs. Firefox is no longer unstable, in my experience, but
instabilities in the past caused the rapid acceptance of Firefox to slow.
People who tried Firefox sometimes went back to Internet Explorer when Firefox
crashed, or there were other problems. So, poor Firefox memory and resource
management have been a big factor in Firefox popularity, according to numerous
news reports at the time.
Roland Piquepaille, who submitted this story, is PAID to do public relations. In my opinion, he has been responsible for other dubious stories, such as these (The links are to my comments.):
Slashdot is BIG media now. As I write this the top two entries in Google News for AMD are both this Slashdot story: Google News: AMD.
That means that anyone in the world who wants to know about AMD right now will see Slashdot's speculation.
AMD has done what it has always done...
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 1
"oh, and my disclaimer: following my advice will hurt my long position in
AMD."
Funny.
"... poor performance by the company without much of an end in
sight."
It seems to me that there is an end. AMD has done what it has always
done, invest for the future. Maybe a year from now everyone will be using AMD
CPU-GPU chips in their low-cost laptops.
To me what is happening seems like classic market manipulation. Drive
AMD stock down a little more, buy a lot, and make a huge profit as soon as the
new products are released.
When I wrote the parent comment, I forgot to include my own statement: I don't own any AMD or Intel stock, and there is no way I can profit AMD or Intel stock prices rising or falling.
Shorting AMD stock: NASDAQ figures
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
People are selling AMD stock short, betting it will go down. To make money, they need the price of AMD stock to drop.
Often a company's stock price reflects market manipulation rather than any sensible estimate of the true value of the company. This Slashdot story is very likely to drive the price down, as short sellers want. Check the price after the market opens.
When AMD integrates ATI video with AMD CPUs, the resulting combination is likely to be very competitive. AMDs technical prospects seem good to me, although I have not done a thorough analysis. Remember that we are no longer in a CPU speed race; CPUs are fast enough now for the average user.
Links: Intel stock
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 4, Informative
Quote: "Intel, the world's largest computer-chip maker, tumbled the most in five years in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after saying first-quarter sales will be as much as 6.9 percent below analysts' estimates."
Intel mistakes: CPU development is VERY difficult.
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Anyone thinking that Intel can always be ahead of AMD should read the history of the Pentium 4 on Wikipedia. Two quotes:
"Finally, the thermal problems were so severe, Intel decided to abandon the Prescott architecture altogether, and attempts to roll out a 4 GHz part were abandoned, as a waste of internal resources."
"The original successor to the Pentium 4 was Tejas, which was scheduled for an early-mid-2005 release. However, it was cancelled a few months after the release of Prescott due to extremely high power consumption (a 2.8 GHz Tejas consumed 150 W of power..."
For me, this story crossed a line. ATI excellence.
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
FRAUD ALERT? First, for me this story crossed a line. It looks like
stock manipulation. Was KDawson paid to post this story? Who at Slashdot or
its parent company has recently sold AMD stock short, betting that the price
will fall? Are any Intel employees involved?
I would like to see a statement added at the end of this Slashdot
story that KDawson took no money for this story, and that no one at Slashdot
or its parent company took money or will benefit from a drop in price of AMD
stock. I'm not accusing anyone of anything; I am just concerned that this
story is worded in a way that seems sleazy and possibly fraudulent to me.
Second, in response to the parent comment. ATI is the premier video
CPU provider now. nVidia is so lame that there is an entire web site devoted
to fixing nVidia driver issues: LaptopVideo2Go. I spent hours trying to get one of my
laptops, which has an nVidia chip, to work correctly with an external monitor.
It works well now, but I could never have done the work without the help of
LaptopVideo2Go.
Third, Intel is suffering from very bad management. For example, see
the comment I posted to an earlier Slashdot story, responding
to someone saying, "Intel's behavior regarding the OLPC is
reprehensible."
Fourth, AMD seems to be the more technologically dedicated company.
Intel has a history of dumb mistakes. For example, see this December 2000
article about the Pentium 4, which calls Intel "Chipzilla": Pentium 4 Linux problem all Chipzilla's fault,
apparently. Quote: "Intel... failed... through dumbness rather than
malice."
I seem to remember that the entire Pentium 4 architecture was
abandoned in favor of the Pentium 4 Mobile architecture, which is what Intel
is shipping now.
Both AMD and Intel make VERY sophisticated processors. It's amazing
that a product that is so tiny it is affected by quantum physics is cheap
enough for everyone to own. When one is temporarily ahead, it is simply silly
to say that the other is dying.
Stock prices are often affected by hysteria. This is especially true
of prices of technical stocks, which are often owned by people who don't
really understand the technology of the company they partly own.
"Sure no money is changing hands but there is consideration given."
And Microsoft fully expects that consideration to be eventually worth many millions of dollars in vendor lock-in, as soon as proprietary extensions can be added in later versions. (I'm sorry, Library of Congress, your web site requires you to run Windows, because Linux is not licensed to use the new versions of Silverlight.)
That's what Microsoft has always done before, in my opinion. There is every reason to believe it will happen again.
"Well, we are running a deficit. I guess the government needed the $3 million dollars."
That's the kind of low energy, uncaring way of thinking that makes a mess of things. Readers of Slashdot, if they decide to work together, can be very powerful.
Let's end the dominance of the depressed people among us, who constantly imply that nothing is worth much effort. (Notice that one of the tags given by K. Dawson to this story is "googleisevil". That doesn't even make any sense in the context.)
Let's do something more than just complain about Microsoft's abusive behavior. Slashdot, or some other site we start, could grow up and be adult and take responsibility for something other than just our own lives.
The issue is the heavy-handedness with which Microsoft deals with the problems. They say a new version of ZoneAlarm is available now, but I don't see it.
You said, "Better yet, the Knowledge Base article gives a link to a WORKING, UPDATED VERSION OF ZONE ALARM."
The link given in the KnowledgeBase article for ZoneAlarm is to a page that asks for $25 to deliver a Vista compatible update when it is available.
There are many sensible, more gentle ways Microsoft could have handled this rather than just giving a blue screen.
I haven't fully investigated the problems, but it certainly seems that Microsoft is being uncaring toward customers, and I have seen numerous examples of that.
This Slashdot story is part of the complaining about Microsoft's
abusiveness, and so is the class-action lawsuit. At present, Windows 2000 will
be completely killed on 7/13/2010. However, that is only because people
complained intensely. The original death date for Windows 2000 Professional
was 2007. That's why it is so important to complain.
See a quote from this comment on an earlier Slashdot story: "Microsoft's customers were
forced to upgrade to Windows XP because Windows 98 had an unstable file
system, an unstable registry, and lots of problems with "DLL Hell" and the
"Blue Screen of Death"." There were things that could have been done to
make the FAT file system more stable, and Microsoft didn't do that.
Windows 2000 Professional represents a plateau of usefulness. However,
most corporations moved from Windows 95 or Windows 98 to Windows XP.
Later in the thread mentioned above, there is another comment with a quote from a December 2003 Seclists article about corporate
Windows users: "Inventory data of more than 372,000 PCs - from some 670
companies with between 10 and 49,000 employees - found that more than 80
percent of these companies were still using Windows 98 and/or Windows 95."
The Slashdot moderation system allows moderation only from those who
have no interest in participating in the conversation about a story. That
brings a lot of moderators to stories in which they have no interest. They
simply look for a place to unload their moderation points. Moderators are
likely to be ignorant about the issues being discussed.
"If they were running 98, they deserved what they got."
That is what abusive parents say: "Yes I abused you, but you deserved it."
Twenty days before the beginning of 2004, Information Security News carried a story about a study of Windows users. On January 16, 2004, Microsoft killed Windows 98. Quote from the story: "Inventory data of more than 372,000 PCs - from some 670 companies with
between 10 and 49,000 employees - found that more than 80 percent of
these companies were still using Windows 98 and/or Windows 95."
It is important for readers of Slashdot comments to do their own research. Many of the comments, such as the parent comment, are wildly inaccurate.
Quote from the parent comment: "XP's successor (Vista) was released about
13 months ago."
Vista may have been "released" 13 months ago, but that is missing the
point. Microsoft "releases" software LONG before it is finished, in my
opinion.
Windows XP was very troublesome for 3 years after it was released. All
the evidence we have is that Windows Vista will be troublesome for that long
also. One of the MAJOR issues here is that customers are being pressured away
from Windows XP to Windows Vista before Vista is stable. For many, being
pressured is not equivalent to being forced, but for many it is, especially at
the end of June, when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP, except to preferred
customers.
In my opinion, it is not correct to compare an upgrade of Linux with
upgrades of Windows. Microsoft sells upgrades of Windows as entirely new
products. To do that, it introduces incompatibilities with old software and
hardware. Of course the biggest incompatibility is with hardware. Each upgrade
of Windows tries to force the customer to buy completely new hardware. That
way, Microsoft's true customers, the big system builders, get what they want,
more sales.
In contrast, the latest version of any kind of Linux will run fine
with minimal hardware.
Yes, Apple tries to use lock-in to make more money; Apple
is also adversarial, but far less adversarial than Microsoft.
You said, and I quote: "The vast majority of XP's vulnerabilities
take advantage of users always running in Administrator mode, which Microsoft
was forced to allow because incompetent developers of popular applications
(e.g. Intuit)..."
First, Microsoft did not supply the necessary support to get software
vendors to design their software properly.
Second, running as a limited user has shortcomings due to the poor
design of Windows. Fast user switching has serious limitations, for example.
Third, yes, versions of software can be expected to have
vulnerabilities. However, one effect of Microsoft releasing software before it
is finished is that there are a wide variety of vulnerabilities that would not be present
in finished software.
Fourth, Microsoft is slow to fix vulnerabilities; note
that 15% are still not patched. It is easy to guess that Microsoft is slow
because vulnerabilities make money; people buy new computers rather than try
to fix corrupted computers.
I agree that Intuit has shown incompetence, but Intuit is also
extremely adversarial towards its customers, in my opinion, perhaps following
Microsoft's lead.
Anyone who would like to read more about some of Microsoft's adversarial
behavior can read Ed Foster's Gripelog: Microsoft.
"Even if ReactOS is capable of running 100% of windows software, it would be nearly impossible for them to reach the level of market saturation that Microsoft enjoys."
I wonder about that. I think most companies have strict controls over what software can be installed, because employees have very narrow needs at work. So, if ReactOS is able to run those programs, why not switch rather than be forced to have the painful experience of buying and running Windows Vista?
It seems that ReactOS will not be ready soon, but when it is ready, it seems that a lot of companies would switch.
In a comment to another story titled Psychology of past trauma, SgtChaireBourne explains that the picture I painted of Windows XP in my parent comment is actually quite rosy; Windows XP was worse that I said.
Microsoft is being extraordinarily abusive towards its customers, in
my opinion.
Customers are being pushed toward buying Windows Vista, even
though it is clearly not a finished product, and maybe even not a desirable product.
If a company needs to buy 1,000 new computers, it is placed in
a terrible position. Will it buy Windows XP, a product that Bill Gates,
software's Dr. Death, has declared is Mainstream Support Retired on 4/14/2009? If it does, it
will be forced to pay extra when Microsoft desides to stop supporting Windows
XP. And every Microsoft customer needs official support because of the huge, huge number of
vulnerabilities that are found in Microsoft products.
Operating systems don't naturally have so many vulnerabilities.
Users of Mac computers don't even bother to run anti-spyware and
anti-virus software because they don't have problems. Large numbers of vulnerabilities are a
built-in shortcoming of Microsoft products; apparently Microsoft doesn't let
its programmers finish their work. Huge numbers of
vulnerabilities force an unnatural connection with the supplier; the user is
dependent on the supplier for patches; that creates opportunities for control. Vulnerabilities make more money for Microsoft because people are forced to "upgrade".
When Windows XP was first released, it was very, very buggy. Windows XP became relatively usable without
hassles 3 years after its introduction, with the release of SP2. Service
Pack 2 for XP fixed more than 330 problems, if I remember correctly, and some
of those were not documented.
We have seen numerous reasons to believe that Windows Vista will also be full of hassles at least until
Vista SP2.
Microsoft's customers were forced to upgrade to Windows XP because Windows 98 had an
unstable file system, an unstable registry, and lots of problems with "DLL Hell" and the
"Blue Screen of Death". Customers had to endure 3 bad years with Windows XP pre-SP2. Since the release of SP2, there have been only 3 relatively good years with Windows XP, and now Microsoft is arranging pressure to have bad years
again.
That's ugly in my opinion, and I'm only one of many who think that
way. This is all being done by billionaires who want nothing more than more
money; that's sick.
Remember, Microsoft managers are sinking the company over the long
term to get short-term profit.
With operating systems, there is lock-in. Linux is not an easy option
because re-writing software and re-training is too
expensive in most cases. But once a reasonable alternative is available, Microsoft will have
difficulty finding customers, it seems to me.
It's fine if Microsoft introduces a new product. But there should not
be pressure to buy the new product until it is stable. The "new" OS product
should not be designed to require users to buy new hardware, as it seems is
true with Windows Vista. Remember that Microsoft serves the system builders,
who want everyone to need more hardware; the final customer can be dis-regarded and dis-repected
because of OS lock-in.
One of the biggest and most respected IT magazines is rejecting
Windows Vista: Save Windows XP. Quote: "More than 75,000 people have
signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched
- many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a
change."
Slashdot Mirror
Quote from the article:
... in typical style, has completely misunderstood the post."
"Edit: Slashdot seems to have picked up on this, and in typical style, has completely misunderstood the post. To be clear, I do not think that Apple is in any way trying to purposely "cripple" non-Apple software. I also do not think that undocumented APIs give Safari any kind of "significant performance advantage" (as Firefox 3 should show!). However, as I said, the undocumented functionality could be useful for Firefox and other apps to implement things in an simpler (and potentially more efficient) manner. I don't think this is malicious, it's just an unfortunate cutting of corners that is way too easy for a company that's not fully open to do."
Slashdot has a reputation: "Slashdot
It amazes me that, after all these years, Slashdot editors still apparently do not do any research before they post the stories. That has reduced the value of Slashdot as an advertising medium enormously.
The cause of the violence is people who have control over the U.S. government wanting to make a profit. I don't have time now to give a lot of links, but there are some below.
What started the violence between the U.S. government and Arabs was the U.S. government, not the Arabs. Having the U.S. taxpayer pay for violence to make a profit works only because most voters don't know the history of U.S. government action.
See, for example, Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA. Most or all of that corruption happened for profit, such as kickbacks of U.S. government foreign aid. When the governments of Israel or Pakistan buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers using money from "foreign aid", that is embezzlement of taxpayer money.
For one example of profiting from violence, read How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power or Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed: Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor.
Apparently Slashdot editors agree with at least some of this, because now and for the last 2 months or more, this has been on the main Slashdot page, on the right, under Book Reviews: "The Creature from Jekyll Island is a compelling look at the history of the Federal Reserve system and asks if it's a system that has run it's course. (Michael J. Ross's review)"
"The Creature from Jekyll Island" discusses how the U.S. monetary system is manipulated by rich and powerful people for their own profit. It says that wars are started for profit.
The Cooperative Research History Commons is very valuable for those wanting to do their own research.
The poorly edited but very interesting free movie Zeitgeist explains in three parts that 1) People who believe in myths are easily manipulated. 2) It is common that people are manipulated through fear. 3) The U.S. monetary system is controlled for the profit of a few individuals. (Note that the movie used respected sources for the first part which were later shown to be somewhat in error. The underlying issues are correct, however.)
When you talk about U.S. government action, don't say "we". Whoever does the secret decision making would kill you and your family if they thought you would cause trouble for them.
When people try to calculate the total number the U.S. government killed, they arrive at figures like perhaps 3 million killed directly since the end of the 2nd world war, and perhaps 8 to 11 million total if the people killed by the destabilization the U.S. government caused are also included, not including the people killed in Iraq. Partly the killing happened as a result of the U.S. government invading or bombing 25 countries.
It's not government by the military, it is government by oil and weapons investors. The military just kills those who would not allow oil and weapons profits.
The only way to peace is to make relationships. Violence only breeds more violence.
"nVidia is NOT required to provide a driver for your laptop at all."
That's an interesting position taken by many suppliers. However, it isn't a sensible or workable position. When an nVidia driver fails to provide necessary performance, nVidia's reputation is damaged.
The laptop I mentioned came with a driver that was capable of many resolutions, but left out the most important for a large monitor, even though there were bigger resolutions supported. That's a nasty way to treat the customer. nVidia cannot avoid being considered at least partly responsible, even if they didn't have a good enough contract with buyers.
Sounds impressive. I understand they have fixed many memory handling bugs, too. But for me the big problem with Firefox is not slowness with JavaScript.
For me the big problem is the CPU hogging bug. The CPU hogging is much less of a problem with the most recent released version of Firefox, 2.0.0.12, but right now, on the computer I am using to type this, with 17 windows and 88 tabs open, Process Explorer shows Firefox to be spiking up to 75% of the CPU, with no activity.
Those of us who spend a lot of the day doing research, and can't resolve one issue before we must consider another, often have a LOT of tabs open.
I think the CPU hogging bug is very interesting, but I'm not in a position to try to fix it myself. What is interesting is that it seems to be a bug in Firefox that interacts with a bug or shortcoming in Windows XP SP2. So, someone taking the time to fix it may become semi-famous for understanding a severe OS limitation or bug.
What is interesting is that the CPU hogging bug is shared between Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey. Often opening a lot of tabs in Firefox, and keeping them open for days, causes Thunderbird or Seamonkey to begin to hog the CPU, even though those programs are not being used heavily.
The history of memory and resource management in Firefox is that it has been VERY buggy. The Firefox development pages have claimed that they have fixed "hundreds" of bugs. Firefox is no longer unstable, in my experience, but instabilities in the past caused the rapid acceptance of Firefox to slow. People who tried Firefox sometimes went back to Internet Explorer when Firefox crashed, or there were other problems. So, poor Firefox memory and resource management have been a big factor in Firefox popularity, according to numerous news reports at the time.
Roland Piquepaille, who submitted this story, is PAID to do public relations. In my opinion, he has been responsible for other dubious stories, such as these (The links are to my comments.):
Imaging Breakthrough "Sees" Lung Disease
A Single-Photon Server
Would You Wear Video Glasses?
Here is Mr. Piquepaille's web site.
Thanks for that contribution.
MOD PARENT UP!!! "I for one can PROMISE you that Slashdot is WIDELY read by traders and analysts working in this sector."
Slashdot is BIG media now. As I write this the top two entries in Google News for AMD are both this Slashdot story: Google News: AMD.
That means that anyone in the world who wants to know about AMD right now will see Slashdot's speculation.
"oh, and my disclaimer: following my advice will hurt my long position in AMD."
Funny.
"... poor performance by the company without much of an end in sight."
It seems to me that there is an end. AMD has done what it has always done, invest for the future. Maybe a year from now everyone will be using AMD CPU-GPU chips in their low-cost laptops.
To me what is happening seems like classic market manipulation. Drive AMD stock down a little more, buy a lot, and make a huge profit as soon as the new products are released.
AMD has open-sourced its performance library.
This is not the first time people have suggested AMD can't survive.
When I wrote the parent comment, I forgot to include my own statement: I don't own any AMD or Intel stock, and there is no way I can profit AMD or Intel stock prices rising or falling.
People are selling AMD stock short, betting it will go down. To make money, they need the price of AMD stock to drop.
Often a company's stock price reflects market manipulation rather than any sensible estimate of the true value of the company. This Slashdot story is very likely to drive the price down, as short sellers want. Check the price after the market opens.
When AMD integrates ATI video with AMD CPUs, the resulting combination is likely to be very competitive. AMDs technical prospects seem good to me, although I have not done a thorough analysis. Remember that we are no longer in a CPU speed race; CPUs are fast enough now for the average user.
Intel stock is down, too.
See also this January 16, 2008 Bloomberg story: U.S. Stocks Fall on Intel Forecast, Extending Global Tumble.
Quote: "Intel, the world's largest computer-chip maker, tumbled the most in five years in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after saying first-quarter sales will be as much as 6.9 percent below analysts' estimates."
Anyone thinking that Intel can always be ahead of AMD should read the history of the Pentium 4 on Wikipedia. Two quotes:
"Finally, the thermal problems were so severe, Intel decided to abandon the Prescott architecture altogether, and attempts to roll out a 4 GHz part were abandoned, as a waste of internal resources."
"The original successor to the Pentium 4 was Tejas, which was scheduled for an early-mid-2005 release. However, it was cancelled a few months after the release of Prescott due to extremely high power consumption (a 2.8 GHz Tejas consumed 150 W of power..."
FRAUD ALERT? First, for me this story crossed a line. It looks like stock manipulation. Was KDawson paid to post this story? Who at Slashdot or its parent company has recently sold AMD stock short, betting that the price will fall? Are any Intel employees involved?
... through dumbness rather than
malice."
I would like to see a statement added at the end of this Slashdot story that KDawson took no money for this story, and that no one at Slashdot or its parent company took money or will benefit from a drop in price of AMD stock. I'm not accusing anyone of anything; I am just concerned that this story is worded in a way that seems sleazy and possibly fraudulent to me.
Second, in response to the parent comment. ATI is the premier video CPU provider now. nVidia is so lame that there is an entire web site devoted to fixing nVidia driver issues: LaptopVideo2Go. I spent hours trying to get one of my laptops, which has an nVidia chip, to work correctly with an external monitor. It works well now, but I could never have done the work without the help of LaptopVideo2Go.
Third, Intel is suffering from very bad management. For example, see the comment I posted to an earlier Slashdot story, responding to someone saying, "Intel's behavior regarding the OLPC is reprehensible."
Fourth, AMD seems to be the more technologically dedicated company. Intel has a history of dumb mistakes. For example, see this December 2000 article about the Pentium 4, which calls Intel "Chipzilla": Pentium 4 Linux problem all Chipzilla's fault, apparently. Quote: "Intel... failed
I seem to remember that the entire Pentium 4 architecture was abandoned in favor of the Pentium 4 Mobile architecture, which is what Intel is shipping now.
Both AMD and Intel make VERY sophisticated processors. It's amazing that a product that is so tiny it is affected by quantum physics is cheap enough for everyone to own. When one is temporarily ahead, it is simply silly to say that the other is dying.
Stock prices are often affected by hysteria. This is especially true of prices of technical stocks, which are often owned by people who don't really understand the technology of the company they partly own.
"Sure no money is changing hands but there is consideration given."
And Microsoft fully expects that consideration to be eventually worth many millions of dollars in vendor lock-in, as soon as proprietary extensions can be added in later versions. (I'm sorry, Library of Congress, your web site requires you to run Windows, because Linux is not licensed to use the new versions of Silverlight.)
That's what Microsoft has always done before, in my opinion. There is every reason to believe it will happen again.
"Well, we are running a deficit. I guess the government needed the $3 million dollars."
That's the kind of low energy, uncaring way of thinking that makes a mess of things. Readers of Slashdot, if they decide to work together, can be very powerful.
Let's end the dominance of the depressed people among us, who constantly imply that nothing is worth much effort. (Notice that one of the tags given by K. Dawson to this story is "googleisevil". That doesn't even make any sense in the context.)
Let's do something more than just complain about Microsoft's abusive behavior. Slashdot, or some other site we start, could grow up and be adult and take responsibility for something other than just our own lives.
Anger problem?
The issue is the heavy-handedness with which Microsoft deals with the problems. They say a new version of ZoneAlarm is available now, but I don't see it.
You said, "Better yet, the Knowledge Base article gives a link to a WORKING, UPDATED VERSION OF ZONE ALARM."
The link given in the KnowledgeBase article for ZoneAlarm is to a page that asks for $25 to deliver a Vista compatible update when it is available.
There are many sensible, more gentle ways Microsoft could have handled this rather than just giving a blue screen.
I haven't fully investigated the problems, but it certainly seems that Microsoft is being uncaring toward customers, and I have seen numerous examples of that.
That is moderated insightful?
This Slashdot story is part of the complaining about Microsoft's abusiveness, and so is the class-action lawsuit. At present, Windows 2000 will be completely killed on 7/13/2010. However, that is only because people complained intensely. The original death date for Windows 2000 Professional was 2007. That's why it is so important to complain.
See a quote from this comment on an earlier Slashdot story: "Microsoft's customers were forced to upgrade to Windows XP because Windows 98 had an unstable file system, an unstable registry, and lots of problems with "DLL Hell" and the "Blue Screen of Death"." There were things that could have been done to make the FAT file system more stable, and Microsoft didn't do that.
Windows 2000 Professional represents a plateau of usefulness. However, most corporations moved from Windows 95 or Windows 98 to Windows XP.
Later in the thread mentioned above, there is another comment with a quote from a December 2003 Seclists article about corporate Windows users: "Inventory data of more than 372,000 PCs - from some 670 companies with between 10 and 49,000 employees - found that more than 80 percent of these companies were still using Windows 98 and/or Windows 95."
The Slashdot moderation system allows moderation only from those who have no interest in participating in the conversation about a story. That brings a lot of moderators to stories in which they have no interest. They simply look for a place to unload their moderation points. Moderators are likely to be ignorant about the issues being discussed.
The New York Times is also calling the combined company of Microsoft and Yahoo "Micro-Hoo": Microsoft President on Micro-Hoo: We Can Do It.
"If they were running 98, they deserved what they got."
That is what abusive parents say: "Yes I abused you, but you deserved it."
Twenty days before the beginning of 2004, Information Security News carried a story about a study of Windows users. On January 16, 2004, Microsoft killed Windows 98. Quote from the story: "Inventory data of more than 372,000 PCs - from some 670 companies with between 10 and 49,000 employees - found that more than 80 percent of these companies were still using Windows 98 and/or Windows 95."
It is important for readers of Slashdot comments to do their own research. Many of the comments, such as the parent comment, are wildly inaccurate.
Quote from the parent comment: "XP's successor (Vista) was released about 13 months ago."
Vista may have been "released" 13 months ago, but that is missing the point. Microsoft "releases" software LONG before it is finished, in my opinion.
Windows XP was very troublesome for 3 years after it was released. All the evidence we have is that Windows Vista will be troublesome for that long also. One of the MAJOR issues here is that customers are being pressured away from Windows XP to Windows Vista before Vista is stable. For many, being pressured is not equivalent to being forced, but for many it is, especially at the end of June, when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP, except to preferred customers.
In my opinion, it is not correct to compare an upgrade of Linux with upgrades of Windows. Microsoft sells upgrades of Windows as entirely new products. To do that, it introduces incompatibilities with old software and hardware. Of course the biggest incompatibility is with hardware. Each upgrade of Windows tries to force the customer to buy completely new hardware. That way, Microsoft's true customers, the big system builders, get what they want, more sales.
In contrast, the latest version of any kind of Linux will run fine with minimal hardware.
Yes, Apple tries to use lock-in to make more money; Apple is also adversarial, but far less adversarial than Microsoft.
You said, and I quote: "The vast majority of XP's vulnerabilities take advantage of users always running in Administrator mode, which Microsoft was forced to allow because incompetent developers of popular applications (e.g. Intuit)..."
First, Microsoft did not supply the necessary support to get software vendors to design their software properly.
Second, running as a limited user has shortcomings due to the poor design of Windows. Fast user switching has serious limitations, for example.
Third, yes, versions of software can be expected to have vulnerabilities. However, one effect of Microsoft releasing software before it is finished is that there are a wide variety of vulnerabilities that would not be present in finished software.
Fourth, Microsoft is slow to fix vulnerabilities; note that 15% are still not patched. It is easy to guess that Microsoft is slow because vulnerabilities make money; people buy new computers rather than try to fix corrupted computers.
I agree that Intuit has shown incompetence, but Intuit is also extremely adversarial towards its customers, in my opinion, perhaps following Microsoft's lead.
Anyone who would like to read more about some of Microsoft's adversarial behavior can read Ed Foster's Gripelog: Microsoft.
Ed Foster has detailed Intuit's adversarial behavior, also.
"Even if ReactOS is capable of running 100% of windows software, it would be nearly impossible for them to reach the level of market saturation that Microsoft enjoys."
I wonder about that. I think most companies have strict controls over what software can be installed, because employees have very narrow needs at work. So, if ReactOS is able to run those programs, why not switch rather than be forced to have the painful experience of buying and running Windows Vista?
It seems that ReactOS will not be ready soon, but when it is ready, it seems that a lot of companies would switch.
In a comment to another story titled Psychology of past trauma, SgtChaireBourne explains that the picture I painted of Windows XP in my parent comment is actually quite rosy; Windows XP was worse that I said.
Microsoft is being extraordinarily abusive towards its customers, in my opinion.
Customers are being pushed toward buying Windows Vista, even though it is clearly not a finished product, and maybe even not a desirable product.
If a company needs to buy 1,000 new computers, it is placed in a terrible position. Will it buy Windows XP, a product that Bill Gates, software's Dr. Death, has declared is Mainstream Support Retired on 4/14/2009? If it does, it will be forced to pay extra when Microsoft desides to stop supporting Windows XP. And every Microsoft customer needs official support because of the huge, huge number of vulnerabilities that are found in Microsoft products.
Operating systems don't naturally have so many vulnerabilities. Users of Mac computers don't even bother to run anti-spyware and anti-virus software because they don't have problems. Large numbers of vulnerabilities are a built-in shortcoming of Microsoft products; apparently Microsoft doesn't let its programmers finish their work. Huge numbers of vulnerabilities force an unnatural connection with the supplier; the user is dependent on the supplier for patches; that creates opportunities for control. Vulnerabilities make more money for Microsoft because people are forced to "upgrade".
When Windows XP was first released, it was very, very buggy. Windows XP became relatively usable without hassles 3 years after its introduction, with the release of SP2. Service Pack 2 for XP fixed more than 330 problems, if I remember correctly, and some of those were not documented.
We have seen numerous reasons to believe that Windows Vista will also be full of hassles at least until Vista SP2.
Microsoft's customers were forced to upgrade to Windows XP because Windows 98 had an unstable file system, an unstable registry, and lots of problems with "DLL Hell" and the "Blue Screen of Death". Customers had to endure 3 bad years with Windows XP pre-SP2. Since the release of SP2, there have been only 3 relatively good years with Windows XP, and now Microsoft is arranging pressure to have bad years again.
That's ugly in my opinion, and I'm only one of many who think that way. This is all being done by billionaires who want nothing more than more money; that's sick.
Remember, Microsoft managers are sinking the company over the long term to get short-term profit.
With operating systems, there is lock-in. Linux is not an easy option because re-writing software and re-training is too expensive in most cases. But once a reasonable alternative is available, Microsoft will have difficulty finding customers, it seems to me.
It's fine if Microsoft introduces a new product. But there should not be pressure to buy the new product until it is stable. The "new" OS product should not be designed to require users to buy new hardware, as it seems is true with Windows Vista. Remember that Microsoft serves the system builders, who want everyone to need more hardware; the final customer can be dis-regarded and dis-repected because of OS lock-in.
One of the biggest and most respected IT magazines is rejecting Windows Vista: Save Windows XP. Quote: "More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched - many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change."