can put unvalidated copies of the software into a reduced-functionality mode Why is this news? This has been done for a while; it's called crippleware. Microsoft just seems to have implemented their own version of it, which will probably suffer the same fate as all other protection mechanisms.
Except that not everyone, in fact very few, will eventually be given a reward while hundreds of thousands of individuals spend possibly hundreds of hours each searching for flaws.
What it's really doing is getting those hundreds of thousands of individuals to do someone else's (Microsoft's) job for them for damn near free.
If it takes hundreds of thousands of individuals at hundreds of hours each to find a bug in a product, I would say that Microsoft already did a damn fine job.
I'll second the great service with Consumer Reports. Last month, I bought a gift subscription for a family member. A couple weeks later, when I actually informed them of the gift, it turned out they already had a subscription. So I called Consumer Reports up, got through to a human in under a minute(!) and asked if I could get a refund on the gift subscription. After a few basic details (name, address, etc), she simply said "You will be credited within a week. Anything else?" I was in shock and even verified that the process was truly completed. First class service all the way.
Most of the items you listed are also included in Vista as improvements over XP:
Expose - While not quite as advanced as the Mac product, Vista does add thumbnails when you hover over any task and provides a view of all open windows by hitting Windows+Tab
Time Machine - Volume Shadow Copy (taken from Windows Server 2003 actually)
Spaces - I have to give this one to Mac...still no multiple desktops in Vista.
Now I know there will be cries abound about how the Mac software implements X feature in a much superior way (or the obvious "MS stole that!!":), however you have to keep in mind that a lot of people just don't care. Can Vista show my stocks on the desktop? Yes? Good enough, I'm hooked. I wish as much as anybody that people would actually give careful consideration to their software, but the reality is that they don't and are attracted by the best marketed shiny bits. And the Microsoft marketing engine is no small contender.
Speaking of the youth in this game, did anyone else notice that the prince (don't remember his name, but here's a pic ) looks like he's 12 but has the voice of a 30 year old man? Come on Square...
...though I still love this game so far, 39 hours into it...
It seems to me many business users here in North America wanted it to be delayed as well, but were forced to scramble and deploy IE 7 blocking software
So let me get this straight...the IT staff at said companies:
Failed to test IE7 during beta, knowing that it was on the way (to avoid the "scramble")
Had their machines configured to blindly download and install all "high priority" updates
Mod parent up. If anyone is angry about this bill, you should be going after the vast majority of the house that passed it. Here is a link to the major congressional actions (i.e. votes) on the issue. For those too lazy to click the link:
05/11/06 - Passed the house 396-31
09/29/06 - Conference report filed and voted on; passed 398-23
I think the limitation on Virtual Machines is in direct response to the Blue Pill malware presentation [PDF] at SyScan this year. One of the core ideas for bypassing Vista's security was to throw the OS into a Virtual Machine. Maybe this move is step towards having legal grounds against malware authors who attempt that route and get caught? Of course, IANAL, but it's still an interesting thought.
ADS is used in Windows as part of everyday usage. The "Summary" tab that you see when you view any file's properties is stored in ADS. Also, I believe (vague memory here) that when you download something in Internet explorer and try to run the file, the flag for that annoying "You got this from the Internet, are you sure you want to run it?" is stored in ADS.
1. It presumes the problem is faulty driver coding. Does it take into account other applications open at the time? What about tricky conflicts? I've been around enough to see MANY applications that kill drivers, like Word causing video driver crashes. Who's fault?
Yes, it does account for other applications open at the time. If you look at the data that will be sent to Microsoft, you will see (among other things) a process list. That aside, drivers shouldn't crash, regardless of any requests that applications may make of them. If an application is causing a driver to crash, the driver probably missed a bounds check, screwed up its state machine, or who knows. Something that should be caught and handled, in any case.
2. Will Microsoft pore over all this data? Drivers crash for... what?... dozens of reasons? Hundreds? Is MS going to pore over _all_ this data, identify actual driver problems? OR just send blanket data to OEM and say, "OK, you've lost your certification. Sorry it didn't work out. You'll have to find out why your driver crashes, here are the 7,500 reports. Have a nice day."
3. Will the data contain enough information for the OEM, who really gets a bunch of MS-formatted data, get enough real information to solve the problem?
These two questions contradict each other. In #2, you say that there will be too much information. In #3, you are worried that there won't be enough. Which is it? Either way, you should take a look at the contents of an error report sometime; they are quite detailed, just not in plain english. From those 7,500 crash reports, there are definitely going to be some common function pointers that the driver developers can use to look up the offending functions, their arguments, and the state of the other registers on the machine. While the information looks cryptic to the average user, it is very useful to those who can map that hexidecimal data to source code.
4. According to TFA, this only works on the "Premium" edition of Vista. In that version, drivers have to be certified. If "Premium" proves to not be a best-seller, how many OEMs will bother with certification? I still have to click through "non-certified" dialogues in XP today.
Certification does more than just avoid the silly "non-certified" dialog box. Certification isn't cheap; companies who spend the money to go through the certification process have at least shown some commitment to driver quality by getting a third-party to verify best practices. I believe that getting your driver certified also allows you to use the "Certified for Windows" logo on your product, which (probably) has some sway with customers.
What's Vista's selling point? Seriously, after all these years of development, does it have 1 single exclusive killer feature?
So far, the only thing I've seen are improved themes and hi res icons
Come on now, how much research did you actually put into that statement? Microsoft fan or not, it takes all of 5 seconds on Google to find the following Wikipedia article:
The issue to me is energy usage. Songs, animations, fancy ringtones, and increasingly more involved games are simply a waste of battery for a phone. I want a phone to make calls and have basic features like directory for my contacts and a reasonable text messaging interface. Which is why I still have and like my Nokia 3360. I turn my phone off while I sleep, and only have to charge the battery about once a week. Contrast this to my wife's phone, which, while visually appealing, needs to be in the charging cradle once every night or two, despite similar talktime to mine.
Different people have different usage patterns. For me, I just like knowing that I have enough battery to make a call when I need to, combined with low maintenance. But then I'm the lazy type.
I particularly enjoy the KOTOR games in this regard. I admit the story is fairly linear and all conversations have hardcoded outcomes (though numerous), however those games have some really fun evil shit in them. You could doom the survival of a planet, make families kill each other, and kill almost anyone who gave you lip. I think at the end of KOTOR 1, it was me, HK-47, and one other person (another robot?). Every other potential member of my crew either ran away for good or died by my hand:D
This is off the top of my head, but I would think they could determine that "half pixel" based on the shade of the entire pixel relative to the "main" pixel that actually contains most of the body. If it's 75% darker, assume the object extends 25% into that pixel? Am I close?
I can't see any worthwhile features offered by this service for the $15 per month that you would pay. All of the major usenet providers (Giganews, Easynews, and Newzbin are just a few that I have experience with) offer similar search services. Not only do they include images and video (which, so far, is all this GUMA service would provide), but also every binary posted to Usenet. Why would you pay an extra $15? For the video conversion features? (which is actually kind of neat, but I'm sure most people can simply download and play any videos they find if they want to see them).
The other problem is that the article does not mention who actually provides the content. Will GUMA be hosting their own NNTP servers? What kind of retention will it have, and can it compete with the 55+ days offered by the big providers?
Maybe, just maybe, some potential customers would be those who just heard of this "Usenet" and want a famailiar interface to it all. But sooner or later, they should realize that they can get so much more for little to nothing in extra costs per month.
There is no point in acting as if the world has ended. Games get pirated all the time. In fact, ALL of them get pirated. What made you think yours would be exempt?
I don't think it's so much that it was pirated; rather because it was pirated almost a month ahead of time. The majority of pirated games nowadays are usually at most a week ahead of time, if not the day of.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the company moved to a different building and google's info isn't up to date yet
Most companies don't take the building with them...
Erm...haven't refreshed in a while, Eskarel said the same thing a few hours prior. Direct all moderation at him :)
What it's really doing is getting those hundreds of thousands of individuals to do someone else's (Microsoft's) job for them for damn near free.
If it takes hundreds of thousands of individuals at hundreds of hours each to find a bug in a product, I would say that Microsoft already did a damn fine job.
Anyone else read that as: MS Monthly Patch Omits Word "Zero-Days" ?
They aren't zero day, they're "highly relevant to your enterprise investment"!
I'll second the great service with Consumer Reports. Last month, I bought a gift subscription for a family member. A couple weeks later, when I actually informed them of the gift, it turned out they already had a subscription. So I called Consumer Reports up, got through to a human in under a minute(!) and asked if I could get a refund on the gift subscription. After a few basic details (name, address, etc), she simply said "You will be credited within a week. Anything else?" I was in shock and even verified that the process was truly completed. First class service all the way.
Kasparov vs Putin
1. f3 e5
2. g4
Putin to move
Gah...BitLocker, not BitKeeper...dammit Linus :P
Now I know there will be cries abound about how the Mac software implements X feature in a much superior way (or the obvious "MS stole that!!"
Speaking of the youth in this game, did anyone else notice that the prince (don't remember his name, but here's a pic ) looks like he's 12 but has the voice of a 30 year old man? Come on Square...
...though I still love this game so far, 39 hours into it...
So let me get this straight...the IT staff at said companies:
Windows has no shortage of faults, but don't blame Microsoft when the computers are controlled by an inept system administrator.
Mod parent up. If anyone is angry about this bill, you should be going after the vast majority of the house that passed it. Here is a link to the major congressional actions (i.e. votes) on the issue. For those too lazy to click the link:
05/11/06 - Passed the house 396-31
09/29/06 - Conference report filed and voted on; passed 398-23
That name...I do not think it means what you think it means...
Google search for "Aunt Flo"
I think the limitation on Virtual Machines is in direct response to the Blue Pill malware presentation [PDF] at SyScan this year. One of the core ideas for bypassing Vista's security was to throw the OS into a Virtual Machine. Maybe this move is step towards having legal grounds against malware authors who attempt that route and get caught? Of course, IANAL, but it's still an interesting thought.
ADS is used in Windows as part of everyday usage. The "Summary" tab that you see when you view any file's properties is stored in ADS. Also, I believe (vague memory here) that when you download something in Internet explorer and try to run the file, the flag for that annoying "You got this from the Internet, are you sure you want to run it?" is stored in ADS.
I think you're over-reacting just a bit...
... what? ... dozens of reasons? Hundreds? Is MS going to pore over _all_ this data, identify actual driver problems? OR just send blanket data to OEM and say, "OK, you've lost your certification. Sorry it didn't work out. You'll have to find out why your driver crashes, here are the 7,500 reports. Have a nice day."
1. It presumes the problem is faulty driver coding. Does it take into account other applications open at the time? What about tricky conflicts? I've been around enough to see MANY applications that kill drivers, like Word causing video driver crashes. Who's fault?
Yes, it does account for other applications open at the time. If you look at the data that will be sent to Microsoft, you will see (among other things) a process list. That aside, drivers shouldn't crash, regardless of any requests that applications may make of them. If an application is causing a driver to crash, the driver probably missed a bounds check, screwed up its state machine, or who knows. Something that should be caught and handled, in any case.
2. Will Microsoft pore over all this data? Drivers crash for
3. Will the data contain enough information for the OEM, who really gets a bunch of MS-formatted data, get enough real information to solve the problem?
These two questions contradict each other. In #2, you say that there will be too much information. In #3, you are worried that there won't be enough. Which is it? Either way, you should take a look at the contents of an error report sometime; they are quite detailed, just not in plain english. From those 7,500 crash reports, there are definitely going to be some common function pointers that the driver developers can use to look up the offending functions, their arguments, and the state of the other registers on the machine. While the information looks cryptic to the average user, it is very useful to those who can map that hexidecimal data to source code.
4. According to TFA, this only works on the "Premium" edition of Vista. In that version, drivers have to be certified. If "Premium" proves to not be a best-seller, how many OEMs will bother with certification? I still have to click through "non-certified" dialogues in XP today.
Certification does more than just avoid the silly "non-certified" dialog box. Certification isn't cheap; companies who spend the money to go through the certification process have at least shown some commitment to driver quality by getting a third-party to verify best practices. I believe that getting your driver certified also allows you to use the "Certified for Windows" logo on your product, which (probably) has some sway with customers.
What's Vista's selling point? Seriously, after all these years of development, does it have 1 single exclusive killer feature?
o ws_Vista
So far, the only thing I've seen are improved themes and hi res icons
Come on now, how much research did you actually put into that statement? Microsoft fan or not, it takes all of 5 seconds on Google to find the following Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Wind
The issue to me is energy usage. Songs, animations, fancy ringtones, and increasingly more involved games are simply a waste of battery for a phone. I want a phone to make calls and have basic features like directory for my contacts and a reasonable text messaging interface. Which is why I still have and like my Nokia 3360. I turn my phone off while I sleep, and only have to charge the battery about once a week. Contrast this to my wife's phone, which, while visually appealing, needs to be in the charging cradle once every night or two, despite similar talktime to mine.
Different people have different usage patterns. For me, I just like knowing that I have enough battery to make a call when I need to, combined with low maintenance. But then I'm the lazy type.
I particularly enjoy the KOTOR games in this regard. I admit the story is fairly linear and all conversations have hardcoded outcomes (though numerous), however those games have some really fun evil shit in them. You could doom the survival of a planet, make families kill each other, and kill almost anyone who gave you lip. I think at the end of KOTOR 1, it was me, HK-47, and one other person (another robot?). Every other potential member of my crew either ran away for good or died by my hand :D
This is off the top of my head, but I would think they could determine that "half pixel" based on the shade of the entire pixel relative to the "main" pixel that actually contains most of the body. If it's 75% darker, assume the object extends 25% into that pixel? Am I close?
I can't see any worthwhile features offered by this service for the $15 per month that you would pay. All of the major usenet providers (Giganews, Easynews, and Newzbin are just a few that I have experience with) offer similar search services. Not only do they include images and video (which, so far, is all this GUMA service would provide), but also every binary posted to Usenet. Why would you pay an extra $15? For the video conversion features? (which is actually kind of neat, but I'm sure most people can simply download and play any videos they find if they want to see them).
The other problem is that the article does not mention who actually provides the content. Will GUMA be hosting their own NNTP servers? What kind of retention will it have, and can it compete with the 55+ days offered by the big providers?
Maybe, just maybe, some potential customers would be those who just heard of this "Usenet" and want a famailiar interface to it all. But sooner or later, they should realize that they can get so much more for little to nothing in extra costs per month.
I should ask for a raise :D
[static@localhost ~] perl -e 'print scalar gmtime(1125064549)'
Fri Aug 26 13:55:49 2005
There is no point in acting as if the world has ended. Games get pirated all the time. In fact, ALL of them get pirated. What made you think yours would be exempt?
I don't think it's so much that it was pirated; rather because it was pirated almost a month ahead of time. The majority of pirated games nowadays are usually at most a week ahead of time, if not the day of.
if you treated the guy right, he really wouldn't bother to take you down
:D
I never treated him badly, yet his Sasser worm attacked me anyway. Oh wait, I got it... he's changed for the better
Fear the day that you ever have to let him go.