Volume Shadow Service - mainly admins and power users MFT defrag - more of a bug fix really 64 bit vmm and mmaps - limited use, most who want such things would use a 64 bit OS application prefretch - minor first-time launch improvements better page - minor performance improvements faster SMP locks - minor performance improvements on SMP - limited appeal Terminal Server/remote desktop - admins and power users read-only NTFS - nice, but minor and hardly anyone would have noticed the absence
etc.
In other words, for the average user: some minor performance tweaks and bug fixes. Some handy utilities for admins and power users. You didn't mention ClearType, which can be useful... or the faster boot.
Anyway, the point is, there are things that are real improvements, but they are all quite minor. The only one I notice is the faster boot - it really is a lot better especially on a laptop.
Don't get distracted. The world is made up of more than just the US and the EU. Further, just because Europe does something stupid doesn't make it OK for the US, "home of the free".
Intel is desperately trying to avoid the somewhat-inevitable move to CPUs becoming a commodity. That means less profits, lots of competition, and no glory.
What a peculiar mish-mash of ideas. Where did you get them from? RF circuits don't work like CPUs. Just think about what you're saying: the CPU in your phone works at 2GHz? Yet the fastest CPUs in a PDA are about 500Mhz.
I'm getting pretty sick of the loud pretentious dolby ads at the front of movies. That's all they are, and they are mostly repeated, so it gets dull after a couple of times. Imagine if every technology involved in movies got a 30 second ad at the start of the movie.
Hm, are they seriously going to use a "squiggly window thing" to replace the Start button? They have really lost the plot if so. Imagine the helpdesk trying to explain which button to click. Looks like the Aero button still has the text "start" on it though.
At least Dell let you immediately buy online from them, with options (even if not as many options as you might like).
I don't know about the US but in New Zealand neither IBM nor HP let you buy direct. How quaint and old fashioned. I seriously investigated IBM for a reliable laptop, but finding a clueful retailer was not worth the bother.
I was addressing one specific point you made, which was that "it's not my fault because I just work here".
No, I don't believe every product of Microsoft is done by evil means or has an evil effect. I think some Microsoft products are very good, or have been in the past.
You say you've spoken out against "evil orders" - well done! That's just the right thing to do, and so you don't need the "just following orders" defense.
But if you sometimes follow evil orders still - well, that's still doing evil. (For some values of evil. I agree with other people that calling some of the nasty things Microsoft have done "evil" seems excessive; on the other hand some of the worst things like killing Netscape seem to deserve the term).
I heard for years that 24-bit color was "better than the human eye could discern" yet 32-bit color video cards are commonplace nowadays.
So-called "32-bit" colour still only uses 24 bits for encoding color. The other 8 bits might be used for a transparency channel, or nothing at all (i.e the byte is wasted for covenience of alignment on 4-byte boundary).
If I work for an "evil company", does that make me evil? I had nothing to do with a lot of the evil decisions that have been made in the past (and arguably the present too)
Just following orders, eh? I think some people tried that defense in the past.
One could probably do it by giving the phone an image of a barcode to display, with the barcode containing a ticket key. Then the customer just shows their phone to the attendant who swipes it on a barcode scanner. (Not sure how they go on scanning LCD displays though!)
Re:None do what is required to displace Exchange.
on
What is the Best Calendar?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Uhm, except of course for Lotus Notes, Exchange's number 1 competitor in the enterprise.
Admittedly, there is plenty to dislike about it, but Notes has been doing integrated, multi-user calendar+mail for years.
This is cool because it reminds us what can happen when a *real* innovation is created, instead of version X+1 of existing software program with new feature Y.
People go crazy, you make more money than you can dream of, the world changes.
Yes, clearly everyone drinks because they enjoy feeling like "shit".
er, no.
Many people do enjoy drinking, getting drunk, getting wasted, and the lessened inhibitions, and the funny crazy things people do, and the stories you tell afterwards. And they also enjoy drinking fine drinks that have interesting stories or marketing or history.
It's more than a slight difference. If gamer A has 1920x1440 resolution with anti-aliasing and gamer B has 800x600 with no AA, A will have a massive advantage. This is one reason why some gamers are able to shoot accurately from ridiculous distances.
no software company with any sense will shut down a business unit that remains consistently profitable Not true. If they can make MORE profit by doing something else, they will shut it down in a flash. This happens all the time in software and other things. Just because your 50 developers can make a small profit on Product A, doesn't mean you'll keep them going on that - make Product B and it can make a huge profit with the same 50 developers.
I tried out "Boeing Connexion" which was I think US$10 for 1 hour. Extravagant by land-based standards, but I was actually able to chat with a customer and help them out with a problem, not to mention check and send emails. Besides the sheer coolness factor of browsing the net from a plane:)
Because if you standardise it, you freeze it at the level of your current knowledge, and/or spend years working out what the standard should be so that by the end everyone hates it.
Example: VESA display standards. Some basic level of 2D graphics support, that most cards have; used by initial bootup and suchlike. It's standard, but it's very slow, it can't do 3D on any acceleration. And ironically, some cards still mess up parts of the standard.
Ditto here on tap-to-click. Probably, if you have the dexterity (young fingers:) to control the tap accurately, it's faster. However if not, then trying to do that as well as move is actually slower.
Slashdot Mirror
Volume Shadow Service - mainly admins and power users
MFT defrag - more of a bug fix really
64 bit vmm and mmaps - limited use, most who want such things would use a 64 bit OS
application prefretch - minor first-time launch improvements
better page - minor performance improvements
faster SMP locks - minor performance improvements on SMP - limited appeal
Terminal Server/remote desktop - admins and power users
read-only NTFS - nice, but minor and hardly anyone would have noticed the absence
etc.
In other words, for the average user: some minor performance tweaks and bug fixes.
Some handy utilities for admins and power users.
You didn't mention ClearType, which can be useful... or the faster boot.
Anyway, the point is, there are things that are real improvements, but they are all quite minor. The only one I notice is the faster boot - it really is a lot better especially on a laptop.
Don't get distracted. The world is made up of more than just the US and the EU. Further, just because Europe does something stupid doesn't make it OK for the US, "home of the free".
Intel is desperately trying to avoid the somewhat-inevitable move to CPUs becoming a commodity. That means less profits, lots of competition, and no glory.
What a peculiar mish-mash of ideas. Where did you get them from? RF circuits don't work like CPUs. Just think about what you're saying: the CPU in your phone works at 2GHz? Yet the fastest CPUs in a PDA are about 500Mhz.
Seems to me that a 9V alkaline battery is going to have quite a bit less power than your typical cellphone Lithium-Ion battery....
I'm getting pretty sick of the loud pretentious dolby ads at the front of movies. That's all they are, and they are mostly repeated, so it gets dull after a couple of times.
Imagine if every technology involved in movies got a 30 second ad at the start of the movie.
Hm, are they seriously going to use a "squiggly window thing" to replace the Start button? They have really lost the plot if so. Imagine the helpdesk trying to explain which button to click.
Looks like the Aero button still has the text "start" on it though.
Yes, some of the flash GUIs I've seen are almost as good as Windows 3.1, though quite a lot slower, of course.
Most new PCs arrive with the latest service pack preinstalled, and ship with an install CD that likewise has the latest service pack built in.
Your point about version numbers has some merit, but I don't see that "XP SP2" is a terribly complex concept.
At least Dell let you immediately buy online from them, with options (even if not as many options as you might like).
I don't know about the US but in New Zealand neither IBM nor HP let you buy direct. How quaint and old fashioned. I seriously investigated IBM for a reliable laptop, but finding a clueful retailer was not worth the bother.
I was addressing one specific point you made, which was that "it's not my fault because I just work here".
No, I don't believe every product of Microsoft is done by evil means or has an evil effect. I think some Microsoft products are very good, or have been in the past.
You say you've spoken out against "evil orders" - well done! That's just the right thing to do, and so you don't need the "just following orders" defense.
But if you sometimes follow evil orders still - well, that's still doing evil. (For some values of evil. I agree with other people that calling some of the nasty things Microsoft have done "evil" seems excessive; on the other hand some of the worst things like killing Netscape seem to deserve the term).
Apple, perhaps?
They've been making decent money producing "better than average" computers for years. Now they make some that run Windows as well.
Decent hardware, tested to work together... sure, less flexibility, but that's not what we're talking about here.
I heard for years that 24-bit color was "better than the human eye could discern" yet 32-bit color video cards are commonplace nowadays.
So-called "32-bit" colour still only uses 24 bits for encoding color. The other 8 bits might be used for a transparency channel, or nothing at all (i.e the byte is wasted for covenience of alignment on 4-byte boundary).
If I work for an "evil company", does that make me evil? I had nothing to do with a lot of the evil decisions that have been made in the past (and arguably the present too)
Just following orders, eh? I think some people tried that defense in the past.
Doesn't fly. 4 M people in New Zealand and it's well supported - I can use a bank account direct (not that I would risk that).
One could probably do it by giving the phone an image of a barcode to display, with the barcode containing a ticket key. Then the customer just shows their phone to the attendant who swipes it on a barcode scanner. (Not sure how they go on scanning LCD displays though!)
Uhm, except of course for Lotus Notes, Exchange's number 1 competitor in the enterprise.
Admittedly, there is plenty to dislike about it, but Notes has been doing integrated, multi-user calendar+mail for years.
Did you mean: Voila?
Viola: a musical instrument
This is cool because it reminds us what can happen when a *real* innovation is created, instead of version X+1 of existing software program with new feature Y.
People go crazy, you make more money than you can dream of, the world changes.
That's what geeks should dream to do...
Yes, clearly everyone drinks because they enjoy feeling like "shit".
er, no.
Many people do enjoy drinking, getting drunk, getting wasted, and the lessened inhibitions, and the funny crazy things people do, and the stories you tell afterwards. And they also enjoy drinking fine drinks that have interesting stories or marketing or history.
It's more than a slight difference. If gamer A has 1920x1440 resolution with anti-aliasing and gamer B has 800x600 with no AA, A will have a massive advantage. This is one reason why some gamers are able to shoot accurately from ridiculous distances.
no software company with any sense will shut down a business unit that remains consistently profitable
Not true. If they can make MORE profit by doing something else, they will shut it down in a flash. This happens all the time in software and other things. Just because your 50 developers can make a small profit on Product A, doesn't mean you'll keep them going on that - make Product B and it can make a huge profit with the same 50 developers.
I tried out "Boeing Connexion" which was I think US$10 for 1 hour. Extravagant by land-based standards, but I was actually able to chat with a customer and help them out with a problem, not to mention check and send emails. Besides the sheer coolness factor of browsing the net from a plane :)
Because if you standardise it, you freeze it at the level of your current knowledge, and/or spend years working out what the standard should be so that by the end everyone hates it.
Example: VESA display standards. Some basic level of 2D graphics support, that most cards have; used by initial bootup and suchlike. It's standard, but it's very slow, it can't do 3D on any acceleration. And ironically, some cards still mess up parts of the standard.
Ditto here on tap-to-click. :) to control the tap accurately, it's faster. However if not, then trying to do that as well as move is actually slower.
Probably, if you have the dexterity (young fingers