while I find UAC to be annoying as hell, they probably did the right thing.
I agree in principle, but not in practice. Firstly, UAC presents a minimal barrier to the installation of malware with its "The publisher could not be verified" message.
Once that's clicked through, and the program's run ONCE with system privs, that software can make any changes it wants to your system, even if UAC is fully enabled. A keylogger to intercept passwords, autostart at boot, wipe the user files, anything, and all without a peep from UAC.
UAC's value is in protecting users from themselves, not malware authors, and by making the prompts a type of social engineering tool (the irritation factor) intended to get customers angry with devs, instead of MS directly pressuring software developers themselves or with their dev tools, Microsoft has minimised it's value to computer users.
Ray tracing can do selective motion blur very inexpensively. You test against a bounding sphere a triangl's motion span, then interpolate the ray along an approximation of the triangle's path.
Can you explain how stock options paid to executives (which executives?) are actually eating into a $30 billion dollar cash reserve? Those must be some pretty large stock grants.
It's a pretty big topic to summarise in a Slashdot posting, and you'd be a LOT better off doing your own research, if you're genuinely interested. But...
Basically, stock options are a company's way of convincing employees to take less real wages. Paying in stocks has some advantages, but one in particular is that they don't show up as a business loss. The downside is that the more shares out there, the lower the EPS (Earnings Per Share), and therefore the lower the value of each share. Microsoft has been playing this game for a long time, and had more than 20% of it's shares optioned out this way. About 5 years ago, shareholders started to get antsy about the constant dilution of their holdings, so MS restarted the buybacks.
Microsoft recently announced that, at the urging of analysts, it would resume buying back its stock to provide for the companyâ(TM)s huge pool of employee stock options and to counteract potential dilution of its shares.
Science Direct [pdf warning] It's probably best to think of the buybacks as being MS paying out back pay owed to employees. They've deferred that cost in other words.
I'd like to have me a few of those failures every decade or so.
I don't think Microsoft would agree with you. If you look at W3Counter's stats, MS Operating systems have been losing about half a percent market share per month for the past 6 months.
Now, I've given you the benefit of doubt and responded politely in this post, but frankly I'd be much happier if you stopped stalking me. I'm finding your attention a bit creepy. Thanks.
MS are offering 2x the going share price. what secret pot of gold does yahoo managment think they have that's worth so much?
For a start, it's nowhere near 2x, since the value of MS shares, and hence the offer have dropped since the initial approach.
Microsoft have some interesting times ahead too, and Yahoo shareholders might be considering the risk of turning their Y. shares into MS ones.
Microsoft's stock buybacks, for example, are being used to counteract stock options paid to executive employees. That's drawing down their cash reserve rapidly without generating much growth.
The net number of shares in circulation is roughly the same as in 2005, likewise, MS share price remains around the same $29 mark it averaged in '05 despite $50 billion worth being bought back.
Add to that the failure of their flagship OS on the market and the threats to their Office monopoly, both statutory and in the market, and there's good reason for Yahoo investors to hope for a better suitor.
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
What's even better is that this method is completely OS and browser independent.
My bank has an authentication method which is OS and browser independent too.
When I, or anyone else, attempts a transfer which exceeds my set limit, the bank sends me a text message (SMS) with a one-time PIN. I then have three minutes to input the PIN to approve the transfer.
If the PIN isn't correct, or if it's not typed in within the time limit, I get another SMS telling me of the attempt.
But he wasn't asked that - he was just accused of being paid by Microsoft to make supportive statements ("shilling").
'Shill' can also be used pejoratively to describe a critic who appears either all-too-eager to heap glowing praise upon mediocre offerings, or who acts as an apologist for glaring flaws. In this sense, they would be an implicit 'shill' for the industry at large, as their income is tied to its prosperity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill
Slashdot Mirror
I agree in principle, but not in practice. Firstly, UAC presents a minimal barrier to the installation of malware with its "The publisher could not be verified" message.
Once that's clicked through, and the program's run ONCE with system privs, that software can make any changes it wants to your system, even if UAC is fully enabled. A keylogger to intercept passwords, autostart at boot, wipe the user files, anything, and all without a peep from UAC.
UAC's value is in protecting users from themselves, not malware authors, and by making the prompts a type of social engineering tool (the irritation factor) intended to get customers angry with devs, instead of MS directly pressuring software developers themselves or with their dev tools, Microsoft has minimised it's value to computer users.
There's a good comparison of recent Linux versus Vista/2008 kernels here
As far as bloat goes, Vista's kernel is about twice the size of Linux.
Um, the original claim that provoked this was that Vista would run well on an 8 year old machine.
I think I'd rather believe initdeep got hold of a P4 two years before Intel released it than believe that.
Um, no. I'm 5'6.
Does that matter? This is the internet, after all.
That's TOE. You put your toe to the line so you're level with all the other MS drones.
Radiosity is better.
Sure. That's why Microsoft is fighting a class-action suit against customers who disagree withe your assessment.
Where did you get that idea?
Ray tracing can do selective motion blur very inexpensively. You test against a bounding sphere a triangl's motion span, then interpolate the ray along an approximation of the triangle's path.
That's a very bad analogy you're using...
Astroturf Bingo 4 claimed by A11.
You are about to fall 200 feet to a road below.[Cancel] [Allow]
Gordon wrote it for Slim Dusty, who made it a hit.
"You call that making a reef? This is how you make a reef."
Huh?
What IS a standard Linux install? Puppy has 50MB of lightweight apps. Sabayon has 4.5GB of kitchen sink, both as standard installs.
[Citation Needed]
It's a pretty big topic to summarise in a Slashdot posting, and you'd be a LOT better off doing your own research, if you're genuinely interested. But...
Basically, stock options are a company's way of convincing employees to take less real wages. Paying in stocks has some advantages, but one in particular is that they don't show up as a business loss. The downside is that the more shares out there, the lower the EPS (Earnings Per Share), and therefore the lower the value of each share. Microsoft has been playing this game for a long time, and had more than 20% of it's shares optioned out this way. About 5 years ago, shareholders started to get antsy about the constant dilution of their holdings, so MS restarted the buybacks.
Microsoft recently announced that, at the urging of analysts, it would resume buying back its stock to provide for the companyâ(TM)s huge pool of employee stock options and to counteract potential dilution of its shares. Science Direct [pdf warning] It's probably best to think of the buybacks as being MS paying out back pay owed to employees. They've deferred that cost in other words.There's also a Business Week article http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968099.htm which might be an easier read.
It doesn't look like that'll be the only problem facing MS either. Yahoo subsidiary Alibaba is bailing now the buyout looks likely.
http://www.secinvestor.com/2008/03/19/Alibaba+Wants+Out+Of+Microsoft+Deal+YHOO+MSFT.aspx
I'd like to have me a few of those failures every decade or so.
I don't think Microsoft would agree with you. If you look at W3Counter's stats, MS Operating systems have been losing about half a percent market share per month for the past 6 months.
Now, I've given you the benefit of doubt and responded politely in this post, but frankly I'd be much happier if you stopped stalking me. I'm finding your attention a bit creepy. Thanks.
LOL...
For a start, it's nowhere near 2x, since the value of MS shares, and hence the offer have dropped since the initial approach.
Microsoft have some interesting times ahead too, and Yahoo shareholders might be considering the risk of turning their Y. shares into MS ones.
Microsoft's stock buybacks, for example, are being used to counteract stock options paid to executive employees. That's drawing down their cash reserve rapidly without generating much growth.
The net number of shares in circulation is roughly the same as in 2005, likewise, MS share price remains around the same $29 mark it averaged in '05 despite $50 billion worth being bought back.
Add to that the failure of their flagship OS on the market and the threats to their Office monopoly, both statutory and in the market, and there's good reason for Yahoo investors to hope for a better suitor.
Xen is a hypervisor, not a desktop VM.
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
Last is good though.So Windows is fine if you know exactly what you're doing and don't make any mistakes.
But Linux is supposed to be the complicated OS...
Try http://www.virtualbox.org/, if you want free and open source virtualisation software.
My bank has an authentication method which is OS and browser independent too.
When I, or anyone else, attempts a transfer which exceeds my set limit, the bank sends me a text message (SMS) with a one-time PIN. I then have three minutes to input the PIN to approve the transfer.
If the PIN isn't correct, or if it's not typed in within the time limit, I get another SMS telling me of the attempt.
It's not.
This has been explained in this thread many times over, but I'll try again using very small words.
He deliberately chose programs that the company he is shilling for will never port to the platform he is deriding.
He did that to make Microsoft look good and Linux to look bad, despite the failure to port being Microsoft's failure, not Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill
In the past couple of years, Microsoft's gone through half it's cash reserves buying back stock and issuing dividends to prop up their share price.
That's not sustainable, and many shareholders might feel more comfortable with Yahoo in the long term.