If by impossible to match you mean an email server that needs to be mothered and looked after then yes, the alternatives can't match the flakey Exchange server.
Have you looked at Open Xchange? it even has an Outlook connector for those who still want to run Windows desktops.
Broadband is too cheap, it's obvious that when you reduce ADSL to a low price comparable to dialup that the price becomes unsustainable if people are using lots of bandwidth.
BBC iPlayer uses bandwidth that customers pay for, they have a set limit which they are allowed and if they exceed it then they have to pay for more bandwidth.
So why should a tax be imposed on all customers? Ofcom is stupid and a waste of time, they're ruining the UK TV market by allowing more frequent adverts and now this.
Yet more hidden costs for software developers. The added burden of support staff, development etc...
Now is the time to move your product to OSX or Linux.
Microsoft would be better off doing what Apple did, obsoleting the old system and redesigning from scratch. Run old Windows apps under a VM or something.
What did the author think of the Will Smith version? I personally think it lacked the atmosphere and isolation that was conveyed in a better way by Omega Man and LMOE.
The Omega Man is a fun film, plus music by Ron Grainer (of Dr Who theme tune fame). The stuntman on the motorbike looks nothing like Chuck of course, always good for a chuckle.
Someone who has held a position like that is unlikely to fight back and burn bridges by slagging off Microsoft. In fact you would think he still worked there given the positive spin his article provides.
There's no way he'd ruin his career by giving us any dirt on Microsoft and Vista, future employers wouldn't like that. He's probably signed an NDA anyway.
It is Intel and AMD who will provide the tools to ruin the computing industry.
All it will take is some hardware DRM or secure computing initiative and support from Microsoft or Apple.
Microsoft's monopoly was built from having some pretty restrictive OEM licencing deals and some tricks to see off the competition (see DRDOS). Being there so early on means it is hard to diminish their market hold.
Anyone that replaces Microsoft will have a hard time locking in people to their platform, especially now the internet is here. That is unless the DRM and secure computing platforms take off, these make lock in a lot easier. You can argue Apple has this already on Intel Macs.
In the UK we produced a cell like CPU long before Sony's much hyped cell processor. We even developed a parallel programming language for it.
This was back in the days of 8 and 16-bit processors and the fear was that 16-bit and 32-bit processors weren't going to produce the processing power required in the future.
Obviously these fears were unfounded as the MHz increased dramatically as did caching and other tricks to increase performance.
But those looking for some inspiration should look up the Inmos Transputer and Occam.
Scientists do this sort of thing, make a discovery public and then are annoyed when they find other people using it.
If you want to patent something you tell nobody else.
I don't see how people can patent someone using a material that exists on the planet anyway, it surely is the process of manufacture that is patented? this woman hasn't made anything, it's restricted to a discovery made in a lab.
Sometimes brands do make you feel better or feel second class.
If you know you have the best rated product or have "cool" clothes you feel more confident.
Nobody ever says IBM is cool and that IBM is interesting, it symbolises dull business computers to most people. Their products are very sober and drab.
Indeed, people who have been held hostage or had a gun pointed at them often find themselves unable to go back to work. Some of them have all sorts of problems after then.
How this guy can compare some online copying to a crime where a suspect threatens to kill people is beyong me.
Indeed, being out there and being in beta isn't Vaporware. The term typically means it has been announced by a company's marketing department despite no work having been done on it.
Usually it's a way of confusing the consumer into sitting on the fence.
So for example people is about to buy an mp3 player from (for example) Creative, so Microsoft then announces a super improved Zune which probably hasn't even been designed yet. The design team knock up a nice 3D representation in a graphics application and release it.
1. Change operating systems to be able to use the all the available CPU power even when running single threaded applications.
2. Change programming languages to make multicore programming easier.
3. Both 1 and 2.
What the end user should be able to dictate however is how many cores should be in use. It's not for the programmer of the application to dictate how processing of any data should occur.
At the moment the quality is ropey at times, you can say that it's no substitute for a real DVD (When there's a copyrighted file on the site, not that that's allowed).
Once it approaches DVD quality the lawyers will argue it's like DVD on demand.
I think this case proves it. They're simply not aware of the technical implementations of popular sites out there, leading to these sort of stupid cases.
Many advertisers will fall fowl of this, since many sites have ad content that is served up by another server which is not their own.
You need to read up about Human Computer Interaction.
Also, the guidelines for a web application or mobile application will be different to that of GUI application.
You should read up about accessibility, should your application be used in government organisations then it may often need to be able to be used by people with eyesight or mobility defects.
Important points, never rely on colour to differentiate things. Not everyone has reliable colour vision.
Involve end users where possible.
Read Jacob Nielsen's opinions, don't take them as gospel but he does have some good points.
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If by impossible to match you mean an email server that needs to be mothered and looked after then yes, the alternatives can't match the flakey Exchange server.
Have you looked at Open Xchange? it even has an Outlook connector for those who still want to run Windows desktops.
http://www.open-xchange.com/
Of course the Outlook connector isn't free, but the community version can be free if you use Linux or free email clients.
I would go further and engrave the casing.
If you're really more interested in using the laptop than looking at it then you won't mind if it has an outer case that is modified.
Broadband is too cheap, it's obvious that when you reduce ADSL to a low price comparable to dialup that the price becomes unsustainable if people are using lots of bandwidth.
BBC iPlayer uses bandwidth that customers pay for, they have a set limit which they are allowed and if they exceed it then they have to pay for more bandwidth.
So why should a tax be imposed on all customers? Ofcom is stupid and a waste of time, they're ruining the UK TV market by allowing more frequent adverts and now this.
Yet more hidden costs for software developers. The added burden of support staff, development etc...
Now is the time to move your product to OSX or Linux.
Microsoft would be better off doing what Apple did, obsoleting the old system and redesigning from scratch. Run old Windows apps under a VM or something.
Indeed, blue receptors are the less sensitive and therefore blue is a good background for a desktop.
White on blue was popular in DOS applications such as WordPerfect.
What did the author think of the Will Smith version? I personally think it lacked the atmosphere and isolation that was conveyed in a better way by Omega Man and LMOE.
The Omega Man is a fun film, plus music by Ron Grainer (of Dr Who theme tune fame). The stuntman on the motorbike looks nothing like Chuck of course, always good for a chuckle.
Someone who has held a position like that is unlikely to fight back and burn bridges by slagging off Microsoft. In fact you would think he still worked there given the positive spin his article provides.
There's no way he'd ruin his career by giving us any dirt on Microsoft and Vista, future employers wouldn't like that. He's probably signed an NDA anyway.
I don't see any evidence he was a manager anyway. More like a product champion or spin doctor.
Name the applications, version of the OS and the hardware you're using.
Have you ever thought you might have a hardware issue like faulty memory or bad blocks on the hard disk? it is likely on an unstable computer.
If you say so, but Apple doesn't make you download iTunes or Safari. You don't have to buy an iPod.
This is a different situation to Windows and IE.
It is Intel and AMD who will provide the tools to ruin the computing industry.
All it will take is some hardware DRM or secure computing initiative and support from Microsoft or Apple.
Microsoft's monopoly was built from having some pretty restrictive OEM licencing deals and some tricks to see off the competition (see DRDOS). Being there so early on means it is hard to diminish their market hold.
Anyone that replaces Microsoft will have a hard time locking in people to their platform, especially now the internet is here. That is unless the DRM and secure computing platforms take off, these make lock in a lot easier. You can argue Apple has this already on Intel Macs.
In the UK we produced a cell like CPU long before Sony's much hyped cell processor. We even developed a parallel programming language for it.
This was back in the days of 8 and 16-bit processors and the fear was that 16-bit and 32-bit processors weren't going to produce the processing power required in the future.
Obviously these fears were unfounded as the MHz increased dramatically as did caching and other tricks to increase performance.
But those looking for some inspiration should look up the Inmos Transputer and Occam.
Safari's marketshare is low, what's he worried about?
Sure it may increase as a result of this, but anything that's not IE is a good thing.
Scientists do this sort of thing, make a discovery public and then are annoyed when they find other people using it.
If you want to patent something you tell nobody else.
I don't see how people can patent someone using a material that exists on the planet anyway, it surely is the process of manufacture that is patented? this woman hasn't made anything, it's restricted to a discovery made in a lab.
People expect full versions of applications or at least the same level of functionality.
Eeepc gives you just that, full blown Linux applications (or Windows if you have to install it).
Powerful PDA's need to run Linux or Windows these days or at least have ports of popular Linux apps.
Sometimes brands do make you feel better or feel second class.
If you know you have the best rated product or have "cool" clothes you feel more confident.
Nobody ever says IBM is cool and that IBM is interesting, it symbolises dull business computers to most people. Their products are very sober and drab.
If computers are your hobby then great, but computers should work. You shouldn't need to tinker and spend hours getting them useable.
Moved from Linux to Mac for this reason alone, I wanted a computer to use, not a hobby.
Indeed, people who have been held hostage or had a gun pointed at them often find themselves unable to go back to work. Some of them have all sorts of problems after then.
How this guy can compare some online copying to a crime where a suspect threatens to kill people is beyong me.
Indeed, being out there and being in beta isn't Vaporware. The term typically means it has been announced by a company's marketing department despite no work having been done on it.
Usually it's a way of confusing the consumer into sitting on the fence.
So for example people is about to buy an mp3 player from (for example) Creative, so Microsoft then announces a super improved Zune which probably hasn't even been designed yet. The design team knock up a nice 3D representation in a graphics application and release it.
1. Change operating systems to be able to use the all the available CPU power even when running single threaded applications.
2. Change programming languages to make multicore programming easier.
3. Both 1 and 2.
What the end user should be able to dictate however is how many cores should be in use. It's not for the programmer of the application to dictate how processing of any data should occur.
What Bill Gates and others want is a glut of workers in the market, this makes it more competitive and means wages are lower.
At the moment the quality is ropey at times, you can say that it's no substitute for a real DVD (When there's a copyrighted file on the site, not that that's allowed).
Once it approaches DVD quality the lawyers will argue it's like DVD on demand.
I think this case proves it. They're simply not aware of the technical implementations of popular sites out there, leading to these sort of stupid cases.
Many advertisers will fall fowl of this, since many sites have ad content that is served up by another server which is not their own.
For legacy installers it will prompt if the installer is called Setup.exe or similar. If it's called anything else then it won't prompt.
The UAC prompts are so annoying that most people will deactivate them.
You need to read up about Human Computer Interaction.
Also, the guidelines for a web application or mobile application will be different to that of GUI application.
You should read up about accessibility, should your application be used in government organisations then it may often need to be able to be used by people with eyesight or mobility defects.
Important points, never rely on colour to differentiate things. Not everyone has reliable colour vision.
Involve end users where possible.
Read Jacob Nielsen's opinions, don't take them as gospel but he does have some good points.
http://www.useit.com/
Stick to the guidelines of the OS you are developing the application for. Use common well established key shortcuts.