Summing up: it runs, it won't win any speed competitions, you won't want to play Crysis on it, and it's pretty OK for light-duty, everyday tasks.
If I am reading this correctly, this was a full install of the RC. No optimization for the netbook beyond what the OS can do for itself.
The dual-core Atom netbook with 2 GB of RAM or more and much better graphics performance can't be that far off.
The geek looks at the sub-netbook and sees a market where Microsoft [and x86] can't compete.
But he has been wrong before.
The sub-netbook at $150 is a gadget, like the pocket HD camcorder.
In a deep recession, that's a purchase which can be postponed - and by the time shoppers return to the market, the tech will have evolved and expectations will have changed.
But if you're buying a new system, and it happens to have Vista AND at least 2 GB RAM with a decent graphics card, I wouldn't worry about it.
The quad core CPU, 6-8 GB RAM and 64 Bit Vista is mainstream at WalMart.
4 GB of DDR2 Kingston Value RAM is $50 almost anywhere you look. Gog.com has Vista ready versions of classic PC games available for download at $6 and $10.
The hardware requirements and software incompatibilities that look so forbidding at launch of a new Windows OS - fade away into insignificance a year or so later.
I mean, after all, no polished apps for Linux multimedia (VLC, amarok, XINE), mail (Thunderbird and Evolution), web browsers (opera and firefox), or Office software (Open Office, KOffice, Abiword) that the user can choose from.
The problem here is that the successful Linux app is ported to Windows or begins as a native Windows app.
Which makes the Windows XP Corporate Edition more desirable these days, as it is activation free like Windows 2000 and still has good driver support;-)
The geek's obsession with activation can be really puzzling to others. I activated this old Dell workhorse in 2001 - and that was that.
You have Linux, BSD, and even Solaris now to choose from and build a local software industry around or you can keep buying Windows and pumping money out of your country.
Microsoft employs 41,000 in and around Redmond - but over half of its employees are resident abroad and over half of its revenues are generated abroad.
It is not a one-way street.
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus in Bejiing.
That single facility will have twice the employees of Red Hat. Red Hat's entire physical plant is valued at $68 million. Balance Sheet
When the geek talks about a "local" software industry what he is really talking about is protectionism.
Within this tightly confined space the developer doesn't need to produce a quality product - and he almost certainly won't be producing an export product.
That's way too much work when he can live quite comfortably - if a little more modestly - simply by satisfying the politician's demands for local staffing and content.
The feature your customer base is most excited about in your new product is that it can run the years old version nearly as well as the old version would run on the bare hardware
The market is the same that needs Boot Camp on the Mac.
The same that needs WINE in Linux.
The integration of XP adds value to Win 7. It subtracts from the value of OSX and Linux.
Nepomuk, for example, was supposed to launch us into the era of the semantic desktop, with everything tagged with all sorts of metadata and actually searchable.
Amarok
Plasmoids, or desktop widgets for those of you who don't speak KDE Dolphin (the file browser)
Nepomuk sounds like he should be hunting seals on the artic ice pack in the Brittanica films your grandad slept through in high school.
When Geek-Speak meets Marketing-Speak all hope is lost.
The source data is from clients who are interested in hits from users with more or less unrestricted access to the web.
That is good enough to be broadly representative of the home and SOHO markets.
The locked-down corporate desktop is the mandate from on high.
Here the user is making his own choices.
Apple and Microsoft built their markets from the bottom up and not from the top down. They entered markets UNIX never reached.
They conspired with users to get the PC on the corporate desktop when the Administrator wasn't looking.
You want to win a war, you do it on the ground.
Devices like the G1 from T-mobile and Nokia internet tablets, which are not bought for having Linux, but rather for the functionality they provide, should probably not be listed under Linux.
That would seem to surrender the desktop.
If Linux doesn't offer functionality, what does it offer?
i know feeding the trolls - but he wanted to be impressed
The Aegis Cruiser Yorktown was decommissioned in 2004 after twenty years of active service.
The elephant can remember.
The geek can't forget.
In 1995 Yorktown was chose as the prototype Smart Ship. The test bed. Test beds are pushed to failure. That is their job.
The tech was not stripped from Yorktown after 1995.
The core technologies installed in YORKTOWN - are - a 16 workstation fiber optic Local Area Network (LAN), Integrated Bridge System (IBS), Voyage Management System (VMS), Damage Control System(DCS), Integrated Conditioning and Assessment System (ICAS), HYDRA wireless communication system, and Standard Machinery Control System (SMCS). CG 48 Guided Missle Cruiser History
As for myself, I find this later-day example of Microsoft's performance as a naval subcontractor rather more to the point: USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77)
when firefox has a new version, everyone downloads it with a warm and fuzzy feeling that it is going to be an improvement. However, whenever IE has a new version, people are so reluctant to download it that MS now has to force the public to upgrade
If there is so much interest for the RC then it seems that Windows 7 will be VERY successful!
Windows 7 can already claim a 0.21% share of the desktop or about 1/5 that of Linux, all flavors. Operating System Market Share
Just a tad embarrassing for the geek should the RC overtake Linux over the next thirteen months.
I would like to see an XP VM in all OEM consumer versions of 64 bit Win 7.
That kind of double whammy - have your cake and eat it too - in the home and SOHO markets would be very tough to beat.
Development models don't interest users. Programs interest users.
The Mac-app can have a distinctive identity.
iWorks. iEverything-Else.
The Linux app is The GIMP, "the next best thing" for the guy who can't afford Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro and it has already been ported to Windows.
Windows is the software mega-mall and that counts for more than apt-get.
"NPR discussed the legality of this type of creation with EFF lawyer Fred Von Lohman, who said it's not clear if such a production violates the copyright for Tolkien's work."
It's as clear as a pane of glass.
The character is recognizably Tolkien's creation.
The universe he inhabits. The voices. The dialog. The languages.
The maps. The character designs.
The story.
The film can't honestly be described as anything other than a derivative work.
Slashdot Mirror
If I am reading this correctly, this was a full install of the RC. No optimization for the netbook beyond what the OS can do for itself.
The dual-core Atom netbook with 2 GB of RAM or more and much better graphics performance can't be that far off.
The geek looks at the sub-netbook and sees a market where Microsoft [and x86] can't compete.
But he has been wrong before.
The sub-netbook at $150 is a gadget, like the pocket HD camcorder.
In a deep recession, that's a purchase which can be postponed -
and by the time shoppers return to the market, the tech will have evolved and expectations will have changed.
There ain't nothing easier than to write a game and never publish it.
But if you're buying a new system, and it happens to have Vista AND at least 2 GB RAM with a decent graphics card, I wouldn't worry about it.
The quad core CPU, 6-8 GB RAM and 64 Bit Vista is mainstream at WalMart.
4 GB of DDR2 Kingston Value RAM is $50 almost anywhere you look. Gog.com has Vista ready versions of classic PC games available for download at $6 and $10.
The hardware requirements and software incompatibilities that look so forbidding at launch of a new Windows OS - fade away into insignificance a year or so later.
The problem here is that the successful Linux app is ported to Windows or begins as a native Windows app.
There is no compelling reason to migrate.
The geek's obsession with activation can be really puzzling to others. I activated this old Dell workhorse in 2001 - and that was that.
You have Linux, BSD, and even Solaris now to choose from and build a local software industry around or you can keep buying Windows and pumping money out of your country.
Microsoft employs 41,000 in and around Redmond - but over half of its employees are resident abroad and over half of its revenues are generated abroad.
It is not a one-way street.
Microsoft is building a $300 million dollar research campus in Bejiing.
That single facility will have twice the employees of Red Hat. Red Hat's entire physical plant is valued at $68 million. Balance Sheet
When the geek talks about a "local" software industry what he is really talking about is protectionism.
Within this tightly confined space the developer doesn't need to produce a quality product - and he almost certainly won't be producing an export product.
That's way too much work when he can live quite comfortably - if a little more modestly - simply by satisfying the politician's demands for local staffing and content.
The market is the same that needs Boot Camp on the Mac.
The same that needs WINE in Linux.
The integration of XP adds value to Win 7. It subtracts from the value of OSX and Linux.
It is easy to install.
You don't need to be a geek to make it work.
I don't know why anyone would find this at all surprising.
The pigs are in confinement. The farmer has daily contact. It's an airborne disease.
I'd be far more worried if the swine hadn't been infected.
That implies a mutation. That the disease has taken root in the human population.
The programming doesn't suck.
The geek simply projects his own tastes on the entire audience.
Looking Up-Market?
Watch for The Magnificent Seven and To Catch A Thief in rotation on MGM-HD.
An elegantly mounted spaghetti western? It doesn't get any better than Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West on HDNet Movies.
Forensic investigation?
True-Crime done right? Nat Geo and Discovery I.D., A&E's Criminal Investigation. aka The CIN channel.
when I read the description, I pictured MS Bob with bright, colorful rooms that someone far away thought would put me at ease when using a computer.
The next edition of The Sims will be woven into social networking.
The geek is whistling past the graveyard when he summons up the ghost of MS Bob.
If there is a true break from the desktop metaphor - if intelligent avatars do become important - you will see it first in the home and not at work.
Nepomuk, for example, was supposed to launch us into the era of the semantic desktop, with everything tagged with all sorts of metadata and actually searchable.
Amarok
Plasmoids, or desktop widgets for those of you who don't speak KDE
Dolphin (the file browser)
Nepomuk sounds like he should be hunting seals on the artic ice pack in the Brittanica films your grandad slept through in high school.
When Geek-Speak meets Marketing-Speak all hope is lost.
Retraining will be needed only once while every new version of Office will cost something like $400.
If you want to taken seriously, don't quote the list price for the retail box.
Am I to assume that OpenOffice 12 will look and perform like OpenOffice 3, with no significant changes whatever?
Ever notice that the price of MS Office exceeds the price of the rest of the computer?
Ever notice how important clerical work is to any business? How difficult it is to improve productivity in any significant way?
The geek is obsessed with trivia.
OEM sales. File formats. The price of the hardware.
The only thing which really matters - and the roots of Microsoft's dominance - is how well you understand office work, the office environment.
The office worker.
Open Office is free software which respects you as the user so that if you have a problem you can fix it yourself.
This is a pipe dream.
Sun's financial troubles left OpenOffice.org with a full time staff of about 24 developers.
OpenOffice.org has from the beginning been staffed, funded and managed by Sun with very few significant contributions from outside the company.
OpenOffice.org is notoriously one of the most unwieldy and opaque blocks of legacy code on the planet.
The Office Suite is a core application.
You can't tell your boss that the dog ate your homework.
That your sums don't add up. That your slides won't slide or your pages won't print.
Should be simple enough to check. Has anyone downloaded the SP?
The source data is from clients who are interested in hits from users with more or less unrestricted access to the web.
That is good enough to be broadly representative of the home and SOHO markets.
The locked-down corporate desktop is the mandate from on high.
Here the user is making his own choices.
Apple and Microsoft built their markets from the bottom up and not from the top down. They entered markets UNIX never reached.
They conspired with users to get the PC on the corporate desktop when the Administrator wasn't looking.
You want to win a war, you do it on the ground.
Devices like the G1 from T-mobile and Nokia internet tablets, which are not bought for having Linux, but rather for the functionality they provide, should probably not be listed under Linux.
That would seem to surrender the desktop.
If Linux doesn't offer functionality, what does it offer?
News at eleven.
The geek's conversion stories always begin with a line like this.
The WalMart shopper in the boondocks will remember being suckered into buying a gOS desktop without a working modem.
First cousin to his flea market Boombox.
The Aegis Cruiser Yorktown was decommissioned in 2004 after twenty years of active service.
The elephant can remember.
The geek can't forget.
In 1995 Yorktown was chose as the prototype Smart Ship. The test bed. Test beds are pushed to failure. That is their job.
The tech was not stripped from Yorktown after 1995.
The core technologies installed in YORKTOWN - are - a 16 workstation fiber optic Local Area Network (LAN), Integrated Bridge System (IBS), Voyage Management System (VMS), Damage Control System(DCS), Integrated Conditioning and Assessment System (ICAS), HYDRA wireless communication system, and Standard Machinery Control System (SMCS). CG 48 Guided Missle Cruiser History
As for myself, I find this later-day example of Microsoft's performance as a naval subcontractor rather more to the point: USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77)
Browser Version Market Share
IE 7 44.5%
IE 6 17.5%
IE 8 4.3%
IE 5 0.04%
IE 5.5 0.03%
Firefox 3.0 20%
Firefox 2.0 1.8%
Firefox 3.1 0.18%
Firefox 1.5 0.15%
Firefox 1.0 0.06%
Firefox 3.5 0.01%
So call it 50% of the web for IE 7 and IE 8.
Net Applications tracks hits to e-commerce and other mass market websites.
It's not looking at techies. It's looking at guy who watches Fox News and does his shopping at K-Mart.
The geek lives in a bubble.
He believes what he wants to believe.
If there is so much interest for the RC then it seems that Windows 7 will be VERY successful!
Windows 7 can already claim a 0.21% share of the desktop or about 1/5 that of Linux, all flavors. Operating System Market Share
Just a tad embarrassing for the geek should the RC overtake Linux over the next thirteen months.
I would like to see an XP VM in all OEM consumer versions of 64 bit Win 7.
That kind of double whammy - have your cake and eat it too - in the home and SOHO markets would be very tough to beat.
Development models don't interest users. Programs interest users.
The Mac-app can have a distinctive identity.
iWorks. iEverything-Else.
The Linux app is The GIMP, "the next best thing" for the guy who can't afford Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro and it has already been ported to Windows.
Windows is the software mega-mall and that counts for more than apt-get.
It is a part of our cultural heritage only because Tolkien chose to create it and to publish it --- on his own terms.
"NPR discussed the legality of this type of creation with EFF lawyer Fred Von Lohman, who said it's not clear if such a production violates the copyright for Tolkien's work."
It's as clear as a pane of glass.
The character is recognizably Tolkien's creation.
The universe he inhabits. The voices. The dialog. The languages.
The maps. The character designs.
The story.
The film can't honestly be described as anything other than a derivative work.
At least with an OSS product, you'd be able to hire a developer to fix the specific vulnerability on the existing system.
It doesn't work that way.
You botch this assignment and people die.
The hospital does not have the financial or technical resources to validate your work.
It's potential exposure to administrative actions, civil and perhaps criminal penalties is enormous.
East Coast developer tries to download the ISO during his lunch break. It ain't gonna happen.