Just sticking a pendrive in and using that just sounds far too unreliable.
ReadyBoost tests the flash ROM before using it as a drive. The requirements seem fairly rigorous. Look for ReadyBoost "certified" ROM. ReadyBoost is available or it is not. If the pen falls off your laptop, there is no harm done.
Then you get infected with a worm or trojan because the anti-virus software installed on your computer didn't come with free updates for then next N months
Our cable service provides spam filtering and a security bundle that is updated several times daily. We haven't paid a dime for maintaince software for over three years.
Then your thirteen year old, who knows way more about computers than you ever will..is taking programming classes at school, so you buy Visual Basic and Visual C++, and so on.
Visual Studio Express and XNA Express are free.
Coding4Fun is pure delight, the perfect place for your kid to begin.
Wh... WHAT?!
Sounds like a good way to wear out a flash drive.
Ever hear of the hybrid hard drive?
Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory devices for caching allows Windows Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 8-10 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching is applied to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLLs. Flash devices are typically slower than the hard drive for sequential I/O, so to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic to recognize large, sequential read requests and then allows these requests to be serviced by the hard drive.
When a compatible device is plugged in, the Windows AutoPlay dialog offers an additional option to use it to speed up the system; an additional "ReadyBoost" tab is added to the drive's properties dialog where the amount of space to be used can be configured. ReadyBoost may also be able to use spare RAM on other networked Vista PCs in a future release.ReadyBoost
Q: Isn't user data on a removable device a security risk?
A: This was one of our first concerns and to mitigate this risk, we use AES-128 to encrypt everything that we write to the device.
Q: Won't this wear out the drive?
A: Nope. We're aware of the lifecycle issues with flash drives and are smart about how and when we do our writes to the device. Our research shows that we will get at least 10+ years out of flash devices that we support.
Q: How much of a speed increase are we talking about?
A: Well, that depends. On average, a RANDOM 4K read from flash is about 10x faster than from HDD. Now, how does that translate to end-user perf? Under memory pressure and heavy disk activity, the system is much more responsive; on a 4GB machine with few applications running, the ReadyBoost effect is much less noticeable.ReadyBoost Q&A
So what are they going to do when there employer uses OpenOffice?
Learn to check their grammar? Oops, sorry, cheap shot.
But you might want to take a look at what is happening at ground level.
Here, in the Rust Belt, MS Office skills are marketable and taught everywhere there is a classroom. Employers aren't demanding the idealized regime you ask for and until they do no one else is going to pay for it.
It's so easy...to be MS-free 2-3 years down the road for any given company. Certainly for a start-up
There are times when I think the Geek beds down in the server room.
That he has no conception of how his employer actually makes a living. That there is a factory out back, a sales force, a mail room, a hundred and one other operations that for twenty-five years have employed software running under MSDOS and Windows.
is there anything in the law that prevents me and my brother from collaborating to make a test case? For instance, I make a piece of software ("Hello, World!") with an unreasonable shrink-wrap EULA, then sue him
Federal jurisdiction is constitutionally limited to "cases and controversies."
The civil rights cases of the last fifty years drove passionate arguments on both sides. It mattered deeply whether you won or lost. That is what a judge wants to hear.
The Dred Scott decision illustrates what happens when a trumped-up case tempts a court to deliver an advisory opinion based on its own deeply rooted prejudices.
So, according to this unscientific metric (albeit chosen by you): The majority of new computer buyers are buying Apple products. Sounds like a stampede to me.
At any given moment, there are a half dozen or so Macs on the market, compared to the hundreds of variations on the commodity Wintel PC. We'll ignore the fact that you have left direct sellers like Dell out of the equation.
Amazon.com is as close as we have to the old Sears, Roebuck Catalog on the net, the clearest reflection of middle class tastes and values.
I've no doubt the next iteration of the Mac OS will rank high on its charts.
But I also have no doubt that Vista will remain a strong and steady seller for years to come.
Or that people are so confused by the multiple versions of Vista available that they're just saying "f-- it" and plunking down the extra cash for Ultimate
Vista Basic is to be found in the top fifty, but far down the list.
I think the opportunity for confusion is overstated.
The businessman or professional will be attracted to features like whole-disk encryption, others will see Ultimate as the right choice for the core system of an increasingly complex and sophisticated home network.
SHhhhhh. This is Slashdot, there's no place for money talk here. The POINT is that everyone will NOT buy it and only HATE it. I'll stick with BeOS thank you.
It surprised me to see Ultimate Vista so high on the charts.
It suggests that the price and the hardware requirements for Vista are not the barriers some geeks believe. It suggests that the discounted pricing on Vista Premium for Vista Ultimate purchasers was dead on target.
It suggests that buyers have nothing in common with the Geek, an entirely different set of values and expectations.
It should be very interesting to see how well Windows Home Server products do in the fall.
2 Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
4 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade
5 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade
12 Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Upgrade
13 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Full Version
14 Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003
15 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Full Version
Microsoft has twenty titles in the top fifty.
I'd say these numbers suggest that Vista is going to do just fine in the domestic consumer market.
But I think I speak for everyone when I say, boy oh boy, I can barely wait until Tuesday to get my $300-something Windows Vista Ultimate Bill Gates Limited Edition......BAHAHAHAhahahahahaahahahahahahahahaahaha
The Ultimate Edition is already a best-seller at Amazon.com. #6 on the list for the Upgrade, #17 for the Full Version.
In the case of DRM, theres one very strong way to fight it - with your wallet. Use alternatives where possible. Spread the word about products that contain oppressive DRM. Encourage others to do the same.
Fight it with your wallet? We are talking about sales of goods and services in the home market.
The market which made J.K. Rowling richer than the Queen of England. The market which generates half of Apple's revenues through sales of the iPod and through iTunes. The market for the XBox 360 and the PS3.
BadVista.org, witless and sophomoric, hasn't got a clue.
Here is a look at how successful their latest "tagging" campaign has been at Amazon.com:
Software Bestsellers
2 Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
4 Microsoft Vista Home Premium Upgrade
6 Microsoft Vista Ultimate Upgrade
11 Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003
14 Microsoft Office Professional Upgrade 2007
17 Microsoft Vista Ultimate Full Version
21 Microsoft Vista Home Premium Full Version
On Feb 17, 2009, US broadcasters are scheduled to abandon analog TV. There will be, I think, an enormous howl as people realize that they've been had -- particularly in rural areas, where cable is
not available.
The rural market began migrating to satellite TV when satellite TV meant installing a Big Ugly Dish to replace that Big Ugly Tower.
Uhhhh, if someone doesn't know how to burn an ISO or tinker with their BIOS, is this installer really something they should be screwing around with?
Why not begin with a simpler question?
The frontend site goodbye-microsoft.com/ has been set up for advocacy purposes
Why does the Linux zealot come across like a fourteen year old kid scribbling his first obscenites on a bathroom wall? What did we do to deserve a site like BadVista.org?
MS is not going to give up its stranglehold on the OEM installed market. The only way Linux going to be able to make any strides is to recognize that the user is going to have to do the install.
You have written the obituary for Linux in the domestic consumer market.
This market is middle class.
This market is antithetical to everything the Geek stands for. If the Geek hasn't learned that lesson by now, he will have it pounded into him again and again over the next five years.
This market can and will bear the cost of the OEM Microsoft system install, as it has for over twenty-five years. No one wants the level of involvement with an OS implied by the do-it-yourself Linux install.
Entry level for the Vista Basic laptop at Walmart.com is $500. Vista Premium $850.
The game play is what will keep the Wii from aging fast.
assumming that players don't tire of the Wii controller.
I have to ask how the casual gamer reacts when he is first exposed to Oblivion or Gears of War.
There seems to be an opportunity here for Sony and Microsoft to strike gold with titles that have game play, graphics and sound that the Wii simply can't deliver.
In the home theater market, the driving force is more likely to be Disney and Time-Warner. Porn may obsess the Geek, but that is not why the family room gets the 60" DLP projection set and the XBox 360.
Slashdot Mirror
ReadyBoost tests the flash ROM before using it as a drive. The requirements seem fairly rigorous. Look for ReadyBoost "certified" ROM. ReadyBoost is available or it is not. If the pen falls off your laptop, there is no harm done.
Our cable service provides spam filtering and a security bundle that is updated several times daily. We haven't paid a dime for maintaince software for over three years.
Then your thirteen year old, who knows way more about computers than you ever will..is taking programming classes at school, so you buy Visual Basic and Visual C++, and so on.
Visual Studio Express and XNA Express are free.
Coding4Fun is pure delight, the perfect place for your kid to begin.
You would prefer a dialogue which began with the Vista user demonstrating his new Blu-Ray drive by playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?
In high definition with full theater sound and large screen projection?
Because access to protected content is all that DRM means to the casual user of Vista or the Mac.
Sounds like a good way to wear out a flash drive.
Ever hear of the hybrid hard drive?
Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory devices for caching allows Windows Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 8-10 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives. This caching is applied to all disk content, not just the page file or system DLLs. Flash devices are typically slower than the hard drive for sequential I/O, so to maximize performance, ReadyBoost includes logic to recognize large, sequential read requests and then allows these requests to be serviced by the hard drive. When a compatible device is plugged in, the Windows AutoPlay dialog offers an additional option to use it to speed up the system; an additional "ReadyBoost" tab is added to the drive's properties dialog where the amount of space to be used can be configured. ReadyBoost may also be able to use spare RAM on other networked Vista PCs in a future release. ReadyBoost
Q: Isn't user data on a removable device a security risk?
A: This was one of our first concerns and to mitigate this risk, we use AES-128 to encrypt everything that we write to the device.
Q: Won't this wear out the drive?
A: Nope. We're aware of the lifecycle issues with flash drives and are smart about how and when we do our writes to the device. Our research shows that we will get at least 10+ years out of flash devices that we support.
Q: How much of a speed increase are we talking about?
A: Well, that depends. On average, a RANDOM 4K read from flash is about 10x faster than from HDD. Now, how does that translate to end-user perf? Under memory pressure and heavy disk activity, the system is much more responsive; on a 4GB machine with few applications running, the ReadyBoost effect is much less noticeable. ReadyBoost Q&A
Learn to check their grammar? Oops, sorry, cheap shot.
But you might want to take a look at what is happening at ground level.
Here, in the Rust Belt, MS Office skills are marketable and taught everywhere there is a classroom. Employers aren't demanding the idealized regime you ask for and until they do no one else is going to pay for it.
The argument is irrelevant.
Protecting your child from the predators within doesn't exclude taking actions to protect your child from the predators without.
would it be too much to ask that tags be limited to those which are significant and helpful?
and not just as a substitute for a lameness filter?
There are times when I think the Geek beds down in the server room.
That he has no conception of how his employer actually makes a living. That there is a factory out back, a sales force, a mail room, a hundred and one other operations that for twenty-five years have employed software running under MSDOS and Windows.
Federal jurisdiction is constitutionally limited to "cases and controversies."
The civil rights cases of the last fifty years drove passionate arguments on both sides. It mattered deeply whether you won or lost. That is what a judge wants to hear.
The Dred Scott decision illustrates what happens when a trumped-up case tempts a court to deliver an advisory opinion based on its own deeply rooted prejudices.
At any given moment, there are a half dozen or so Macs on the market, compared to the hundreds of variations on the commodity Wintel PC. We'll ignore the fact that you have left direct sellers like Dell out of the equation.
Amazon.com is as close as we have to the old Sears, Roebuck Catalog on the net, the clearest reflection of middle class tastes and values.
I've no doubt the next iteration of the Mac OS will rank high on its charts.
But I also have no doubt that Vista will remain a strong and steady seller for years to come.
Vista Basic is to be found in the top fifty, but far down the list.
I think the opportunity for confusion is overstated.
The businessman or professional will be attracted to features like whole-disk encryption, others will see Ultimate as the right choice for the core system of an increasingly complex and sophisticated home network.
It surprised me to see Ultimate Vista so high on the charts.
It suggests that the price and the hardware requirements for Vista are not the barriers some geeks believe. It suggests that the discounted pricing on Vista Premium for Vista Ultimate purchasers was dead on target.
It suggests that buyers have nothing in common with the Geek, an entirely different set of values and expectations.
It should be very interesting to see how well Windows Home Server products do in the fall.
Yeah. The movie.
Which is all most people will be watching when they fire up Vista and their new hi-def projector. Not the systen internals.
Amazon Software Bestsellers (January 29 12:45 PM ET)
2 Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
4 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade
5 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade
12 Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Upgrade
13 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Full Version
14 Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003
15 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Full Version
Microsoft has twenty titles in the top fifty.
I'd say these numbers suggest that Vista is going to do just fine in the domestic consumer market.
The Ultimate Edition is already a best-seller at Amazon.com. #6 on the list for the Upgrade, #17 for the Full Version.
Tell me why a user "fine tunes" an OS he intends to upgrade in thirty days. Tell me how many users ever touch the system defaults.
Only to find out that this is the process for every subsequent format.
I haven't found a compelling reason to re-format a hard drive at home in damn near five years. This has always been pretty much a geek thing.
Fight it with your wallet? We are talking about sales of goods and services in the home market.
The market which made J.K. Rowling richer than the Queen of England. The market which generates half of Apple's revenues through sales of the iPod and through iTunes. The market for the XBox 360 and the PS3.
BadVista.org, witless and sophomoric, hasn't got a clue.
Here is a look at how successful their latest "tagging" campaign has been at Amazon.com:
Software Bestsellers
2 Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
4 Microsoft Vista Home Premium Upgrade
6 Microsoft Vista Ultimate Upgrade
11 Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003
14 Microsoft Office Professional Upgrade 2007
17 Microsoft Vista Ultimate Full Version
21 Microsoft Vista Home Premium Full Version
The rural market began migrating to satellite TV when satellite TV meant installing a Big Ugly Dish to replace that Big Ugly Tower.
You were expecting something better from a site that calls itself "goodbye-microsoft.com" or "BadVista.org?"
Why not begin with a simpler question?
The frontend site goodbye-microsoft.com/ has been set up for advocacy purposes
Why does the Linux zealot come across like a fourteen year old kid scribbling his first obscenites on a bathroom wall? What did we do to deserve a site like BadVista.org?
You have written the obituary for Linux in the domestic consumer market.
This market is middle class.
This market is antithetical to everything the Geek stands for. If the Geek hasn't learned that lesson by now, he will have it pounded into him again and again over the next five years.
This market can and will bear the cost of the OEM Microsoft system install, as it has for over twenty-five years. No one wants the level of involvement with an OS implied by the do-it-yourself Linux install.
Entry level for the Vista Basic laptop at Walmart.com is $500. Vista Premium $850.
does Netflix deliver to Club Fed?
Your friends probably already know or suspect most of what the records would tell them.
assumming that players don't tire of the Wii controller.
I have to ask how the casual gamer reacts when he is first exposed to Oblivion or Gears of War.
There seems to be an opportunity here for Sony and Microsoft to strike gold with titles that have game play, graphics and sound that the Wii simply can't deliver.
In the home theater market, the driving force is more likely to be Disney and Time-Warner. Porn may obsess the Geek, but that is not why the family room gets the 60" DLP projection set and the XBox 360.