Shadow Copy and the accompanying Backup utility program only ship on Vista Business and Vista Ultimate. Why not for Home users? Or at least Home Premium users? No f-ing clue.
Vista Basic is crippled, but I don't think this is missing from Vista Home Premium (the standard version most OEMs use).
Ultimate and Business add an additional backup system for complete PC backup and restoring from DVDs, Nework Shares, etc, Vista Home Premium has the regular back up system like XP where you have to reinstall and restore.
I completely agree that MS feked up bad with XP and Vista. There never should have been a home version of XP, nor Home versions of Vista, Ultimate and Business editions only, with the only difference is what is installed on the default installation.
VSS on servers has pretty much nothing to do with Vista as a desktop OS. It's using the same technology underneath, sure, but you can open a "Previous Versions" network share folder just as easily from XP as you can from Vista.
True Windows 2003 server supports this, however not the backup tracking.
Also this is relevant to Vista if it is on your network (like at home), Vista machines serving files provide this feature to other Vista clients.
Both silverlight and C# are PATENT encumbered! Even though stupid people are trying to implement them in OSS, they will never be free. Also, only the core is free, the actual useful bits are standard proprietary.
This is partially correct, but is putting emphasis on MS's only.
C# itself is not patent encombered, but how it works on Windows ties into how Windows displays user elements, which creates what you claim.
C# can be implemented with no ties to Windows and be MS free of patents and is an ISO controlled language standard.
Also, what about other patent encoumbered languages and sandboxes, like Java for example, that people have used even when it was tightly closed?
Even now that Java keeps creeping to OSS, it still has patents encumbering the basic implementation and syntax of the language itself. Sun even fought to take control back from ISO around 1997.
Yet OSS doters trust Java more? Strange, very strange.
People should note this when they think OS X is taking over the world, it is little more than a 'press/marketing' thorn to MS, and even if the Apple user base doubles 3 or 4 times, it would still be irrelevant to MS...
Another thing which makes Time Machine so cool is that it is hooked into the filesystem at a low level. Rather than having to inspect the entire directory tree rsync-style, Time Machine uses the FSEvents interface to stay informed of filesystem changes. FSEvents isn't perfect (it actually only records when a directory's contents have changed) but it beats rsync-ish traversal any day.
In my opinion, without such a method for watching FS changes as they occur (or later, from a log), any hackish solution will fall far short of Time Machine's performance.
Um, this is splitting hairs a bit.
Using your logic as a basis of 'better' someone could also 'one up' Time Machine by pointing out that Vista's equivalent feature works at both the monitoring level and the 'copy-on-write' level of the FS, which is something HFS+ isn't even capable of doing.
Then point out that this is why Time Machine is slower than 'Previous Versions' on Vista and why Time Machine cannot use volume level snapshots and how Vista is keeping more granual versioning with virtually NO performance loss.
This could even be extended to why Time Machine can't use compressed backup stores to save space because of its ties to using HardLinks, and having no FS level compression support.
(Little things like this are important, ask all the Time Machine users screaming in the Apple forums as fast as Apple can delete their posts. Two patches so far, and they are still having problems because of Time Machine's need for HFS+ on the external drive. - Which also makes the drive worthless for anything but just being a Time Machine stooge.)
Bottom line:
The Linux stuff is a step in the right direction, I wouldn't start picking at details to bolster OS X, as Vista can technically and easily trump what OS X is doing as well, so back off Linux nitpicking, and encourage what is being done to make backups easier...
Time Machine's ability to simply browse backwards through time in the folder, whilst still having the folder functionality usable is far beyond BackupPC.
I agree it is not just Backup software.
However, this is ALSO why 'previous versions' in Vista is more than a snapshot/backup interface as well. In Vista you can view folders as they exist at any previous time and even drag and drop the folder or files you want from the folder at a specific time in history.
Time Machine = 3D Interface of Files/Folders Vista = Timeline List of Files/Folders
Time Machine = Uncompressed Backups to External Drive Vista = Compressed Backups ANYWHERE + File Version Snapshots on main Hard Drive + Works on Servers and across networks (ie Can use Previous Versions on Folders/Files you have access to on Servers or other computers, and it displays that folder's snapshots and backups.)
Time Machine = Great Marketing Vista = MS's Sucky Marketing
So Time Machine gets the cool buzz, when Vista is the cooler of the two technologies...
Apple's 5 releases have also included multiple updates to the underpinnings, frameworks, and the like [I still clearly remember the pain of dealing with the myriad deprecated Frameworks interfaces in the 10.0.. 10.3 time frame].
You have a valid argument, however you are greatly discounting MS's work and inflating Apples.
1) The OS X upgrades are not all full scale OS revisions, many of the OS X series are more about updating things like iPhoto or adding Safari then any substantial OS level changes.
2) MS Supplied a lot of updates for not only problems, but architectural changes in SP2 and also has kept updating OS applications like Movie Maker, Media Player, Messenger, etc.
3) Vista is more a rewrite and has more architectural changes than any other version of NT that came before it. Even going from 3.51 to 4.0 NT was not even a drop in the bucket, and even the large jump from NT 4.0 to Win2K and the new domain and AD systems and architectural changes don't even compare to the changes in Vista compared to XP.
Vista doesn't look a lot different or work a lot different than XP, but that is what makes it more outstanding than people realize, as the OS is using a new network stack, video system, printing system, audio stack, and yet virtually everything still works and just as well as it did on XP, even though everything is running on a different architecture.
Truly take a look at what MS has did instead of 'expecting' more from them. The change from XP to Vista is something they basically pulled off in three years of development, and is 10x the progression they have ever did on any other OS update in their history.
They also should get some props for not only pulling off Vista but maintaining the level of compatibility with hardware and software that they did, as it supports more hardware and more software by a factor of 100x than any other consumer OS. And that is pretty staggering.
If MS only had to work with their own hardware and have more control over the software produced like Apple does, then they would deserve the slapping people are trying to give them over Vista, but when dealing witht he scale they are, Vista is quite impressive that it even runs at all, let alone faster, and more stable than XP.
People also like to talk about security and quality, yet Leopard has had several showstoppers that wouldn't have made it out of MS's automated testing systems, let alone to a retail box. Vista has had no massive data loss cases, or things like the blue screen lockup of Leopard.
Also look at security for the last year, Vista even being a new OS, and already more copies running than all of the OS X sales combined, had less patches, updates, or security fixes than OS X or even XP that it replaces.
Just take a breath and try to look at both sides of the coin. You don't have to hate one side to like the other.
First you really should try or at least look at the technical aspects of Vista, most everything that you have a legitimate bitch about is no longer true.
Junctions? LOL. To the extent they work (and/or the extent to which the now-deceased Sysinternals slightly different implementation and corresponding tool) work or ever have worked, junctions are nothing more than an embarrassing and goofy implementation of symlinks. I'd give Microsoft another 2 OS releases to come up with something that's standard and useful. Put simply, Microsoft doesn't get symlinks. They want people to use shortcuts.
MS has supplied tools since Win2K. However in Vista not only are they available, but a key and critical part of the OS. To illustrate, many things that moved in Vista use them for compatibillity, like \Documents and Settings are now Junctions to \Users
Alternate data streams a great feature? Name 3 people who know WTF they are, how they work, or a single example of their use.
Other than every Mac user that shares or stores documents on a Windows in their house?
Windows doesn't report sector read/write errors (no underlying terminal, and lack of logging are just two reasons) so you'd never know when a disk is going bad and read/write errors are occurring.
Actually Vista does, and even alerts users of errors from HD errors or SMART codes.
Do you know whether *any* sort of check is run at boot time? Um, not unless the volume is flagged. With XP the chance of an NTFS volume needed a chkdsk is pretty rare. NTFS is very good at protecting data and preventing even power off problems.
With Vista the need for a user to run chkdsk is virtually gone.
Why is Vista different? Well Vista first adds in an extended version of journaling. Then Vista has background HD reliability, in that when a write or read error occurs the OS notices this and runs internal checks on that area of the HD for problems. And even if the HD is increasing failing, it will relocate all the data around those blocks to safe areas and mark them bad.If this continues to get worse the OS does more than make a note in the journal it gives the user an alert.
Oh, did I mention fragmentation? You'll need to pay for a utility to manage that problem, because what's offered by Microsoft (bought, actually) is as dumbed-down as it is featureless. Fragmentation not a problem? Create a new and roomy partition. Copy over a few large files. I guarantee each of them will have hundreds of fragments and be spread all over.
You should go look up the 'decision' process NTFS uses when saving or copying files. It is a good urban myth that NTFS sucks, but actually it is one of the better FS implementations for keeping fragmenting down, and also one of the better systems for not allowing fragmenting to slow file access performance due ot the nature of the MFT.
There are a few FS that may fragment less, but not with the copy-on-write features of NTFS. This is why ZFS also tends to fragment more than the average generic FS. Some features have an inherent cost, and this is one of them, but worth the snapshot abilities NTFS provides.
Also the Vista defrag tools not only defrag properly but optimized file layout for performance (XP did too), but Vista's defrag also handles the MFT, registry, and other files that were locked in Win2K and XP.
Grandma can use Time Machine easier. It's way simpler. Quite intuitive IMHO. Vista's version certainly works and is easy for someone who is computer savvy, but Apple just made restoring files as easy as it can get.
Really? Opening Time Machine and scrolling through times/dates and windows is faster?
In Vista you right click on a file or folder - select Previous Versions and are given a timeline list of all the versions available.
I would bet if you saw the Vista feature, you would go, WTF, why didn't Apple just make it simple and work this easy.
For some reason people only notice the 'backup & restore center' in Vista, which is NOT what is being talked about here. Previous Versions in Vista is just a right click away in any folder or open/save box.
My personal choice would be to have the Vista version because it works easier and does more, and combine that with the Apple marketing team so everyone in the world is screaming to have it like a petulant child.
Yes. Perhaps. And unfortunately so do the bugs, hangs, crashes, and hundreds of thousands of vulnerabilities because the system at rock bottom is hopeless and beyond help. No amount of end user features will ever take away from that. Or do you want the world to continue to get inundated with spam and exploits because the file management API is better?
Go look up NT, the core of Windows. Then try to find someone that says NT is a bad design, especially for its time.
I won't argue Win32 is the best or most secure OS API set, but it is just a subsystem that sits on NT, and not NT.
I also won't argue that MS didn't fek up by not enforcing NT security in WinXP, but they learned their lesson. However, this doesn't discount the fact that NT has always had a very robust and intrinsic token based security model.
However I will stop people that think NT is a poorly written OS, or a bad design.
I think you, TheNetAvenger (624455), are a paid Microsoft shill.
Sorry, just run a large company and deal with this stuff on a daily basis. When you are helping companies that in turn provide support to 1000s of companies, you tend to see a few things.
Prior to what I am doing now I was an OS engineer and taught OS theory for a few years in addition to a few years in UI research.
So when it comes to OS concepts, architecture, and usability, this is kind of my hobby.
You sure on the 2 minute thing? My Techs said it runs about once an hour when demoing it.
Another problem with Time Machine is when you are editing large photos or Video files. Imagine a 4GB Video file being backed up every hour, the backup drive fills rather fast, and then it starts to compromise other data if you have several large files being backed up every hour.
One of our Video editors has already turned off Time Machine and threatened our techs with death if they turn it back on.
Fanbois don't seem to realize that even with Firewire (or USB) shoving GBs of data to an external drive once an hour DOES slow down the OS, even when running at a low priority.
Notice that OS X doesn't allow you to use Time Machine on network shares for backups like Vista does. Time machine would saturate networks and bring most business networks to a crawl during the hourly backup.
I'll have to check on the 2 minute thing later today, I was pretty sure it ran hourly. I can't imagine it trying to backup every 2 minutes, as it wouldn't have time to complete one backup before another one was due, even with minimal file changes.
Compare that to Vista's clunky "Backup and Restore Center", which you have to use if you want to backup your files on an alternate volume. I guarantee you that using "Backup and Restore Center" is beyond most average users. Sure, it might be "better", but what good is it if it never gets used?
Why would you even be in the Backup and Restore Center?
Right click any file or folder and select 'Previous Versions' a timeline list of all the file versions are presented, INCLUDING any that are present on external/network backups.
From the timeline list dialog you can copy, restore, open, preview, open the folder from that time period on every version of the document or folder in the list.
I think MS made theirs a bit too simple, maybe if they would have created an application that had stobe lights and took 2 minutes to load to 'enter the time machine' people would think MS is also cool.
But instead they just make it intuitive, easy, and even available from dialog boxes of applications written 10 years ago.
Truly not trying to pick on you, but because it is such an elegant part of Vista, you like a lot of other people don't seem to realize it is even there.
Personally I prefer the MS interface 10x over Time Machine for use, especially since it is a clear timeline based list, and works from any shell object like dialog boxes, explorer folders, etc.
I will admit though the 'spacey' look of Time Machine is kind of cute, just not so functional when all I need to do is grab an earlier version of a document or folder I am working on.
For example: Right Click - Restore Previous Versions - Drag the version I want to my desktop.
(This is where I repeat, MS's marketing is insanely stupid. They should have been showing off features like this instead of the stupid Flip3D crap that even Vista users don't care about.)
PS, I should also mention... This also doesn't take into account sync features in either XP or Vista.
(Which is a different topic, but is why in the Windows world, merging or copying froms to and from server shares is transparent once turned on and most users don't have to copy or merge folders in these situations. If the Mac OS X user that found this bug had a feature like offline files, they probably wouldn't have been moving data back and forth to the server by hand.)
If you are using external shares with either OS, using offline files handles the folder syncing automatically, so you don't have to do anything when you reconnect to your network, it just merges the files/folders automatically, ensuring no data is lost and is transparent to the user.
This is obviously used more on laptops, but even in corporate environments, where users could potentially be knocked offline from other workstations or servers. The data is still available, and when the network/servers come back online, all the users content is then updated to the server/workstations.
Vista also adds many new features in offline files, for example file comparisons, so only the changed parts of a file are transmited, it also is smarter about knowing what is new data, and merging files from multiple users on a share.
It also does several other things like encrypting the offline files, so if it is a laptop, the data pulled from the corporate server can't ever be retrieved if the laptop is stolen.
Kind of off subject, but handy and another set of about 50 features just in the changes in Vista Offline file technology that MS never touts or even mentions in the press.
Basically, it nukes the conflicting/alpha/baz and then performs the copy. Brain dead behavior if you ask me.
Vista works very differently, not only Folders are confirmed but every file in the folders are confirmed with options to replace/don't copy/create second copy...
So ya this sucked in older versions of Windows, but Vista does a great job of handling this, better than any other GUI file manager I have ever seen to date.
Maybe you should try Vista instead of OSX... But again if MS was doing their job and was touting features like this in Vista, people would find more reasons why Vista has a lot of things to offer. Instead MS's marketing is retarded and nice features like this are NEVER mentioned and none of even the tech press notices them or points them out to users.
And trust me when I say there are literally 1000s of features like this that make the difference between Vista and XP night and day for daily usage.
Windows will ask if you are replacing files with the same name, but will otherwise merge them. Say you have two folders both called "stuff", one has files name "one, two, three" and the other has files names "four, five, six". If you drag the first one onto the second one in Windows, you get a folder with "one, two, thee, four, five, six" and on Max you get "one, two, three"; the other files get erased. Not set to the trash can; erased.
You act like you are talking about Windows95 and not Win2K, XP, and especially Vista.
Win2k forced users to go through 'every file' to confirm any overwrites, XP added a features so you could Shift click to tell it to overwrite all of them, and Vista has a very elaborate system of merging folders, you should check out a modern version of Windows, and especially Vista.
They simply do not work like this anymore, in fact for 10 years now unless you are doing something really wrong.
Win2K and XP power users would also use XCopy, Vista brings a lot of the validation and automation of the merging feature to Explorer, and I haven't needed to use XCopy in Vista.
I haven't noticed different behavior in any version of Windows. How do you merge similarly named folders during a copy/move in Windows? In my experience you get the same "Do you want to replace this?" type prompt you get in OS X.
Serious answer...
XP offers a basic, do you want to replace folder and a basic do you want to replace files. (Very generic, but more than OS X does)
Vista on the other hand, asks if you want to replace/merge folder and then if conflicting files are found in the folders it asks you if you want to overwrite the files, don't overwrite them, or create a second copy of the file in the same folder. File by File and Folder by Folder if you want, or you can hit a check box to mimic your response for all file and folders if you are moving a lot of files/folders.
It also will show you the two versions of the file or folder so you can make a decision based on which files/folders are newer, and you even get a thumbnail of the file for documents and pictures to be sure you are keeping the one you want.
(Very simple interface, but more has the functionality of the power geek that was always left to using tools like XCopy in the past.)
This is one of the 'little' Vista features that doesn't get any press, but is a lifesaver for people that move around a lot of data, as you can merge and update folders and files much easier.
Stuff like this is the reason I said if MS did a 'new features' list like the pety list Apple did with their 300 new features, Vista would have several thousand new features to list.
(Again MS's marketing sucks, since most people don't even know stuff like this exists in Vista, and it is both powerful, easy, and just works.)
is this even that critical? Doesn't leopard have the time machine in it? Can't you just go back and get your files out of the time machine if they were that important?
Only if a backup of the files was run, which is a requirement of Time Machine.
If this was Vista, then there would be a good chance to use 'previous versions' to recover the folder data, as it does not 'solely' rely on external backup for timeline file recovery. Vistas use volume level file version snapshots(a feature of NTFS that HPS+ doesn't support), so there are backups even on the drive if it hasn't ever been backed up.
(Remember Time Machine usually only runs once an hour, and all versioning or changes made in that hour are never kept or tracked.)
-PS Not trying to troll, but this is a perfect example of the difference between Vista's previous versions and Apple's Time Machine I have tried to point out in the past.
Vista does both volume level backups and external backups, unlike just external backups like Time Machine does.
See why IT people prefer Vista's method, even if a backup hasn't run that hour, even users themseleves can access files and folders rather easily that got deleted or changed. And since this has been around Since Windows 2003 Server, in corporate environments, even XP users accessing 2003 servers have had this feature for over 4 years now.
Vista's claim to fame is that it enables these features on the local hard drive, and also integrates with the Vista backup system, so file versions appear from the backups in addition to the 'snapshot versions' on the main hard drive.
the point is you were trying to say people getting Leopard are going to need to run out and upgrade their computers, and I was merely showing that a laptop (far from the pinnacle of performance) from 4 years ago didn't need anything before the upgrade. Now I do have to question why you feel it's important to mention your spouse using her laptop for gaming because if she is using a laptop that is over 4 years old (so I know no DX10 support and questionable DX9) as her main gaming system... I'm guessing she's not playing anything too intense.
Ya, they aren't running Crysis, but the laptop has a DX9 Gefore 5600 GPU, and runs even resource intensive MMOs like City of Heroes, and even what some consider to be more challenging on the hardware like Flight Simulator X. Sure it is an old laptop, but very Vista capable, especially for a 2003 laptop.
The point is, people act like they need a new computer to run Vista, which is FUD. Vista even will run well on a PIII 700mhz from the 90s. The only hardare Vista wants is RAM. PERIOD.
If you mean the field of understanding based on pulling shit out of your ass, then yes I'm out of your field of understanding, however as someone with roughly 28 years of high level computer experience on multiple platforms, a degree in computer science, and 13 years of professionally supporting computer users in multiple fields, when I make decisions it's based on reason and a better understanding than you have.
Wow, touched a nerve uh? The sad thing is you have no freaking idea who I am. And my comments were in response to you trying to talk down or bully me. I don't give a flying fuck if you have been 'PROFESSIONALY' doing anything for 13 years. Stupid people survive in every industry, and based on your reasoning, knowledge of issues, you are either inexperienced or stupid.
Would I sound better if I bloviated about my experience and career? How about: Look up at the ISS, I have software running there.
Does that make me an expert on all OSes and give me 'experience' on every platform? No. However my company is involved in several markets, and we have test labs in the US and Europe, so even if I don't get personal time with every platform, I have techs I can draw upon for information to make informed decisions.
Vista is not as bloated or irrelevant at the ignorance in the OSS world thinks it is, and this is why when MS pulls even further ahead in a couple of years, everyone here will be scratching their heads because they didn't take time to see what Vista was doing that no other OS was even attempting. I have been literally having to shove people in the OSS world to pay attention and not resort to technical religion to discount things that are out of the current OSS league just because MS made it.
Leopard is an ok upgrade for OS X. Some features were rushed, especially Time Machine where they were desparate to catch up to Windows 2003 server and Vista with regard to volume versioning snapshots and integrated timeline backups in Vista. And Apple couldn't pull off volume level versioning because of HPS+ and its inherent lack of features to do this seamlessly. (This is why a lot of geeks were championing ZFS, because like NTFS does have copy-on-write features)
Leopard however is a release with growing pains, as Apple is trying 'hard' to use SSx on the CPU for graphical core aspects, and this is not working as well as what they wanted. Instead of embracing a new GPU based graphical model that used OpenGL for more than textures and surfaces, they wouldn't have had to keep Quartz 2D 'unaccelerated' even in the Leopard release.
Sadly Apple's OS progression is directly tied to work by others, they don't have their 'own' internal graphical APIs, they don't have their own Graphical 3D technologies, and when OpenGl slips behind or Adobe doesn't keep pushing Display PDF forward fast enough, Apple is left scrambling, which is what has happened with Leopard. This symbiotic relationship workd well for them with the first OS X relea
I can tell you from 13 years of experience fixing people's computers, PC users are no less reluctant and no more knowledgeable about "clicking on links to update a codec"
Well in the Windows world, do a survey of most average users, they NEVER have had to update a codec. Since 1998, Windows Media Player obtains non installed codecs for the users without any 'clicking' at all.
If users 'choose' to use other codecs, chances are they know what they are doing already.
FYI, Leopard is running as fast or faster on my 4 year old Powerbook with no upgrades that it didn't have with Tiger and it's far from the minimum supported computer.
Try a Mac with a ATI Rage era Video card, you won't be quite as happy.
And FYI, what does this have to do with the point? One of my spouse's laptops is over 4 years old, is an HP, has 1GB of RAM, and runs Vista faster than XP as well. It even does Glass perfectly, and is their main gaming system. So, your point here is?
Why do all Mac users actually 'believe' the insane Apple ads on TV? Non Mac people look at the ads and go, wow, Apple is stretching the truth again, and Mac users cheer Apple on, which is strange cause they are basically just advertising to their own uneducated base already.
Go look up how many times Apple's advertising has been forced to be pulled in contries like the UK where they have tighter regulations about making fradulent and deceptive claims. No they weren't the first 64bit desktop or personal computer, no Vista doesn't need major upgrades, and Macs are not the security marvels they want you to believe.
Take this one little fact, you will find more Mac users upgrading RAM to run leopard than you will find people having to make ANY adjustments to run Vista based even on a equal market percentage.
If you choose to believe the Job's reality distortion, then good for you, have a good time with your computer, but don't try to lecture others when you technically are already out of your field of understanding.
But Microsoft will try to "fix" the problem with a closed, ambiguous system that requires frequent updates. That's what they do with everything else.
Even Silverlight on Linux is OSS, how is this MS closing everything down?
C# is an open standard out of MS's hand of control and even.NET is running well in OSS on *nix.
This appears to have more to do with 'not' breaking the current technologies, as that is what would have to happen to progress javascript forward in the direction mozilla and others want to take it.
It truly would be more efficient to create an 'extended' language so that current javascript doesn't get foobar in the process, even if they call the new language javascript++ and build from there to provide the new featuers.
Why is the OSS world supporting a major revision to javascript that would kill its current compatibility? Doesn't seem too bright, even if MS is the one arguing logically on this.
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Shadow Copy and the accompanying Backup utility program only ship on Vista Business and Vista Ultimate. Why not for Home users? Or at least Home Premium users? No f-ing clue.
Vista Basic is crippled, but I don't think this is missing from Vista Home Premium (the standard version most OEMs use).
Ultimate and Business add an additional backup system for complete PC backup and restoring from DVDs, Nework Shares, etc, Vista Home Premium has the regular back up system like XP where you have to reinstall and restore.
I completely agree that MS feked up bad with XP and Vista. There never should have been a home version of XP, nor Home versions of Vista, Ultimate and Business editions only, with the only difference is what is installed on the default installation.
VSS on servers has pretty much nothing to do with Vista as a desktop OS. It's using the same technology underneath, sure, but you can open a "Previous Versions" network share folder just as easily from XP as you can from Vista.
True Windows 2003 server supports this, however not the backup tracking.
Also this is relevant to Vista if it is on your network (like at home), Vista machines serving files provide this feature to other Vista clients.
Both silverlight and C# are PATENT encumbered! Even though stupid people are trying to implement them in OSS, they will never be free. Also, only the core is free, the actual useful bits are standard proprietary.
This is partially correct, but is putting emphasis on MS's only.
C# itself is not patent encombered, but how it works on Windows ties into how Windows displays user elements, which creates what you claim.
C# can be implemented with no ties to Windows and be MS free of patents and is an ISO controlled language standard.
Also, what about other patent encoumbered languages and sandboxes, like Java for example, that people have used even when it was tightly closed?
Even now that Java keeps creeping to OSS, it still has patents encumbering the basic implementation and syntax of the language itself. Sun even fought to take control back from ISO around 1997.
Yet OSS doters trust Java more? Strange, very strange.
People are actually using vista/longhorn/2003?
Ya, in fact more people are using Vista than all the Macs users combined. And Vista didn't quite meet their sales expectations. Strange uh?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=598
BTW Old Article link, last numbers I saw Vista sales were close to 100 million.
People should note this when they think OS X is taking over the world, it is little more than a 'press/marketing' thorn to MS, and even if the Apple user base doubles 3 or 4 times, it would still be irrelevant to MS...
Another thing which makes Time Machine so cool is that it is hooked into the filesystem at a low level. Rather than having to inspect the entire directory tree rsync-style, Time Machine uses the FSEvents interface to stay informed of filesystem changes. FSEvents isn't perfect (it actually only records when a directory's contents have changed) but it beats rsync-ish traversal any day.
In my opinion, without such a method for watching FS changes as they occur (or later, from a log), any hackish solution will fall far short of Time Machine's performance.
Um, this is splitting hairs a bit.
Using your logic as a basis of 'better' someone could also 'one up' Time Machine by pointing out that Vista's equivalent feature works at both the monitoring level and the 'copy-on-write' level of the FS, which is something HFS+ isn't even capable of doing.
Then point out that this is why Time Machine is slower than 'Previous Versions' on Vista and why Time Machine cannot use volume level snapshots and how Vista is keeping more granual versioning with virtually NO performance loss.
This could even be extended to why Time Machine can't use compressed backup stores to save space because of its ties to using HardLinks, and having no FS level compression support.
(Little things like this are important, ask all the Time Machine users screaming in the Apple forums as fast as Apple can delete their posts. Two patches so far, and they are still having problems because of Time Machine's need for HFS+ on the external drive. - Which also makes the drive worthless for anything but just being a Time Machine stooge.)
Bottom line:
The Linux stuff is a step in the right direction, I wouldn't start picking at details to bolster OS X, as Vista can technically and easily trump what OS X is doing as well, so back off Linux nitpicking, and encourage what is being done to make backups easier...
Time Machine's ability to simply browse backwards through time in the folder, whilst still having the folder functionality usable is far beyond BackupPC.
I agree it is not just Backup software.
However, this is ALSO why 'previous versions' in Vista is more than a snapshot/backup interface as well. In Vista you can view folders as they exist at any previous time and even drag and drop the folder or files you want from the folder at a specific time in history.
Time Machine = 3D Interface of Files/Folders
Vista = Timeline List of Files/Folders
Time Machine = Uncompressed Backups to External Drive
Vista = Compressed Backups ANYWHERE + File Version Snapshots on main Hard Drive + Works on Servers and across networks (ie Can use Previous Versions on Folders/Files you have access to on Servers or other computers, and it displays that folder's snapshots and backups.)
Time Machine = Great Marketing
Vista = MS's Sucky Marketing
So Time Machine gets the cool buzz, when Vista is the cooler of the two technologies...
Yep that is a sweet feature, and works the same freaking way in Vista.
Why on earth did MS's marketing not run with this feature and rename it 'super duper time traveler'...
Not quite... You find the the file you want on one of the backups, then click a "Restore" button. You cannot drag and drop from the backups.
Sadly you can drag and drop from Vista's 'Previous Versions' (snapshot/backup) interface...
Again I submit, Vista not only does more than Time Machine, but is easier to use.
Apple's 5 releases have also included multiple updates to the underpinnings, frameworks, and the like [I still clearly remember the pain of dealing with the myriad deprecated Frameworks interfaces in the 10.0 .. 10.3 time frame].
You have a valid argument, however you are greatly discounting MS's work and inflating Apples.
1) The OS X upgrades are not all full scale OS revisions, many of the OS X series are more about updating things like iPhoto or adding Safari then any substantial OS level changes.
2) MS Supplied a lot of updates for not only problems, but architectural changes in SP2 and also has kept updating OS applications like Movie Maker, Media Player, Messenger, etc.
3) Vista is more a rewrite and has more architectural changes than any other version of NT that came before it. Even going from 3.51 to 4.0 NT was not even a drop in the bucket, and even the large jump from NT 4.0 to Win2K and the new domain and AD systems and architectural changes don't even compare to the changes in Vista compared to XP.
Vista doesn't look a lot different or work a lot different than XP, but that is what makes it more outstanding than people realize, as the OS is using a new network stack, video system, printing system, audio stack, and yet virtually everything still works and just as well as it did on XP, even though everything is running on a different architecture.
Truly take a look at what MS has did instead of 'expecting' more from them. The change from XP to Vista is something they basically pulled off in three years of development, and is 10x the progression they have ever did on any other OS update in their history.
They also should get some props for not only pulling off Vista but maintaining the level of compatibility with hardware and software that they did, as it supports more hardware and more software by a factor of 100x than any other consumer OS. And that is pretty staggering.
If MS only had to work with their own hardware and have more control over the software produced like Apple does, then they would deserve the slapping people are trying to give them over Vista, but when dealing witht he scale they are, Vista is quite impressive that it even runs at all, let alone faster, and more stable than XP.
People also like to talk about security and quality, yet Leopard has had several showstoppers that wouldn't have made it out of MS's automated testing systems, let alone to a retail box. Vista has had no massive data loss cases, or things like the blue screen lockup of Leopard.
Also look at security for the last year, Vista even being a new OS, and already more copies running than all of the OS X sales combined, had less patches, updates, or security fixes than OS X or even XP that it replaces.
Just take a breath and try to look at both sides of the coin. You don't have to hate one side to like the other.
Take Care...
Ok, you need a nap after all that. :)
First you really should try or at least look at the technical aspects of Vista, most everything that you have a legitimate bitch about is no longer true.
Junctions? LOL. To the extent they work (and/or the extent to which the now-deceased Sysinternals slightly different implementation and corresponding tool) work or ever have worked, junctions are nothing more than an embarrassing and goofy implementation of symlinks. I'd give Microsoft another 2 OS releases to come up with something that's standard and useful. Put simply, Microsoft doesn't get symlinks. They want people to use shortcuts.
MS has supplied tools since Win2K. However in Vista not only are they available, but a key and critical part of the OS. To illustrate, many things that moved in Vista use them for compatibillity, like \Documents and Settings are now Junctions to \Users
Alternate data streams a great feature? Name 3 people who know WTF they are, how they work, or a single example of their use.
Other than every Mac user that shares or stores documents on a Windows in their house?
Windows doesn't report sector read/write errors (no underlying terminal, and lack of logging are just two reasons) so you'd never know when a disk is going bad and read/write errors are occurring.
Actually Vista does, and even alerts users of errors from HD errors or SMART codes.
Do you know whether *any* sort of check is run at boot time?
Um, not unless the volume is flagged. With XP the chance of an NTFS volume needed a chkdsk is pretty rare. NTFS is very good at protecting data and preventing even power off problems.
With Vista the need for a user to run chkdsk is virtually gone.
Why is Vista different? Well Vista first adds in an extended version of journaling. Then Vista has background HD reliability, in that when a write or read error occurs the OS notices this and runs internal checks on that area of the HD for problems. And even if the HD is increasing failing, it will relocate all the data around those blocks to safe areas and mark them bad.If this continues to get worse the OS does more than make a note in the journal it gives the user an alert.
Oh, did I mention fragmentation? You'll need to pay for a utility to manage that problem, because what's offered by Microsoft (bought, actually) is as dumbed-down as it is featureless. Fragmentation not a problem? Create a new and roomy partition. Copy over a few large files. I guarantee each of them will have hundreds of fragments and be spread all over.
You should go look up the 'decision' process NTFS uses when saving or copying files. It is a good urban myth that NTFS sucks, but actually it is one of the better FS implementations for keeping fragmenting down, and also one of the better systems for not allowing fragmenting to slow file access performance due ot the nature of the MFT.
There are a few FS that may fragment less, but not with the copy-on-write features of NTFS. This is why ZFS also tends to fragment more than the average generic FS. Some features have an inherent cost, and this is one of them, but worth the snapshot abilities NTFS provides.
Also the Vista defrag tools not only defrag properly but optimized file layout for performance (XP did too), but Vista's defrag also handles the MFT, registry, and other files that were locked in Win2K and XP.
Grandma can use Time Machine easier. It's way simpler. Quite intuitive IMHO. Vista's version certainly works and is easy for someone who is computer savvy, but Apple just made restoring files as easy as it can get.
Really? Opening Time Machine and scrolling through times/dates and windows is faster?
In Vista you right click on a file or folder - select Previous Versions and are given a timeline list of all the versions available.
I would bet if you saw the Vista feature, you would go, WTF, why didn't Apple just make it simple and work this easy.
For some reason people only notice the 'backup & restore center' in Vista, which is NOT what is being talked about here. Previous Versions in Vista is just a right click away in any folder or open/save box.
My personal choice would be to have the Vista version because it works easier and does more, and combine that with the Apple marketing team so everyone in the world is screaming to have it like a petulant child.
Yes. Perhaps. And unfortunately so do the bugs, hangs, crashes, and hundreds of thousands of vulnerabilities because the system at rock bottom is hopeless and beyond help. No amount of end user features will ever take away from that. Or do you want the world to continue to get inundated with spam and exploits because the file management API is better?
Go look up NT, the core of Windows. Then try to find someone that says NT is a bad design, especially for its time.
I won't argue Win32 is the best or most secure OS API set, but it is just a subsystem that sits on NT, and not NT.
I also won't argue that MS didn't fek up by not enforcing NT security in WinXP, but they learned their lesson. However, this doesn't discount the fact that NT has always had a very robust and intrinsic token based security model.
However I will stop people that think NT is a poorly written OS, or a bad design.
I think you, TheNetAvenger (624455), are a paid Microsoft shill.
Sorry, just run a large company and deal with this stuff on a daily basis. When you are helping companies that in turn provide support to 1000s of companies, you tend to see a few things.
Prior to what I am doing now I was an OS engineer and taught OS theory for a few years in addition to a few years in UI research.
So when it comes to OS concepts, architecture, and usability, this is kind of my hobby.
Actually, Time Machine runs every two minutes.
You sure on the 2 minute thing? My Techs said it runs about once an hour when demoing it.
Another problem with Time Machine is when you are editing large photos or Video files. Imagine a 4GB Video file being backed up every hour, the backup drive fills rather fast, and then it starts to compromise other data if you have several large files being backed up every hour.
One of our Video editors has already turned off Time Machine and threatened our techs with death if they turn it back on.
Fanbois don't seem to realize that even with Firewire (or USB) shoving GBs of data to an external drive once an hour DOES slow down the OS, even when running at a low priority.
Notice that OS X doesn't allow you to use Time Machine on network shares for backups like Vista does. Time machine would saturate networks and bring most business networks to a crawl during the hourly backup.
I'll have to check on the 2 minute thing later today, I was pretty sure it ran hourly. I can't imagine it trying to backup every 2 minutes, as it wouldn't have time to complete one backup before another one was due, even with minimal file changes.
Compare that to Vista's clunky "Backup and Restore Center", which you have to use if you want to backup your files on an alternate volume. I guarantee you that using "Backup and Restore Center" is beyond most average users. Sure, it might be "better", but what good is it if it never gets used?
Why would you even be in the Backup and Restore Center?
Right click any file or folder and select 'Previous Versions' a timeline list of all the file versions are presented, INCLUDING any that are present on external/network backups.
From the timeline list dialog you can copy, restore, open, preview, open the folder from that time period on every version of the document or folder in the list.
I think MS made theirs a bit too simple, maybe if they would have created an application that had stobe lights and took 2 minutes to load to 'enter the time machine' people would think MS is also cool.
But instead they just make it intuitive, easy, and even available from dialog boxes of applications written 10 years ago.
Truly not trying to pick on you, but because it is such an elegant part of Vista, you like a lot of other people don't seem to realize it is even there.
Personally I prefer the MS interface 10x over Time Machine for use, especially since it is a clear timeline based list, and works from any shell object like dialog boxes, explorer folders, etc.
I will admit though the 'spacey' look of Time Machine is kind of cute, just not so functional when all I need to do is grab an earlier version of a document or folder I am working on.
For example: Right Click - Restore Previous Versions - Drag the version I want to my desktop.
(This is where I repeat, MS's marketing is insanely stupid. They should have been showing off features like this instead of the stupid Flip3D crap that even Vista users don't care about.)
Sorry, but yes.. Here this site explains it in lay terms better than the MS tech docs.
http://www.tmurgent.com/Tool_ATM.aspx
PS, I should also mention...
This also doesn't take into account sync features in either XP or Vista.
(Which is a different topic, but is why in the Windows world, merging or copying froms to and from server shares is transparent once turned on and most users don't have to copy or merge folders in these situations. If the Mac OS X user that found this bug had a feature like offline files, they probably wouldn't have been moving data back and forth to the server by hand.)
If you are using external shares with either OS, using offline files handles the folder syncing automatically, so you don't have to do anything when you reconnect to your network, it just merges the files/folders automatically, ensuring no data is lost and is transparent to the user.
This is obviously used more on laptops, but even in corporate environments, where users could potentially be knocked offline from other workstations or servers. The data is still available, and when the network/servers come back online, all the users content is then updated to the server/workstations.
Vista also adds many new features in offline files, for example file comparisons, so only the changed parts of a file are transmited, it also is smarter about knowing what is new data, and merging files from multiple users on a share.
It also does several other things like encrypting the offline files, so if it is a laptop, the data pulled from the corporate server can't ever be retrieved if the laptop is stolen.
Kind of off subject, but handy and another set of about 50 features just in the changes in Vista Offline file technology that MS never touts or even mentions in the press.
Basically, it nukes the conflicting /alpha/baz and then performs the copy. Brain dead behavior if you ask me.
Vista works very differently, not only Folders are confirmed but every file in the folders are confirmed with options to replace/don't copy/create second copy...
So ya this sucked in older versions of Windows, but Vista does a great job of handling this, better than any other GUI file manager I have ever seen to date.
Maybe you should try Vista instead of OSX... But again if MS was doing their job and was touting features like this in Vista, people would find more reasons why Vista has a lot of things to offer. Instead MS's marketing is retarded and nice features like this are NEVER mentioned and none of even the tech press notices them or points them out to users.
And trust me when I say there are literally 1000s of features like this that make the difference between Vista and XP night and day for daily usage.
Windows will ask if you are replacing files with the same name, but will otherwise merge them. Say you have two folders both called "stuff", one has files name "one, two, three" and the other has files names "four, five, six". If you drag the first one onto the second one in Windows, you get a folder with "one, two, thee, four, five, six" and on Max you get "one, two, three"; the other files get erased. Not set to the trash can; erased.
You act like you are talking about Windows95 and not Win2K, XP, and especially Vista.
Win2k forced users to go through 'every file' to confirm any overwrites, XP added a features so you could Shift click to tell it to overwrite all of them, and Vista has a very elaborate system of merging folders, you should check out a modern version of Windows, and especially Vista.
They simply do not work like this anymore, in fact for 10 years now unless you are doing something really wrong.
Win2K and XP power users would also use XCopy, Vista brings a lot of the validation and automation of the merging feature to Explorer, and I haven't needed to use XCopy in Vista.
I haven't noticed different behavior in any version of Windows. How do you merge similarly named folders during a copy/move in Windows? In my experience you get the same "Do you want to replace this?" type prompt you get in OS X.
Serious answer...
XP offers a basic, do you want to replace folder and a basic do you want to replace files. (Very generic, but more than OS X does)
Vista on the other hand, asks if you want to replace/merge folder and then if conflicting files are found in the folders it asks you if you want to overwrite the files, don't overwrite them, or create a second copy of the file in the same folder. File by File and Folder by Folder if you want, or you can hit a check box to mimic your response for all file and folders if you are moving a lot of files/folders.
It also will show you the two versions of the file or folder so you can make a decision based on which files/folders are newer, and you even get a thumbnail of the file for documents and pictures to be sure you are keeping the one you want.
(Very simple interface, but more has the functionality of the power geek that was always left to using tools like XCopy in the past.)
This is one of the 'little' Vista features that doesn't get any press, but is a lifesaver for people that move around a lot of data, as you can merge and update folders and files much easier.
Stuff like this is the reason I said if MS did a 'new features' list like the pety list Apple did with their 300 new features, Vista would have several thousand new features to list.
(Again MS's marketing sucks, since most people don't even know stuff like this exists in Vista, and it is both powerful, easy, and just works.)
is this even that critical? Doesn't leopard have the time machine in it? Can't you just go back and get your files out of the time machine if they were that important?
Only if a backup of the files was run, which is a requirement of Time Machine.
If this was Vista, then there would be a good chance to use 'previous versions' to recover the folder data, as it does not 'solely' rely on external backup for timeline file recovery. Vistas use volume level file version snapshots(a feature of NTFS that HPS+ doesn't support), so there are backups even on the drive if it hasn't ever been backed up.
(Remember Time Machine usually only runs once an hour, and all versioning or changes made in that hour are never kept or tracked.)
-PS Not trying to troll, but this is a perfect example of the difference between Vista's previous versions and Apple's Time Machine I have tried to point out in the past.
Vista does both volume level backups and external backups, unlike just external backups like Time Machine does.
See why IT people prefer Vista's method, even if a backup hasn't run that hour, even users themseleves can access files and folders rather easily that got deleted or changed. And since this has been around Since Windows 2003 Server, in corporate environments, even XP users accessing 2003 servers have had this feature for over 4 years now.
Vista's claim to fame is that it enables these features on the local hard drive, and also integrates with the Vista backup system, so file versions appear from the backups in addition to the 'snapshot versions' on the main hard drive.
the point is you were trying to say people getting Leopard are going to need to run out and upgrade their computers, and I was merely showing that a laptop (far from the pinnacle of performance) from 4 years ago didn't need anything before the upgrade. Now I do have to question why you feel it's important to mention your spouse using her laptop for gaming because if she is using a laptop that is over 4 years old (so I know no DX10 support and questionable DX9) as her main gaming system... I'm guessing she's not playing anything too intense.
Ya, they aren't running Crysis, but the laptop has a DX9 Gefore 5600 GPU, and runs even resource intensive MMOs like City of Heroes, and even what some consider to be more challenging on the hardware like Flight Simulator X. Sure it is an old laptop, but very Vista capable, especially for a 2003 laptop.
The point is, people act like they need a new computer to run Vista, which is FUD. Vista even will run well on a PIII 700mhz from the 90s. The only hardare Vista wants is RAM. PERIOD.
If you mean the field of understanding based on pulling shit out of your ass, then yes I'm out of your field of understanding, however as someone with roughly 28 years of high level computer experience on multiple platforms, a degree in computer science, and 13 years of professionally supporting computer users in multiple fields, when I make decisions it's based on reason and a better understanding than you have.
Wow, touched a nerve uh? The sad thing is you have no freaking idea who I am. And my comments were in response to you trying to talk down or bully me. I don't give a flying fuck if you have been 'PROFESSIONALY' doing anything for 13 years. Stupid people survive in every industry, and based on your reasoning, knowledge of issues, you are either inexperienced or stupid.
Would I sound better if I bloviated about my experience and career? How about: Look up at the ISS, I have software running there.
Does that make me an expert on all OSes and give me 'experience' on every platform? No. However my company is involved in several markets, and we have test labs in the US and Europe, so even if I don't get personal time with every platform, I have techs I can draw upon for information to make informed decisions.
Vista is not as bloated or irrelevant at the ignorance in the OSS world thinks it is, and this is why when MS pulls even further ahead in a couple of years, everyone here will be scratching their heads because they didn't take time to see what Vista was doing that no other OS was even attempting. I have been literally having to shove people in the OSS world to pay attention and not resort to technical religion to discount things that are out of the current OSS league just because MS made it.
Leopard is an ok upgrade for OS X. Some features were rushed, especially Time Machine where they were desparate to catch up to Windows 2003 server and Vista with regard to volume versioning snapshots and integrated timeline backups in Vista. And Apple couldn't pull off volume level versioning because of HPS+ and its inherent lack of features to do this seamlessly. (This is why a lot of geeks were championing ZFS, because like NTFS does have copy-on-write features)
Leopard however is a release with growing pains, as Apple is trying 'hard' to use SSx on the CPU for graphical core aspects, and this is not working as well as what they wanted. Instead of embracing a new GPU based graphical model that used OpenGL for more than textures and surfaces, they wouldn't have had to keep Quartz 2D 'unaccelerated' even in the Leopard release.
Sadly Apple's OS progression is directly tied to work by others, they don't have their 'own' internal graphical APIs, they don't have their own Graphical 3D technologies, and when OpenGl slips behind or Adobe doesn't keep pushing Display PDF forward fast enough, Apple is left scrambling, which is what has happened with Leopard. This symbiotic relationship workd well for them with the first OS X relea
I can tell you from 13 years of experience fixing people's computers, PC users are no less reluctant and no more knowledgeable about "clicking on links to update a codec"
Well in the Windows world, do a survey of most average users, they NEVER have had to update a codec. Since 1998, Windows Media Player obtains non installed codecs for the users without any 'clicking' at all.
If users 'choose' to use other codecs, chances are they know what they are doing already.
FYI, Leopard is running as fast or faster on my 4 year old Powerbook with no upgrades that it didn't have with Tiger and it's far from the minimum supported computer.
Try a Mac with a ATI Rage era Video card, you won't be quite as happy.
And FYI, what does this have to do with the point? One of my spouse's laptops is over 4 years old, is an HP, has 1GB of RAM, and runs Vista faster than XP as well. It even does Glass perfectly, and is their main gaming system. So, your point here is?
Why do all Mac users actually 'believe' the insane Apple ads on TV? Non Mac people look at the ads and go, wow, Apple is stretching the truth again, and Mac users cheer Apple on, which is strange cause they are basically just advertising to their own uneducated base already.
Go look up how many times Apple's advertising has been forced to be pulled in contries like the UK where they have tighter regulations about making fradulent and deceptive claims. No they weren't the first 64bit desktop or personal computer, no Vista doesn't need major upgrades, and Macs are not the security marvels they want you to believe.
Take this one little fact, you will find more Mac users upgrading RAM to run leopard than you will find people having to make ANY adjustments to run Vista based even on a equal market percentage.
If you choose to believe the Job's reality distortion, then good for you, have a good time with your computer, but don't try to lecture others when you technically are already out of your field of understanding.
But Microsoft will try to "fix" the problem with a closed, ambiguous system that requires frequent updates. That's what they do with everything else.
.NET is running well in OSS on *nix.
Even Silverlight on Linux is OSS, how is this MS closing everything down?
C# is an open standard out of MS's hand of control and even
This appears to have more to do with 'not' breaking the current technologies, as that is what would have to happen to progress javascript forward in the direction mozilla and others want to take it.
It truly would be more efficient to create an 'extended' language so that current javascript doesn't get foobar in the process, even if they call the new language javascript++ and build from there to provide the new featuers.
Why is the OSS world supporting a major revision to javascript that would kill its current compatibility? Doesn't seem too bright, even if MS is the one arguing logically on this.
They already tried that crap with c#.
What don't those retards understand about the word "standards"?
Which retards? C# is a standard that exists far beyond MS...