You act like this is a 'new' or abstract concept to Windows NT.
I suggest you go look up the NT kernel architecture. It already bridges the best of both worlds of mono and micro designs and why NT is described as a hybrid kernel or a client/server kernel.
Everyone acts like the Win 7 stuff is 'new' to Microsoft, but don't seem to realize that the kernel technology in NT is on par or even more advanced than other kernel technologies in every other OS out there, including OS X, Linux, etc.
The Win 7 and other kernel concepts being thrown around at MS are the 'next' generation in kernel designs that are ahead of the rest of the industry, even though it is unpopular to state this on SlashDot.
When NT was developed, it took the best Kernel concepts of the time, many of which were only 'theory' and adapted them into a new technology that didn't have the weight or shortcomings that other kernel implementations of the time did. This is why the kernel and HAL in Vista is not a massive change from the original designs in 1992. It was made to take the best of the time so that it would last for 15-20 years, which was a stated design goal of the time, and they succeeded.
Win 7 stuff will be the next generation, and sadly MS is taking the lead in moving 'theory' into actual practice once again, and unless the OSS world is paying attention MS will leapfrop the industry, just as NT was a major jump of the kernel technologies of 1992.
PS the calls do NOT have to be slower, see the internal structure of the NT kernel that already is subsystem 'virtual' based. (Hence why Win32/Win64/BDS all run on the NT kernel in abstract subsystem layers that don't talk directly to the kernel already.)
Since the system took 10 minutes to get to the login prompt
You must of had some serious hardware issues. If you had 12mb of RAM, or 16mb of RAM NT 3.1 booted as fast as the DOS Win 3.1, and yes even the server version, as there was even less distinction between the workstation and server versions then.
We moved all our development and tech employees and their respective servers to NT 3.1 in 1993, and trust me this would never of happened if it took 10 minutes to boot.
Average system Specs: 486-33/66 12/16mb RAM...
PS Compared to our Novell Servers, NT file operations (especially remote booting clients) was 2-4x as fast as Novell. Trust me, MS didn't 'dent' the Novell market because NT sucked. Not only was it faster, easier to manage for small business but was a great application server platform, something Novell 'never' got.
Sorry - I just did a bit of looking on Wikipedia and realized that 3.5 wasn't the first NT. There was apparently a short-lived Windows NT 3.1, though I've never personally seen it.
Glad you checked, because the NT 3.1 CDs I have sure seem to be real.;)
Actually 3.1 of NT was around for a while, and it made the first moves in the server and workstation areas for MS. It also was the premiere OS for the new Alpha CPU line.
Also anyone that attended the 1992 CES would easily be able to correct the 3.1 omission as NT 3.1 was freaking everywhere.
You also didn't reference NT 3.51 which was more important than 3.5 as it brought the Win32 API in line with Win95, and the UI from NT 4.0 originally ran on NT 3.51, although the UI was never 'officially' released for 3.51.
BTW Thanks for separating the Consumer and NT line of OSes... Too many people STILL confuse Win9X with current Windows OSes, and they are as different as System 9 and OS X is.
It sounds like a high-level player finally decided to take on Exchange. My biggest questions: are there Windows programs that support these features via CalDAV, and is there a CalDAV server in FreeBSD's ports?
I don't see this as a move to take on 'high-level' solutions. If anything, this sounds more like the Calendar sharing features Vista uses (Local,Network,Web).
It scares me sometimes that things like 'upping' shared calendars and other features Windows has had for almost ten years is touted as being 'revolutionary'.
And yes I am talking about basic Windows calendar sharing, not even exchange solutions...
"Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we've ever released," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "And everyone gets the 'Ultimate' version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.""
Plus the Apple Hardware Tax and the Apple previous OS purchase tax. So the Ultimate Version of OS X costs what now? $1199? $1399?
Just the OS costs alone are more than Vista Ultimate edition, let alone the premium costs of Apple hardware that is borderline crap even though Apple sadly tries to sell the hardware as the best.
And yes Macs are mid-range hardware... Until Apple stops selling:
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (256MB) ATI Radeon X1900 (512MB) ATI Radeon HD 2600 (256MB)...As 'top of the line' performance graphics cards, they will be nothing more than mid range performance computers.
Especially considering my 2 year old laptop with a Geforce 7950 GTX (512MB) is faster than ANYTHING you can get in a Mac from Apple Desktop or Notebook. And I think this is REALLY sad considering people think Macs are 'better' or 'faster' for graphics, which is not even close to being true...
So please, give us more jokes of how cheap OS X 'ultimate' is... I am dying laughing...:)
Although I won't discount your point, your numbers are not accurate.
It starts...
Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 5.0 (Windows 2000) Windows NT 5.1 (Windows XP) Windows NT 6.0 (Windows Vista)
The Win 3.1-Win9x-WinME are not in the same OS family nor do their version numbers have anything to do with Windows NT other than NT 3.1 was given this version because of Win 3.1 on DOS that was released the previous year.
So the version and point release is accurate, but you are mixing two different OSes families in your analogy.
This would as big of a mistake as going Linux 1.0, 2.0, OS X, 10.2 (See Linux and OSX are not the same OSes either.)
Ok, I don't truly mind that the majority of FOSS software has a geek mindset and the UIs tend to reflect and look like the UIs of the Win9x era.
However, can we ever get to the point that the 'best' horse that gets trotted out for OSS Gaming looks like the era of games released for Windows95?
It is just not possible for a high end gaming production to be FOSS?
One further sad note... I have seen games developed by newbie gaming developers that are picking up XNA and MS Game Studio and producing higher quality games in terms of playability and especially in the area of graphics/audio.
Can't we do better than your neighbors kids and his/her friends designing an XNA came in C# that runs on their PC and the XBox 360 as well?
PS. You should really have a 'review' of the game, when you write an article 'reviewing' a game, and not just a quick intro of key commands.
Just a small step up in photovoltaics would make this very possible. A jump from about 15-20% to 30-40% efficiency would make technology like this easily viable.
Windows isn't so much "picked" as "defaulted", specifically because of the bundling practices. If Windows is so great that it can compete on its own merits, why doesn't Microsoft propose to unbundle? Certainly, they can then squeeze more money out of those who choose to buy it retail?
You act like the bundling is a MS choice or dictation in the market. As a prior owner of a large OEM, MS never had anything to do with the decisions in what OSes our company installed.
Sure if some companies signed an exclusive they would save 5 bucks a copy, but a lot of OEMs never did this, including our company (and this was in the 'forced' MS monopoly era where this licensing was considered unfair, even though IBM tried to offer OS/2 deals the same way.)
If you want to blame 'bundling' on anyone, you need to call up the OEM MFRs and scream at them. However they still will tend to choose Windows because of the device and hardware support it DOES offer over other OSes. This is a lot of money in saved support because Windows DOES work well and has the most driver support on a very complex and infinite configuration platform.
MS doesn't force bundling down anyone's throat, and they are prohibited from doing 'exclusive' bundling deals for several years now post the Monopoly ruling.
If Windows was crap and just being forced on users, then when MS no longer could push exclusive bundling deals, Linux or OS X would have easily taken its place in the market, especially considering the VM technology that has existed for years to run Windows apps on these platforms, no longer requiring Windows for any users. Yet MS kept the market share even when forced to play more than nice, in fact nicer than any other software company had to.
Actually, I think you're missing the point - competition only works when there is no pre-existing monopoly that got there via illegal means.
We depend on the government to step in to protect us from predators who use illegal means to gain control of a market, same as we depend on them, via police and firemen, for local protection from robbers and fire.
Extreme situations call for extreme measures - unbundling sales of the OS isn't anywhere near extreme. To turn your argument on its head - if Windows is so good, it should have no fear of being able to compete in a truly free marketplace, solely on its merit.
Free competition scares the crap out of Microsoft, because it can't win. Where its forced to compete, it loses market share - just look at the embedded, server, and cluster markets.
Uh? Are you out of the loop?
Windows is at the top of sever, and even most cluster markets. Are you from Mars? Even in the embedded area, which they have only been pursing since WinXP SP2, they are a strong viable product, go look at the routers and MFR equipment with Windows embedded being used.
As for MS being scared when force to compete fairly or with a free OS market... Ok, this is where a good WalMart analogy works. Walmart has tried several times over the past few years to push Linux computers to people that how no idea even what Windows is let alone Linux, and yet they couldn't keep sales and return and support rates were through the roof.
You act like MS strangles the the distribution chains. This is one area they have little to no influence, and yet no major vendor can even pry open a non-Windows based system into the market. Even OS X as well as Apple is at marketing and being 'kewl' and even being price competitive has gained what, a fraction of a % in over couple of years?
People are NOY mindless drones, business has some of the smartest IT people around, and yet Windows is 'picked' for a reason. I know this is SlashDot, but people here are in their own reality when it comes what people prefer, and how well Windows does work today and how well it does meet the basic needs of people.
The hacked, crashing Win9x/Win2k era is over, even if most SlashDot users don't realize they have to compete on more than security and stability, because end users don't see that as a problem with Windows anymore.
Bungie devs have become, and 'continue' to be some of the strongest propoents of DirectX and XBox technologies, so don't expect an OpenGL release for other platforms anytime soon.
What you can expect, Bungie gets a bit more money and the ability to branch out beyond Halo. Bungie will also probably take their work with MS studios for game 'play' testing innovations and possibly do consulting on other software titles.
IS it really that the DX10 gives you the ability to stuff more complex code into shaders?
No it means the cards must SUPPORT these GPU operations, unlike previous generation where NVidia or ATI did not have GPU support for many mainstream features. (ie. making it easier on developers, as when they call for shadows, they don't have to care what card is in the user's machine.)
This is the same as DX10 requiring GPUs to support pre-emptive scheduling being handled by the OS (Vista) and DX10 requiring GPUs to support non-visual computing like physics on the GPU via the DX10 apis...
For people that think there is 'little' difference between DX10 and DX9 for that 'precious 1-2fps lost', or that soft shadows are not a part of DX10, just look at this simple HD video that shows the difference. DX9 looks great, but DX10 looks almost real with far more 'actions' going on in the same scene.
That's great, except for the fact that shadows don't have crisp edges in the real world. Unless it's illuminated by a point-source (which immediately excludes the sun, lamps, flashlights, and pretty much every other light source you're likely to encounter), there will be a penumbra. The DX9 image here: http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1031/big_stateofdx10_wic_shad.jpg is more realistic.
Not sure how this got confused by either bioshock or the reviewers...
DirectX 10 allows for both 'crisp' or 'soft' shadowing, as some games demonstrate, the DirectX 10 shadows are 'softer' and more realistic.
The 'difference' with DirectX 10 is that shadows are done on the GPU, in DirectX9 shadows are done on the CPU. This is the 'main' difference between DX9 and DX10.
The 'crisp' choice by bioshock is NOT what DX10 is about, this is a game developer choice. PERIOD.
I know reviews like this can lead people down wrong paths, but it doesn't hurt to look up this type of information before making fun of a fact that is incorrect in the first place.
It is strange that any site 'reviewing' DX10 in comparison to DX9 would not even know the basic 'consumer' terminology for the differences, so they would know what they were looking at... Maybe someday we can get a review posted on SlashDot that is actually done by gaming professionals... (gasp)
Here is a quick list from the MS Consumer Info site on DirectX10, notice the reference to shadows specifically. ----------------------- Summary
In summary, DirectX10 provides the following benefits to gamers:
More life-like materials and characters with: Animated fur & vegetation Softer/sharper shadows Richer scenes; complex environments Thicker forests, larger armies! Dynamic and ever-changing in-game scenarios Realistic motion blurring Volumetric effects Thicker, more realistic smoke/clouds
Other Realistic reflections/refractions on water/cars/glass Reduced load on CPU
-Re-routes bulk of graphics processing to GPU
-Avoids glitching & system hangs during game play
I am far from an Apple apologist, but I have seen several laptop brands that have poor range when using internal bluetooth.
5 feet is extra short though. Usually 20feet range with a lot of 2.4ghz interference will kill a lot of bluetooth.
Sadly bluetooth is in a saturated radio range, and doesn't push much power. When it was first 'designed' it was more viable than when it started getting used as it is today with all the usage in the same range.
However, for the 'premium' people pay for Apple products, they deserve to get the upper end of components, and anymore Apple is average when it comes to hardware.
And evidently the XP Bluetooth stack is some third party thing you can uninstall and reinstall, because I had to reinstall it to even get it to do anything.
Your problem sounds more like an issue with the phone.
However, there is a Microsoft Bluetooth Stack available for XP, and Vista ships with a native stack.
Microsoft made a big mistake when creating Windows, though not one most of us would have foreseen in the early '90s-- they made Windows 3.1 a single-user OS and thanks to their dedication to backwards-compatibility ended up being stuck with it.
I will introduce you to a new technology for you to research. It is called NT and is over 15years old. Why the introduction, well if you are so stupid to still correlate Windows with 3.1 concepts then you obviously have no freaking idea what NT is.
The argument you make could be said of Unix of 1969 compared to BSD or Linux of today. Do you really think they haven't changed either?
How crazy is your life to even correlate thoughts like this? Let me guess... As you say, "Windows is still like 3.0," you run around in circles and scream 'dee dee dee'?
Just for time comparisons, I'll let you take a brand new HP Vista laptop, Power it up, make a set of recovery disks, connect wireless, and create a couple user accounts.
You are either making up a good story are just full of crap.
1) HP Vista laptops ship with recovery DVDs, there is no reason to create one.
2) Connecting to wireless is as easy as clicking on the freaking ballon that says, networks are available, click to connect to one, and even if it is WPA or WEP, you type in the freaking number or insert the USB drive with the key.
3) Setting up accounts is hard on Vista? Wow, then you better run from any *nix. Control Panel -> User accounts -> Create new account (Type Name and Password, select security level) Done...
4) Product activation is automatic if you tell it to just activate when you are online, or one click in the control panel.
5) AV Software? Wow, that is tough, download AVG, and you are done.
So again tell us how this took you ALL DAY?
I'll call you out on this, as I just delivered several new HP laptops to family and friends that don't even understand the difference between the left and right mouse buttons, and they ALL completed the tasks you describe by themselves in under 5 minutes...
So which is it, are you really that stupid or lying to get positive SlashDot points?
This is also like protected processes in Vista, but in the FOSS world, people think it is DRM, when it is actually security and doesn't have anything to do with the Video protected path for HDCP...
So why should we expect anyone to understand security when they can't figure out simple differences and easily confuse security with DRM?
Vista runs on even 700mhz machines just fine, and these date back to 1999. Oh and Vista does graphics acceleration (not Aero, but GDI/WPF) on DirectX7 generation cards, that go back to 1998 (this is the equivalent of Quartz Extreme).
If Vista had OS X's requirements, people REALLY would have screamed about Vista requiring new hardware. Oh wait, wasn't that the Apple commercials telling everyon that? LOL
Vista runs fine on 700mhz processors with 1Gb of RAM. PERIOD. And now OS X won't even do 800mhz on PowerPC which ALWAYS ran mhz behind intel because it was more powerful? The 800mhz limit would be like Vista being limted to 1.5ghz Intel PCs, more than double the basic mhz requirements for Vista.
So stop the Vista comparisons, it isn't as big, slow or bloated as Leopard is appearing to be.
Also Vista does have a non-double buffer composer and true Vector based GPU acceleration, where Apple is still struggling to get an accelerated version of Quartz freaking running, which has been a MAJOR problem to date as the betas of Leopard demonstrate...
And the next nut to post that WPF is a rip off of Quartz, deserves Mac idiot of the year award. And I will ask them to show me Quartz running accelerated and performing both 2D and 3D vector UI presentation and animation. Oh wait, Quartz doesn't do real 3D...
Reality check: Most general users do not leave their browsers open for a couple days. Let alone a couple days max. In fact, I wager that most turn their computers off at the end of the day.
This is not the case anymore. Many users have a browser open all the time, using the 'multi-application' interface modern OSes allow easily.
Also with enhanced Sleep(S4),Standby(S3), and Hibernation there are 'average/novice' users that simply never reboot their machines until a restart required patch is issued.
A simple example, one client bought a new Vista laptop in July, they never closed IE7 nor restarted the computer until a Vista update two weeks ago wanted a restart.
The reason I know they were not lying is that they forgot the login password they used when they setup the machine, and it has been in Sleep or Hibernation, and never restarted since July when they first setup the computer.
Restarting computers is a thing of the past and something that is now only happening for updates or driver updates that require a restart.
There is no reason a user needs to restart on a modern OS, closing the lid or hitting hibernate is far easier for notebook users and the 'norm'.
We have clients that leave Word and Outlook and IE open 24/7 for weeks/months on end. If any of these applications had the memory issues Firefox has you would have seen 'numerous' articles on the internet with business people screaming.
I agree with your assertion about Mac users with the ambigious close/exit concepts that are lost in the 1980s Mac UI usability concepts, and you are correct a lot of Mac users don't know the differnce between closing the active Window and closing the application. However, this isn't something they should have to think about.
Sadly if MS can stablize IE with IE7 to be a low footprint memory application (that doesn't share any memory or DLLs with Explorer) then the bar is raised for Firefox and competitors to finally start addressing their 'issues' with performance and security. IE7 has been pretty tight regarding security and uses less RAM than Firefox, and peformance and CSS compliance is competitive if not better in some aspects as well.
If firefox doesn't get some of these problems under control, there is no reason users won't start using IE again on Windows, and Firefox marketshare will start dropping. Right now the only thing keeping firefox from fast falling is the myths regarding IE that were true of IE4-6, but are no longer applicable to IE7. Also on Vista IE7 gets additional security by running with less than standard user security credentials.
I hope people finally start admitting the problems that do exist with FireFox, if not the FUD of IE will not be enough to keep it gaining support on the Windows platform.
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You act like this is a 'new' or abstract concept to Windows NT.
I suggest you go look up the NT kernel architecture. It already bridges the best of both worlds of mono and micro designs and why NT is described as a hybrid kernel or a client/server kernel.
Everyone acts like the Win 7 stuff is 'new' to Microsoft, but don't seem to realize that the kernel technology in NT is on par or even more advanced than other kernel technologies in every other OS out there, including OS X, Linux, etc.
The Win 7 and other kernel concepts being thrown around at MS are the 'next' generation in kernel designs that are ahead of the rest of the industry, even though it is unpopular to state this on SlashDot.
When NT was developed, it took the best Kernel concepts of the time, many of which were only 'theory' and adapted them into a new technology that didn't have the weight or shortcomings that other kernel implementations of the time did. This is why the kernel and HAL in Vista is not a massive change from the original designs in 1992. It was made to take the best of the time so that it would last for 15-20 years, which was a stated design goal of the time, and they succeeded.
Win 7 stuff will be the next generation, and sadly MS is taking the lead in moving 'theory' into actual practice once again, and unless the OSS world is paying attention MS will leapfrop the industry, just as NT was a major jump of the kernel technologies of 1992.
PS the calls do NOT have to be slower, see the internal structure of the NT kernel that already is subsystem 'virtual' based. (Hence why Win32/Win64/BDS all run on the NT kernel in abstract subsystem layers that don't talk directly to the kernel already.)
Since the system took 10 minutes to get to the login prompt
You must of had some serious hardware issues. If you had 12mb of RAM, or 16mb of RAM NT 3.1 booted as fast as the DOS Win 3.1, and yes even the server version, as there was even less distinction between the workstation and server versions then.
We moved all our development and tech employees and their respective servers to NT 3.1 in 1993, and trust me this would never of happened if it took 10 minutes to boot.
Average system Specs: 486-33/66 12/16mb RAM...
PS Compared to our Novell Servers, NT file operations (especially remote booting clients) was 2-4x as fast as Novell. Trust me, MS didn't 'dent' the Novell market because NT sucked. Not only was it faster, easier to manage for small business but was a great application server platform, something Novell 'never' got.
Sorry - I just did a bit of looking on Wikipedia and realized that 3.5 wasn't the first NT. There was apparently a short-lived Windows NT 3.1, though I've never personally seen it.
;)
Glad you checked, because the NT 3.1 CDs I have sure seem to be real.
Actually 3.1 of NT was around for a while, and it made the first moves in the server and workstation areas for MS. It also was the premiere OS for the new Alpha CPU line.
Also anyone that attended the 1992 CES would easily be able to correct the 3.1 omission as NT 3.1 was freaking everywhere.
You also didn't reference NT 3.51 which was more important than 3.5 as it brought the Win32 API in line with Win95, and the UI from NT 4.0 originally ran on NT 3.51, although the UI was never 'officially' released for 3.51.
BTW Thanks for separating the Consumer and NT line of OSes... Too many people STILL confuse Win9X with current Windows OSes, and they are as different as System 9 and OS X is.
available in Linux and some BSDs for many
BSD yes, Linux NO...
ASLR was added to the Linux kernel around Feburary of 2007, so even Vista's more expanded version was available before it was in Linux.
It sounds like a high-level player finally decided to take on Exchange. My biggest questions: are there Windows programs that support these features via CalDAV, and is there a CalDAV server in FreeBSD's ports?
I don't see this as a move to take on 'high-level' solutions. If anything, this sounds more like the Calendar sharing features Vista uses (Local,Network,Web).
It scares me sometimes that things like 'upping' shared calendars and other features Windows has had for almost ten years is touted as being 'revolutionary'.
And yes I am talking about basic Windows calendar sharing, not even exchange solutions...
"Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we've ever released," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "And everyone gets the 'Ultimate' version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.""
...As 'top of the line' performance graphics cards, they will be nothing more than mid range performance computers.
:)
Plus the Apple Hardware Tax and the Apple previous OS purchase tax. So the Ultimate Version of OS X costs what now? $1199? $1399?
Just the OS costs alone are more than Vista Ultimate edition, let alone the premium costs of Apple hardware that is borderline crap even though Apple sadly tries to sell the hardware as the best.
And yes Macs are mid-range hardware... Until Apple stops selling:
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (256MB)
ATI Radeon X1900 (512MB)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 (256MB)
Especially considering my 2 year old laptop with a Geforce 7950 GTX (512MB) is faster than ANYTHING you can get in a Mac from Apple Desktop or Notebook. And I think this is REALLY sad considering people think Macs are 'better' or 'faster' for graphics, which is not even close to being true...
So please, give us more jokes of how cheap OS X 'ultimate' is... I am dying laughing...
Although I won't discount your point, your numbers are not accurate.
It starts...
Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)
Windows NT 5.1 (Windows XP)
Windows NT 6.0 (Windows Vista)
The Win 3.1-Win9x-WinME are not in the same OS family nor do their version numbers have anything to do with Windows NT other than NT 3.1 was given this version because of Win 3.1 on DOS that was released the previous year.
So the version and point release is accurate, but you are mixing two different OSes families in your analogy.
This would as big of a mistake as going Linux 1.0, 2.0, OS X, 10.2 (See Linux and OSX are not the same OSes either.)
Ok, I don't truly mind that the majority of FOSS software has a geek mindset and the UIs tend to reflect and look like the UIs of the Win9x era.
However, can we ever get to the point that the 'best' horse that gets trotted out for OSS Gaming looks like the era of games released for Windows95?
It is just not possible for a high end gaming production to be FOSS?
One further sad note... I have seen games developed by newbie gaming developers that are picking up XNA and MS Game Studio and producing higher quality games in terms of playability and especially in the area of graphics/audio.
Can't we do better than your neighbors kids and his/her friends designing an XNA came in C# that runs on their PC and the XBox 360 as well?
PS. You should really have a 'review' of the game, when you write an article 'reviewing' a game, and not just a quick intro of key commands.
Just a small step up in photovoltaics would make this very possible. A jump from about 15-20% to 30-40% efficiency would make technology like this easily viable.
Windows isn't so much "picked" as "defaulted", specifically because of the bundling practices. If Windows is so great that it can compete on its own merits, why doesn't Microsoft propose to unbundle? Certainly, they can then squeeze more money out of those who choose to buy it retail?
You act like the bundling is a MS choice or dictation in the market. As a prior owner of a large OEM, MS never had anything to do with the decisions in what OSes our company installed.
Sure if some companies signed an exclusive they would save 5 bucks a copy, but a lot of OEMs never did this, including our company (and this was in the 'forced' MS monopoly era where this licensing was considered unfair, even though IBM tried to offer OS/2 deals the same way.)
If you want to blame 'bundling' on anyone, you need to call up the OEM MFRs and scream at them. However they still will tend to choose Windows because of the device and hardware support it DOES offer over other OSes. This is a lot of money in saved support because Windows DOES work well and has the most driver support on a very complex and infinite configuration platform.
MS doesn't force bundling down anyone's throat, and they are prohibited from doing 'exclusive' bundling deals for several years now post the Monopoly ruling.
If Windows was crap and just being forced on users, then when MS no longer could push exclusive bundling deals, Linux or OS X would have easily taken its place in the market, especially considering the VM technology that has existed for years to run Windows apps on these platforms, no longer requiring Windows for any users. Yet MS kept the market share even when forced to play more than nice, in fact nicer than any other software company had to.
Actually, I think you're missing the point - competition only works when there is no pre-existing monopoly that got there via illegal means.
We depend on the government to step in to protect us from predators who use illegal means to gain control of a market, same as we depend on them, via police and firemen, for local protection from robbers and fire.
Extreme situations call for extreme measures - unbundling sales of the OS isn't anywhere near extreme. To turn your argument on its head - if Windows is so good, it should have no fear of being able to compete in a truly free marketplace, solely on its merit.
Free competition scares the crap out of Microsoft, because it can't win. Where its forced to compete, it loses market share - just look at the embedded, server, and cluster markets.
Uh? Are you out of the loop?
Windows is at the top of sever, and even most cluster markets. Are you from Mars? Even in the embedded area, which they have only been pursing since WinXP SP2, they are a strong viable product, go look at the routers and MFR equipment with Windows embedded being used.
As for MS being scared when force to compete fairly or with a free OS market... Ok, this is where a good WalMart analogy works. Walmart has tried several times over the past few years to push Linux computers to people that how no idea even what Windows is let alone Linux, and yet they couldn't keep sales and return and support rates were through the roof.
You act like MS strangles the the distribution chains. This is one area they have little to no influence, and yet no major vendor can even pry open a non-Windows based system into the market. Even OS X as well as Apple is at marketing and being 'kewl' and even being price competitive has gained what, a fraction of a % in over couple of years?
People are NOY mindless drones, business has some of the smartest IT people around, and yet Windows is 'picked' for a reason. I know this is SlashDot, but people here are in their own reality when it comes what people prefer, and how well Windows does work today and how well it does meet the basic needs of people.
The hacked, crashing Win9x/Win2k era is over, even if most SlashDot users don't realize they have to compete on more than security and stability, because end users don't see that as a problem with Windows anymore.
Possible, but I seriously doubt it...
Bungie devs have become, and 'continue' to be some of the strongest propoents of DirectX and XBox technologies, so don't expect an OpenGL release for other platforms anytime soon.
What you can expect, Bungie gets a bit more money and the ability to branch out beyond Halo. Bungie will also probably take their work with MS studios for game 'play' testing innovations and possibly do consulting on other software titles.
IS it really that the DX10 gives you the ability to stuff more complex code into shaders?
No it means the cards must SUPPORT these GPU operations, unlike previous generation where NVidia or ATI did not have GPU support for many mainstream features. (ie. making it easier on developers, as when they call for shadows, they don't have to care what card is in the user's machine.)
This is the same as DX10 requiring GPUs to support pre-emptive scheduling being handled by the OS (Vista) and DX10 requiring GPUs to support non-visual computing like physics on the GPU via the DX10 apis...
PS...
For people that think there is 'little' difference between DX10 and DX9 for that 'precious 1-2fps lost', or that soft shadows are not a part of DX10, just look at this simple HD video that shows the difference. DX9 looks great, but DX10 looks almost real with far more 'actions' going on in the same scene.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19965.html
That's great, except for the fact that shadows don't have crisp edges in the real world. Unless it's illuminated by a point-source (which immediately excludes the sun, lamps, flashlights, and pretty much every other light source you're likely to encounter), there will be a penumbra. The DX9 image here: http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1031/big_stateofdx10_wic_shad.jpg is more realistic.
Not sure how this got confused by either bioshock or the reviewers...
DirectX 10 allows for both 'crisp' or 'soft' shadowing, as some games demonstrate, the DirectX 10 shadows are 'softer' and more realistic.
The 'difference' with DirectX 10 is that shadows are done on the GPU, in DirectX9 shadows are done on the CPU. This is the 'main' difference between DX9 and DX10.
The 'crisp' choice by bioshock is NOT what DX10 is about, this is a game developer choice. PERIOD.
I know reviews like this can lead people down wrong paths, but it doesn't hurt to look up this type of information before making fun of a fact that is incorrect in the first place.
It is strange that any site 'reviewing' DX10 in comparison to DX9 would not even know the basic 'consumer' terminology for the differences, so they would know what they were looking at... Maybe someday we can get a review posted on SlashDot that is actually done by gaming professionals... (gasp)
Here is a quick list from the MS Consumer Info site on DirectX10, notice the reference to shadows specifically.
-----------------------
Summary
In summary, DirectX10 provides the following benefits to gamers:
More life-like materials and characters with:
Animated fur & vegetation
Softer/sharper shadows
Richer scenes; complex environments
Thicker forests, larger armies!
Dynamic and ever-changing in-game scenarios
Realistic motion blurring
Volumetric effects
Thicker, more realistic smoke/clouds
Other
Realistic reflections/refractions on water/cars/glass
Reduced load on CPU
-Re-routes bulk of graphics processing to GPU
-Avoids glitching & system hangs during game play
I am far from an Apple apologist, but I have seen several laptop brands that have poor range when using internal bluetooth.
5 feet is extra short though. Usually 20feet range with a lot of 2.4ghz interference will kill a lot of bluetooth.
Sadly bluetooth is in a saturated radio range, and doesn't push much power. When it was first 'designed' it was more viable than when it started getting used as it is today with all the usage in the same range.
However, for the 'premium' people pay for Apple products, they deserve to get the upper end of components, and anymore Apple is average when it comes to hardware.
And evidently the XP Bluetooth stack is some third party thing you can uninstall and reinstall, because I had to reinstall it to even get it to do anything.
Your problem sounds more like an issue with the phone.
However, there is a Microsoft Bluetooth Stack available for XP, and Vista ships with a native stack.
Microsoft made a big mistake when creating Windows, though not one most of us would have foreseen in the early '90s-- they made Windows 3.1 a single-user OS and thanks to their dedication to backwards-compatibility ended up being stuck with it.
I will introduce you to a new technology for you to research. It is called NT and is over 15years old. Why the introduction, well if you are so stupid to still correlate Windows with 3.1 concepts then you obviously have no freaking idea what NT is.
The argument you make could be said of Unix of 1969 compared to BSD or Linux of today. Do you really think they haven't changed either?
How crazy is your life to even correlate thoughts like this? Let me guess...
As you say, "Windows is still like 3.0," you run around in circles and scream 'dee dee dee'?
Did you know that Vista requires a registry edit to enable it to connect to a home Windows Workgroup using password protected shares?
Um, no because if your network is setup properly, it doesn't.
It is only for people that are using the old C$ and not 'user created shares' as anyone with a brain in network does.
So you never took the time to setup 'proper' shares, and now you are blaming Vista for this? What a joke...
This is just now to the point of ridiculous...
Just for time comparisons, I'll let you take a brand new HP Vista laptop, Power it up, make a set of recovery disks, connect wireless, and create a couple user accounts.
You are either making up a good story are just full of crap.
1) HP Vista laptops ship with recovery DVDs, there is no reason to create one.
2) Connecting to wireless is as easy as clicking on the freaking ballon that says, networks are available, click to connect to one, and even if it is WPA or WEP, you type in the freaking number or insert the USB drive with the key.
3) Setting up accounts is hard on Vista? Wow, then you better run from any *nix. Control Panel -> User accounts -> Create new account (Type Name and Password, select security level) Done...
4) Product activation is automatic if you tell it to just activate when you are online, or one click in the control panel.
5) AV Software? Wow, that is tough, download AVG, and you are done.
So again tell us how this took you ALL DAY?
I'll call you out on this, as I just delivered several new HP laptops to family and friends that don't even understand the difference between the left and right mouse buttons, and they ALL completed the tasks you describe by themselves in under 5 minutes...
So which is it, are you really that stupid or lying to get positive SlashDot points?
An admin on Vista CAN access protect processes, they just cannot access them while they are executing, except to kill them.
NO OTHER PROCESS in the system can access them while active, this is why they are security and has nothing to do with Admin access to the processes.
And yes this is security... (Even by your definition)
How about they release their own distribution of Linux/BSD/whatever
Install Unix services on Vista, it is a full BSD subsystem, and don't use any Win32/Win64 aspects of the OS if you don't want to...
Are people really this dense that they have no idea that Vista has a full BSD implementation, and XP and 2003 Server have as well for YEARS now?
This is also like protected processes in Vista, but in the FOSS world, people think it is DRM, when it is actually security and doesn't have anything to do with the Video protected path for HDCP...
So why should we expect anyone to understand security when they can't figure out simple differences and easily confuse security with DRM?
Comparing this to Vista? Geesh...
Vista runs on even 700mhz machines just fine, and these date back to 1999. Oh and Vista does graphics acceleration (not Aero, but GDI/WPF) on DirectX7 generation cards, that go back to 1998 (this is the equivalent of Quartz Extreme).
If Vista had OS X's requirements, people REALLY would have screamed about Vista requiring new hardware. Oh wait, wasn't that the Apple commercials telling everyon that? LOL
Vista runs fine on 700mhz processors with 1Gb of RAM. PERIOD. And now OS X won't even do 800mhz on PowerPC which ALWAYS ran mhz behind intel because it was more powerful? The 800mhz limit would be like Vista being limted to 1.5ghz Intel PCs, more than double the basic mhz requirements for Vista.
So stop the Vista comparisons, it isn't as big, slow or bloated as Leopard is appearing to be.
Also Vista does have a non-double buffer composer and true Vector based GPU acceleration, where Apple is still struggling to get an accelerated version of Quartz freaking running, which has been a MAJOR problem to date as the betas of Leopard demonstrate...
And the next nut to post that WPF is a rip off of Quartz, deserves Mac idiot of the year award. And I will ask them to show me Quartz running accelerated and performing both 2D and 3D vector UI presentation and animation. Oh wait, Quartz doesn't do real 3D...
Reality check: Most general users do not leave their browsers open for a couple days. Let alone a couple days max. In fact, I wager that most turn their computers off at the end of the day.
This is not the case anymore. Many users have a browser open all the time, using the 'multi-application' interface modern OSes allow easily.
Also with enhanced Sleep(S4),Standby(S3), and Hibernation there are 'average/novice' users that simply never reboot their machines until a restart required patch is issued.
A simple example, one client bought a new Vista laptop in July, they never closed IE7 nor restarted the computer until a Vista update two weeks ago wanted a restart.
The reason I know they were not lying is that they forgot the login password they used when they setup the machine, and it has been in Sleep or Hibernation, and never restarted since July when they first setup the computer.
Restarting computers is a thing of the past and something that is now only happening for updates or driver updates that require a restart.
There is no reason a user needs to restart on a modern OS, closing the lid or hitting hibernate is far easier for notebook users and the 'norm'.
We have clients that leave Word and Outlook and IE open 24/7 for weeks/months on end. If any of these applications had the memory issues Firefox has you would have seen 'numerous' articles on the internet with business people screaming.
I agree with your assertion about Mac users with the ambigious close/exit concepts that are lost in the 1980s Mac UI usability concepts, and you are correct a lot of Mac users don't know the differnce between closing the active Window and closing the application. However, this isn't something they should have to think about.
Sadly if MS can stablize IE with IE7 to be a low footprint memory application (that doesn't share any memory or DLLs with Explorer) then the bar is raised for Firefox and competitors to finally start addressing their 'issues' with performance and security. IE7 has been pretty tight regarding security and uses less RAM than Firefox, and peformance and CSS compliance is competitive if not better in some aspects as well.
If firefox doesn't get some of these problems under control, there is no reason users won't start using IE again on Windows, and Firefox marketshare will start dropping. Right now the only thing keeping firefox from fast falling is the myths regarding IE that were true of IE4-6, but are no longer applicable to IE7. Also on Vista IE7 gets additional security by running with less than standard user security credentials.
I hope people finally start admitting the problems that do exist with FireFox, if not the FUD of IE will not be enough to keep it gaining support on the Windows platform.