Fact#1: No, DRM has nothing to do with file copying, that is FUD. There is a known bug about the 'estimation' process, and you can find a hotfix on the net as one of my techs just reminded me. The DRM in Vista is 'protected processes' i.e. processes that no other process can gain access to even with admin rights. This is part DRM implemntation and part security. However it does not come into play when copying files, DRMed files are internally flagged, and copy as regular files, it is when they are tried to be played on another computer does the DRM check ever happen. Also this is just WMA, WMV, and works like XP. And the playback 'protected pipelines' truly don't come into play on copy media.
Fact#2: Aero does NOT consume more battery power. Aero was a concern in Beta, and there were some bad GPU drivers 'in beta', but since the release of Vista, this is SO not the case. Go find articles where people actually test this. There are 'reasons' why Aero makes up for itself by saving performance in diferent areas. If you think about it, the composer is keeping vector and bitmap applications from having to redraw the window all the time, so this would help offset other GPU usage. Pushing Vector and Bitmap data from RAM to the screen is NOT sucking or using much 3D power, truly...
Here are the first Google links I found, go find others, I think even a few gaming mags and Toms have done reports on this as well refuting the Aero battery drain myths.
Fact #3: There is still issues with file security where the don't give the administrator of the computer access to certain directives. You have to go in and change ownership, give me a fucking break. Like I want to spend time a clients house to deal with that shit?
This is somewhat true, but this is called security. I know it is new to the Windows world and strange to everyone else because MS has not given Windows Vista users an equivalent to root account, as even as Administrator with UAC off, certain system level files have higher security. However, as you state, you can take ownership and do what you want with them. So MS actually putting 'better' security in an OS is bad how again?
Games seem to run slow on my machine, maybe I need more memeory, but I have two gigs... I get 10 frames per second less on all my games. But it could be my machine, it seems more like a driver thing though.
Actually you should check out drivers, and see if newer versions don't pull a bit more performance out of your system.
Here are a couple of tips.
ATI Cards, version 9.2 seems to be faster for lower end cards.
ATI 14xx - 29xx the newest driver is faster.
NVidia FX 5xxx series 97.19 is currently the fastest driver.
NVidida 6xxx-8xxx usually the latest or one of the latest beta drivers are the fastest. (Find new and Beta NVidia drivers on www.laptopvideo2go.com, even for desktops, as they seems to stay up on versions and also offer updated INFs for non-standard chipsets.)
The January drivers or the in box Vista drivers are truly slower than XP, this is accepted by everyone. However, the Feb-Current drivers for Vista are on par with XP for most people in terms of performance. Like I said the WDDM required ATI/NVidia to write the drivers from scratch and since then they have been fixing and profiling games for optimal performance, which they had the luxury of years of testing on XP that no longer applies for the Vista Drivers.
Our techs tend to dispell the 'games are slower' on Vista by demonstrating a DirectX game and an OpenGL game running in a Window with Aero enabled, and sho
From your number they run about as fast as they do on 2000
Um, you do realize that in every test, WindowsXP is 10-20% faster than Win2K and 20-40% faster than Win9x on the same hardware with 128mb of RAM? So not sure how you equate anything I said with regard to Win2K. (Google this, I'm dead serious.)
As for the WoW examples, that was just because it is something that a lot of our techs have dealt with because they are gamers or work with development partners that produce games like WoW. We also deal with large scale data operations as well, so don't put too much weight on the WoW examples, they were more of a response to the SlashDot crowd complaining they couldn't get WoW to run.
PS... A tip for WoW players and Vista, install the drivers from ATI/Vista/Intel, as MS does not put OpenGL ICD drivers in the Vista box.
99.9% of people complaining about Vista and games like WoW and CoH just need to install the right driver, just like XP.
So if they don't install the video driver from ATI/NVidia/Intel all OpenGL games will run software rendered with OpenGL 1.4 instead of the latest version hardware accelerated. Vista is just like XP in that OpenGL ICD support needs a driver from the GPU Mfr.
I have yet to see this. We have whole test centers with vista on machines less then 6 months old shut down because Vista routinely fails are needs. which don't involve running wow, they involve data transfers, performance and stability. We had MS experts out here for a week. There recommendation? wait for SP1 and try again.
Sounds like your company has a really failed rollout or bad IT people inside the company or consulting. I would be asking for these people Vista training experience.
We work with companies like GM and EDS, all the way down to small companies or technical staff that works with mom and pop shops.
Although not everyone is rolling out Vista at this time, their internal testing is far from your experience. And the companies that do have active Vista rollouts are very happy with the experience, but it helps having people up to speed with Vista.
Sadly, like I joked in my original post, the GeekSquad at BestBuy tends to have had better Vista training than most IT professionals at this point, and that is not a good thing. (Although it was smart of BestBuy to invest in early training and give them an edge in the consumer tech market.)
IT people that are slow to adopt, test, or take training waiting for SP1 or the release of Longhorn Server are doing themselves and their clients a big disservice. Even if you don't plan on using Vista, if you are in the IT world, you will run into it and you might as well be proficient enough to not make a fool of yourself.
Thanks for your post and I hope your bad experience gets better.
That's one piss-poor tip, seeing as it doesn't work.
Well this is one consistent bug our techs found other than standard hardware failures that become more evident with Vista using the faster querying and transfer mechanisms.
Using the faster SMB calls by default will manifest into problems with devices or servers not well equip to handle them easily. MS made this easier due to the outcry during the beta process, but there are still circumstances that are either 3rd party device or actual hardware failures.
Another problem that is common is older storage servers that only use NTLM; however, this is easily fixable by telling Vista to support both NTLMv2 and NTLM. If you will notice the people complaining about the authenication elevation problems and still having trouble accessing shares are often hitting into an environment where NTLM is assumed to be in use by the server/share.
PS The flow control default that I mentioned in my original post is a MS KB Article based on our testing, so yes it is a good tip, even if it doesn't apply to your environment. It also something that doesn't appear for some users until they are copying large files or stream video and the switch/router doesn't handle handing off form a 10/100 to a 100/1000 computer/device.
So your anecdotal evidence in one (yes, one) laptop you want us to believe is better than the anecdotal evidence of quite a number of people on the site.
It was one example of a computer our techs use in the field, we have a full hardware test lab that we use for research and also a small lab at our software develop facility.
We have a few hundred systems going all the time, and the luxury of using off the shelf brand names or building any type of test configuration our techs can come up with.
I'm sorry that you concluded that it is the 'only' system I was referencing, although even after rereading my post it seems quite clear it was a single example and not our only test environment.
This is what I kept thinking to myself as I read through the tons of posts of how it didn't work for someone, or how they knew it was going to suck or how their friend had a horrible experience, or my favorite how aero sucked battery life and wouldn't play WoW.
Old Equipment Myth: I'm sitting here on an a old test system that I pack around for Site Surveys, it is a 2004 Toshiba laptop 1Gb RAM, 64mb NVidia 5600 Video card, and the techs have WoW, CoH, SWG, LoTR installed odn it
Games Slower Myth: The tech notes also show that in Coh, LoTR, and WoW the game runs 5-10% FASTER than XP for FPS and also allows higher texture settings in the games than XP because of the Video RAM Virtualization technologies in Vista (See it only has a 64mb video card, but is running texture levels for 256mb Video cards.)
Aero is Slow or Eats Battery: This old test laptop is also running Aero, and the techs notes show that with Aero enabled, the battery life compared to XP is 5mins less, not a massive difference, but hey if people want to believe the negative hype, good for them. The tech notes also show that without Aero, Vista improves application drawing over XP in applications like AI, CorelDraw 10x. With Aero Enabled, this pushes to 15-20x because of the non-tearing the Aero composer adds to the already GPU assisted GDI/WPF drawing engine in Vista.
Vista Permissions: If they really bug you, turn them off. You can run as administrator just like on good old XP(no prompts). And you would still be safer doing this than running XP. The UAC isn't as stupid as people think, but when dealing with milliions of Apps written without any concept of NT Security as was allowed on XP, there are going to be a few third party applications that need permissions.
Copying/Network Performance: This is one we have seen. Here is a trick, Vista's network drivers turn off Flow control. If you are running on a 100/1000 swtich and other devices are 10 or 100 which is slower than your link into the router/hub, without flow control network performance can suffer as most home and small business routers/switch get overwhelmed. Turn on Flow control on your adapter - network file copying goes back to XP speeds or higher.
Vista is like WinME: WinME was crap because it tried to stuff an 800lb gorilla in a DOS/Win9x OS, when many of the 'bloat/features' of WinME required a stronger kernel architecture to seamlessly handle all the new background process and features.
I hated WinME for many reasons, it was a rushed product, had no business putting things like system restore on an OS using FAT32, etc. If Vista sucked even a bit or sucked hard like WinME, I or one of my techs would be the first people posting here about how it sucks or to stay away from it. However, it does not. It is a natural progression of the NT technology line and continues to improve the underlying kernel technology and bring new ease of use to users.
Additional Notes: Unlike the older test system I gave as an example, if you have the luxury of using Vista on a newer system, laptop or desktop, then you won't find even a 5min difference with Aero on or off, just like the 'themes kill performance myths' from the XP days.
Also if the laptop is newer(made in this year), you will find the Vista tie ins give the laptop a 10-20min boost of battery time over XP, and also more gracefully handles CPU throttling, video throttling, and entering sleep states. If the hardware is new and designed for Vista, it truly works better with Vista.
Vista is a Market Failure Myth: Depends on what you base this on. However think in these terms, in six months there are more Vista users (by choice of the user) than there are Macs or OSX users in existence. Vista is the #2 most used OS on the planet right now with XP being #1, and this is six months into the product cycle, not 6 years like XP.
Vista Stability: Vista is truly more stable and secure than XP and brings the NT code base up t
You went from calling all my information incorrect to hitting on a single point that is harder to trace than others.
So which is it now, everything I said was incorrect, or only you couldn't find kernel design references that were used in WinCE that came from NT, so you are going to pretend that is the only point you have contention with because you found out the other information I supplied was correct?
To find the WinCe information you are looking for you have to go back to the timeline between NT 3.5 and NT 4.0. WinCE was designed specifically to fit into low MEMORY footprint devices, it was not designed for low power or any other claim you seem to be making.
MS originally planned on using a variation of the kernel design of the Win3.1 or Win95 architecture, but when they found they could use a modified form of the NT kernel technologies without doing the client/server kernel design of NT(i.e. pushing the API interfaces to related to an agnostic kernel and embed the APIs needed for the WinCE platform), it would meet their minimalist memory requirements and offer features needed for terminal type computing devices, like true pre-emptive and near real-time performance.
Actually because WinCE could drop the subsystem references and move the API more into the kernel interface directly than, it was more realtime than NT in the 90s because they moddifed the scheduler from the NT Model for WinCE.
Now I know you aren't going to find this information on a lot of sites, as most people don't give a crap about the origins of WinCE, and its evolution into Windows Mobile. I honestly don't even care much about it other than I know it will not be around as the main mobile product from MS, as Vista Embedded is positioned to move into phone and other PDA markets, which is why the UMPC platform was designed to ease the development transition for desktop application designers to consider smaller screens and handheld devices as the first step.
However if you look at the code for the WinCE kernel code, which is available for academic use, you will see that it draws on the NT kernel design 'SPECIFICALLY', but forgoes the upper end features of the NT kernel like subsystems, abstracted API interface, etc.
BTW The reason I called the product WinCE, is because that is the basis of Windows Mobile/PocketPC and it WAS WinCE specifically when the original kernel design was put together and drawn on from the NT kernel designs.
I'm not here to argue WinCE is the NT kernel, but its basis was the NT kernel and it ALSO was NOT SPECIFCIALLY designed for power usage any more than NT was, which was my main and original point. It was designed to fit in a small memory footprint and was used for small 'terminal' type computing originally, not Mobile or PDA technology.
As I mentioned at the begining, you seem to focus only the credibility of WinCE, but you no longer are arguing about Windows Embedded XP/Vista. Why is that?
Did you actually look it up and see that it is being used in 'portable' devies that 'power consumption' is important. Or did you find out that it is also being used in small memory footprint and real-time devices like routers and even freaking print servers?
I actually think that no matter what I say, you are going to try to dismiss whatever crack you think you can get water into. So with that in mind I realize you are proud of your ignorance and determined to keep it.
I assume you can find wikipedia.com or microsoft.com, so go do your own freaking homework.
It is not my responsibility that you are this stupid and unwilling to educate yourself.
BTW, yes I and a lot of other people on SlashDot have seen a lot of OS kernel code, from Linux to even NT core code, and especially MACH with a BSD interface, which is what OS X is. Do you also not realize that many of us have seen and worked with Darwin specifically?
Even just questioning the accuracy of the Windows Embedded or WindowsCE/Pocket PC example I gave you is an immediate red flag that you are more stupid than anyone would have expected even on SlashDot.
I apologize for responding to your post, I assumed you might care or have a clue of what you were talking about. It is obvious you don't.
It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices.
Do you REALLY think that just because an OS wasn't designed for low power devices it cannot run well on low power devices? Most OS kernel designs are agnostic to things like this and if a proper power management mechanism is in place, makes this claim meaningless.
Here is an example: WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista. Windows XP & Windows Vista Embedded both work on very tiny and very low power devices as well.
And Windows Vista Embedded is Vista with features removed, just like OS X is on the iPhone. Get it?
So the OS begining 'designed' for low power is not notable or 'remarkable' that Apple was able to get OS X to run well on a low power device. Remove GUI bloat, add better or device specific power management and bingo, a Phone OS.
Also for the claims, removing 'space' for items like a keyboard and increasing the 'weight' are relevant to increasing battery life that other manufacturers don't have to deal with because overall size and weight won't matter to Apple's Fanboi base.
that if an employee from "a UI research group" submitted a report to me with such an obvious error I would fire him. (I guess that kinda fits that you would fire a graphical designer who submitted Safari as an example of his work?)
I am part of a research group, and as insane as this must sound to you, I am a member of more than one.
Also as shocking as this might sound, not all my participation in certain research groups is for profit, as they are not my main source of work or income. You see, I also own a few companies and yes we have software development teams as well as marketing and graphics departments.
(Don't be shocked, but not everyone that reads SlashDot lives in their parent's basement.)
As for things I say, some are opinions, some are based on research data, and some are based on my work experience or current projects I am dealing with in the industry. However I am paid well for my opinions, research and consulting knowledge; so I don't take offense to you trying to dismiss my comments just because opinion could be a piece of the amalgamation of facts, research, and personal experience.
Besides, Einstein wasn't offended by such dismissals either when he used personal insight along with research.;)
Ok, the dishwasher is an easy solution, although maybe not the best other than using the wash and rinse cycles. And if you have really hard water, you might want to think twice.
Other tips...
1) If you have bad/hard water avoid it, instead use filtered or store bought distilled/de-ionized water. Use a sink or tub and in place of running water, and shake the keyboard/device to ensure it is getting properly washed.
2) Some degreasing agents are ok, but they have to be thoroughly rinsed. (Common ones used in small shops are the chemicals in Windex, 409, etc. as they are designed to be easily rinsed or leave less residue.)
3) Drying: After rinsing electronics with clean water, if you can use an evaporation accelerator like rubbing alcohol or whatever would applicably be safe to the device. (i.e. rubbing alcohol is not good on LCDs) When you use an evaporation accelerator, you still need to give time for it to dry and placing in front of fan in a position it drains works well. This way you can avoid using heat and will also help push air through the device. I don't recommend heat unless you are also using a fan as just heat will not fully allow the water to escape as well as air flowing through the device will.
4) If the component originally had 'grease/lubricant' protecting parts of it, you will have to replace it. This can be from misting something as simple as vegetable oil if it isn't used in a dusty environment or using products like Duralube which will add the protecting lubricant and also help to keep contacts clean as well as protect them from water damage in the future.
5) Notice the mention of Duralube in the previous note. It can also be used to water proof electronics while helping keeping conductive parts clean. For example a telephone keypad, etc.
One old example I give techs: I have always installed outside gate and door phones, and instead of buying boxed phones or ugly water proof phones, I simply drench or immerse the phones in a product like Duralube. It will keep the phone water proof and working properly for years. This is also a good idea for telephone or network connectors that might get exposed to outside elements. - Test on cheap phones/equipment first as your results may vary.:)
6) For plastic finishes, use a misting of Endust, let dry partially, then lightly polish. For devices with screens, both Endust and Pledge type products can be used on scratched screen to remove the visual blemishes without harming the surface. According to the level of scratches, polish less to leave more 'product' on the screen to hide the scratches.
The main tricks are to clean so that you are aren't leaving dirt behind, and dry well and as fast as possible to avoid corrosion, and don't apply power until you are 100% certain there is no water inside.
If you are just trying to save a device from water damage, remove all power sources ASAP, and then rinse with clean water or drop them in rubbing alcohol, but only if alcohol is safe for the device.
I have dealt with devices rescued from floods and the first thing was to flush them in a vat of rubbing alcohol to clean and remove damage caused by water in addition to accelerating the evaporation process without using heat.
Good Luck and I make no guarantees or warranties on the methods discussed, implied or not.
A simple Google search for "iTunes market share" reveals that they've cornered 70% of the digital music sales marketplace
Sorry, I was going by profit and downloads. I forgot iTunes is a lost leader and that subscription services that do make money don't count downloads in comparison to iTunes as users can download 10s of 1000s of songs per month. Again, I will repeat, iTunes is not the leader in 'distribution, downloads, or profit'. They are only the leader in 'purchased specific downloads', which is a tiny part of the market to your chagrin.
Also, 1999 was Media Player 6
Sorry, I forget anal pricks like you would only go by release dates and not 'general' beta availability. Considering WMP7 was in Win2K & WinMe, technically was widely in use in 1998, and available for separate public download in 1999, with Music services available.
You don't bore me, daft ignorance makes me laugh.;)
they want a sleek, graphically appealing and (for them) intuitive user experience.
If Safari is your idea of well designed or graphically appealing you either have a massive Jobs stalking issue, or you are not a graphic designer.
Sadly IE7 on Vista is far prettier than Safari or even Safari running on OS X. It is also more intuitive for non-tech people.
If a developer or graphic designer submitted Safari as an example of their work to me I would fire them.
(PS I am part of a UI research group, and Apple has a lot to learn still.)
1) Mac users threw a fit when MS tried to impose Windows UI ideals on them with Office back in the 90s, and MS scrapped Office and redesigned it from the ground up for the Mac UI guidelines. Apple needs to learn the same lesson that MS already 'gets'.
2) UI paradigm. Futhering the Windows UI, MS is pushing the UI paradigm with IE7 and Vista by getting away from old concepts like menus and wasted screen space, again Apple needs to catch up, especially if they are going to keep forcing iCrap on Windows users.
3) Performance, Stability. Apple software on Windows is horrible. From bad video performance, glitching sound, to crashes, Apple software is by far the most poorly written software from a major Software vendor. (Maybe Apple does this on purpose to make Windows look bad, or maybe their developers are just really stupid.)
4) IE7, IE8... People seem to forget IE7 has come 200x from IE6 in implementing standards. To the point where it pretty much supports everything out there, the only thing it does bad is that it will still try to render 'old' or 'incorrect' pages, and for end users, this is a 'feature' to them, rather than getting a blank page or goofy looking page as you get on Safari.
Safari has nothing on IE7 for standards other than it DOES NOT render improperly coded pages. People forget that the ACID2 test is to see if the browser will ignore 'bad' code, not whether it supports 'features' of standards.
Also IE8 gets another massive standards surge and is coming this year.
For non-technical users, here is how it plays out...
Apple can't keep putting out Quicktime, iTunes, and now Safari with Mac UIs and poor performance and expect Windows users to 'see the light' and run to Apple. Instead it makes users think Apple is retarded and run the other way, vowing to never buy a Mac and avoid their software at all costs. Most PC users wouldn't buy iPods if they were forced to use iTunes before deciding on an MP3 player.
iTunes was *the* application that made digital distribution mainstream
With this line you certify yourself as insane or a fanatic...
More content is purchased through many other services than iTunes. iTunes was never the leader, EVER.
There were also services LONG before iTunes and even before Apple bought out the iTunes software in 2000.
When you mention Sony as being the first online store, you are forgetting companies that existed before them, like mp3.com, eMusic, etc.
You also are forgetting other digital distribution companies that are still around and make more money than iTunes store does, like Audible.com which back in 1999 even integrated into WMP, like I SAID BEFORE.
Talk about living in the Apple bubble. And where did you even get your feked up timeline of history? Does the Apple site give out propaganda sheets when you download iTunes now?
The issue there is that Mac OS X's own international character support does all the hard work for the applications: they don't generally need to worry about it. On Windows, it's a very different story
Really? Seems that Unicode has been a part of the NT platform since 1992, Windows developers seem to do quite fine with letting Windows handle character and font support. I can make a 10 line application that handles most languages on Vista, and you are going to tell us that it is 'harder' on Windows?
As I understand it MS did this not to help Apple but to get Apple to settle their 10+ year legal battle. A little office and IE for the Mac and 150 Million investment in Apple and everybody is happy.
It is very possible that was their entire motive, but if Apple didn't need the help they wouldn't have agreed to it and would have pushed the lawsuit instead. The origins of the lawsuit from Apple were for Capital gain, not because they had a strong case.
MS could have stopped Office development for the Mac in 1992 when Office took off in the Windows world which was ruling the world. There was no 'financial' reason that MS even kept the Mac Word and Excel versions alive. This would have really hurt Apple/Mac playing in role in a business.
Even now if MS completely yanked all their Mac software, it would hurt Mac and OS X more than people realize. And MS has no reason to keep it alive and a separate development project. (MS develops a specific version for the Mac, not a port, and this costs as much as the Windows version, yet yields 4% of the revenue of the Windows Version.)
So MS is still being nice to Apple, more than a lot of people realize.
Apple and MS don't hate each other, but it plays well for Apple when marketing to their customers.;)
This isn't about shutting down these companies. This is about making Linux unfree.
No...
MS = GM *nix = Kit Car
You will always still be able to get a free kit car, and for businesses, that isn't such a good idea, as some employees just want a car to drive. So they can go with a Linux Vendor and get a car easily and know it will work well.
People like you and others will always still be able to build their own kit car and beholden to NOBODY.
This is more about business and making it easier for them to adopt Linux than it is about infringing on your ability to keep Linux free and your favorite kit car.
This also doesn't undermine the kit car concept, as technologies evolve in the OSS world, these features will be added to the same 'kit cars' business can choose to drive as well.
Go read the Article where Sun explains their Linux and MS decisions. MS is playing a role, but they are also helping out when they could be doing the opposite and stopping the *nix movement just as easily. Everyone in the *nix world already hates them, they would have nothing to lose, but instead are trying to do the right thing for once.
The OSS zealot movement inside MS is very strong right now, if we reject MS and stop this internal movement, MS may reject the internal movement and shut it down and stop letting it have a major impact on the company's operations. And I think this internal movement is a good thing for everyone.
MS seems to be giving an ok to pretty much any commercial Linux vendor that would have customers needing solid support without any fear from MS or other companies trying to nail them for patents. (Note they are getting MS protection on things not even related to MS, that is pretty big and a broad acceptance.)
However, it could be worse, MS could just have ignored all these companies and pushed MS Linux or even a Linux Subsystem for NT as an alternative for business and left every Linux distributor to fend for themselves in the commericial market. This would be worse...
MS is not the devil anymore, we can't continue to just hate them for the sake of hating them. IBM and DRDOS got screwed by MS, not Linux. Wordperfect and Lotus screwed themselves with horrible products. Novell screwed themselves with horrible client software and high prices.
So yes MS feked up, but not as bad as they could have.
MS helped Apple several times along the way, when they could have went in for the kill. If MS was truly predatory or evil, there would be no Apple, especially when Apple was very dependent on IE and Office.
If this was MS playing the role of borg, they wouldn't even deal with these companies and like I said, would be pushing MS Linux or Linux on NT as the only solution for non-Windows *nix.
Instead MS has a BSD subsystem for NT that is not hardly even marketed other than for integration with the *nix community, and MS is looking for ways to partner with *nix OS vendors they could easily shun and effectively kill off in the corporate/business sectors. But they aren't.
So things could be a lot worse...
(If I'm wrong and MS starts shutting down these companies, I will freely admit it and join everyone here with pitch forks outside Redmond. Until then, MS giving credibility to Linux companies is a good thing.)
Urge's search features are exactly what the iTunes store has had from the beginning. Your post is a sad example of Microsoft-shilling when they don't know better.
My example is Urge is a refined variation that DOES work better than iTuens.
However, do you realize the WMP had built in Store and Web Page Store support with integrated searching in the UI going back to at least WMP7 and this is before the year 2000?
This far predates when it appeared in iTunes, I assure you. So are you just trying to be a Apple-shilling fool by trying to pretend iTune introduced this?
I suppose the new features in OSX where you can put part of your web page on your desktop is also an Apple innovation, yet Win98 had this feature back in 1997-1998, and it was called active desktop. This is how WIndows users had weather maps on their desktop for almost 10 years now...
I get so tired of the Apple 'innovated' first crap. Apple 'refines' but seldom innovates, just like MS does.
Most technologies used today are based on so much pre-existing technology, the only 'innovation' is in the cohesive application of the technologies.
Because they focus on elegant interfaces that don't spam you with junk you rarely click.
That is a great thing, but you are implying that all other companies don't also consider UI 'overload'. MS was slapped around in the press this year for ripping out the concept of Menus in Vista/IE7 and even Office 2007 because they are dated ideas that are 'overload' and confusing by the junk that populated them.
So can I assume you think MS's UI designs are better than Apple then because Apple still hasn't given up a dated UI concept like a Menu Bar that Spams irrelevant information?
The problem with your logic is you assume Safari is easier to use because of the lack of features. When the UI of IE7 and even Firefox ARE MORE MINIMALIST, yet the products themselves offer more features for people that need them. There is a balance to this, and it would be different if IE7 or Firefox were cluttered with UI Junk, and they aren't.
I agree there is something to be said of the surrounding product support.
However at what point do you realize that this is based upon false reasoning by the supporting companies?
I tend to question authority a bit too much, and just because Apple says jump and other companies are stupid enough to jump, doesn't mean you really need to jump.
There are a lot of products that are far beyond the iPod,iPhone and work well for the majority of people. For example you talk about your iPod integration to your steering wheel. You do realize there are bluetooth devices that offer features like this without the proprietary iPod requirements.
There are also devices that work well by voice command, one of which I have and I don't have to even click a button in my car, but just say "Volume Up" "Next Track" etc. Also why even go through the trouble of docking your iPod in your car? Buy a car like the 2007 Dodge Avenger that has all the features of the iPod built in, syncs automatically to your Music Collection and you don't have to even pull your iPod out of your pocket. These are features and synergy BEYOND iPod thinking.
People tend to let themselves be consumed into a product's enviroment, and that is where trouble happens as they no longer can see products or features outside of the iPod world. And there are products and technologies and things that are easier and work better for a lot of people.
As long as Apple owns your mindset so that you think, how this works with my iPod, you will start to lose your ability to accurately look at other technology that might serve you better than an iPod or supporting technology you have married it to.
I don't disagree, I just don't think it is a good thing.
With a minor background in psychology and the Jim Jones aspect to the iPod I see it as a bit disturbing. I remember people being interviewed about the end of the world in 1990 (no, not Jim Jones), and they were so convinced that the world was going to end they sold all their possessions, and then asked about what happens if the world doesn't end, their response was, "It has to end, I sold all my stuff."
We need to pull back and keep facts about the technology relevant and not the 'love' we have for the products. These are not people or ideals to form emotional bonds with, yet it is very common to see 1000s of people on the anti-establishment SlashDot even fall into this trap when it comes to iXXXX thinking.
Have you taken a good look at their mouse design up till the last few years?;) I'm not even sure they bothered changing in recent years but I know I managed to plug in my 5 button mouse on a G4 server I was forced to administrate a few months ago, and the mouse worked to some degree at least
Actually this is a thought that still goes through my head.
Apple basically told their entire customer base that the users were TOO STUPID to use a mouse with more than one button, and every Mac Fanboi rushed out to agree with Apple, not even realizing that they were arguing how stupid they were in agreement with Apple.
The religion Apple generates is almost scary sometimes. I do give them Marks for having a brilliant marketing department, it is up there with Jim Jones. However, I'm scared that they will release iKoolAid...
As for WMP11, it's a total piece of ugly crap that tries to rip off everything in iTunes, even down to the left-side source list and the upper-right search field with the magnifying glass and everything
You do know MS previewed this in a beta of WMP before almost a year it was ever added to iTunes?
I think you are making my point for me, thank you for your ignorance.
Of course some people prefer cars like the first generation Dodge Viper, which had almost no features, not even power windows or a credible radio option. It was fast 0-60, but 0-100 the Corvette was actually faster because of the technology GM used. A lie.
Well I owned both, did the whole Indy flight for ordering one of the first Vipers, etc.
Go look up AERODYNAMICS, and how the lack of aerodynamic design gave the performance edge to the Corvette and especially the ZR1 Corvette in comparison to the Viper. Also notice that Dodge revamped the Aerodynamic design of the Viper because of this embarassment.;)
Indeed. It's absolutely clear that Apple are wrong to focus on the 80 side of the 80/20 rule, as we can see from the utter market failure of the iPod
If you think the iPod was successful besides anything but marketing, you are mind-f**king yourself.
Pick up a Creative Zen Vision M, cheaper, more colors, more features, supports all audio/video formats so you dont' have to convert everything you drop on it, etc.
The Zen hits the 80/20 rule better than the iPod, as the Zen doesn't force iTunes down your throat, nor does it make you wait 20mintues to copy over a few song files because Apple insists on not support WMA or other formats that your music may already be stored in. Even a Divx movie takes no conversion on the Zen.
iPod = Marketing/Cool
This is not a receipe for LONG TERM success, Palms used to be cool as well until market saturation for the 'features' provided peaked.
If Apple thinks they are going to shove Safari at users that alreayd have a Corvette and tell them that the Miata they are offering is better because it has a Apple logo on it, they are NOT going to win the PC market place.
This is NOT consumer electronics where the average buyers are cattle. (And sadly Apple continues to do this even with their own computing hardware, want a fast Video Card, Cad/Gaming level laptop, then you sadly CAN'T buy a MAC.
I am actually NOT a Apple or Mac hater, I would rather they listen to engineers like myself and STOP FORCING crap on users because they know their marketing or fanbase with LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. I want the Apple that did provide the best Graphics, OS, Hardware, Products, not the lackluster 'good enough' crap of today.
iTunes is a continual kludge of technology as Apple 'finds' neat ideas.
I remember when MS previewed the new Album layout of WMP11, six months later iTunes somehow had the exact same layout added to it. iTunes is a constant progression of ideas thrown together and is still bloated and buggy. But hey Apple released these features first, so that means Apple rocks! (gag)
iTunes is a sad example of people 'putting' up with software when they don't know better or are in love with Steve Jobs.
(I'm happy to give Vista a portion of the blame, but only so much.) This is something you can easily test, use WMP11 on Vista and a Zune or Creative Zen. Notice how smooth and fast the process is in comparison. Oh and no crashes, no massive memory usage, no lost tracks, etc etc....
I personally prefer Urge for music, but that is because I am a subscription person. It is nice to reload my 30gb Zen every other day with a new set of 15,000 songs for $15 a month.
(PS The search integrated WMP11 features that work with Urge are brilliant, there is no easier way to search for old songs, artists, and have access to them like they are part of your library before you even click 'download'.)
Slashdot Mirror
Fact#1: No, DRM has nothing to do with file copying, that is FUD. There is a known bug about the 'estimation' process, and you can find a hotfix on the net as one of my techs just reminded me. The DRM in Vista is 'protected processes' i.e. processes that no other process can gain access to even with admin rights. This is part DRM implemntation and part security. However it does not come into play when copying files, DRMed files are internally flagged, and copy as regular files, it is when they are tried to be played on another computer does the DRM check ever happen. Also this is just WMA, WMV, and works like XP. And the playback 'protected pipelines' truly don't come into play on copy media.
Fact#2: Aero does NOT consume more battery power. Aero was a concern in Beta, and there were some bad GPU drivers 'in beta', but since the release of Vista, this is SO not the case. Go find articles where people actually test this. There are 'reasons' why Aero makes up for itself by saving performance in diferent areas. If you think about it, the composer is keeping vector and bitmap applications from having to redraw the window all the time, so this would help offset other GPU usage. Pushing Vector and Bitmap data from RAM to the screen is NOT sucking or using much 3D power, truly...
Here are the first Google links I found, go find others, I think even a few gaming mags and Toms have done reports on this as well refuting the Aero battery drain myths.
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/arc hive/2007/05/14/aero-and-battery-life.aspx
http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisedesktop/arch ives/2007/05/the_vista_aero.html
Fact #3: There is still issues with file security where the don't give the administrator of the computer access to certain directives. You have to go in and change ownership, give me a fucking break. Like I want to spend time a clients house to deal with that shit?
This is somewhat true, but this is called security. I know it is new to the Windows world and strange to everyone else because MS has not given Windows Vista users an equivalent to root account, as even as Administrator with UAC off, certain system level files have higher security. However, as you state, you can take ownership and do what you want with them. So MS actually putting 'better' security in an OS is bad how again?
Games seem to run slow on my machine, maybe I need more memeory, but I have two gigs... I get 10 frames per second less on all my games. But it could be my machine, it seems more like a driver thing though.
Actually you should check out drivers, and see if newer versions don't pull a bit more performance out of your system.
Here are a couple of tips.
ATI Cards, version 9.2 seems to be faster for lower end cards.
ATI 14xx - 29xx the newest driver is faster.
NVidia FX 5xxx series 97.19 is currently the fastest driver.
NVidida 6xxx-8xxx usually the latest or one of the latest beta drivers are the fastest. (Find new and Beta NVidia drivers on www.laptopvideo2go.com, even for desktops, as they seems to stay up on versions and also offer updated INFs for non-standard chipsets.)
The January drivers or the in box Vista drivers are truly slower than XP, this is accepted by everyone. However, the Feb-Current drivers for Vista are on par with XP for most people in terms of performance. Like I said the WDDM required ATI/NVidia to write the drivers from scratch and since then they have been fixing and profiling games for optimal performance, which they had the luxury of years of testing on XP that no longer applies for the Vista Drivers.
Our techs tend to dispell the 'games are slower' on Vista by demonstrating a DirectX game and an OpenGL game running in a Window with Aero enabled, and sho
From your number they run about as fast as they do on 2000
Um, you do realize that in every test, WindowsXP is 10-20% faster than Win2K and 20-40% faster than Win9x on the same hardware with 128mb of RAM? So not sure how you equate anything I said with regard to Win2K. (Google this, I'm dead serious.)
As for the WoW examples, that was just because it is something that a lot of our techs have dealt with because they are gamers or work with development partners that produce games like WoW. We also deal with large scale data operations as well, so don't put too much weight on the WoW examples, they were more of a response to the SlashDot crowd complaining they couldn't get WoW to run.
PS... A tip for WoW players and Vista, install the drivers from ATI/Vista/Intel, as MS does not put OpenGL ICD drivers in the Vista box.
99.9% of people complaining about Vista and games like WoW and CoH just need to install the right driver, just like XP.
So if they don't install the video driver from ATI/NVidia/Intel all OpenGL games will run software rendered with OpenGL 1.4 instead of the latest version hardware accelerated. Vista is just like XP in that OpenGL ICD support needs a driver from the GPU Mfr.
I have yet to see this. We have whole test centers with vista on machines less then 6 months old shut down because Vista routinely fails are needs. which don't involve running wow, they involve data transfers, performance and stability.
We had MS experts out here for a week. There recommendation? wait for SP1 and try again.
Sounds like your company has a really failed rollout or bad IT people inside the company or consulting. I would be asking for these people Vista training experience.
We work with companies like GM and EDS, all the way down to small companies or technical staff that works with mom and pop shops.
Although not everyone is rolling out Vista at this time, their internal testing is far from your experience. And the companies that do have active Vista rollouts are very happy with the experience, but it helps having people up to speed with Vista.
Sadly, like I joked in my original post, the GeekSquad at BestBuy tends to have had better Vista training than most IT professionals at this point, and that is not a good thing. (Although it was smart of BestBuy to invest in early training and give them an edge in the consumer tech market.)
IT people that are slow to adopt, test, or take training waiting for SP1 or the release of Longhorn Server are doing themselves and their clients a big disservice. Even if you don't plan on using Vista, if you are in the IT world, you will run into it and you might as well be proficient enough to not make a fool of yourself.
Thanks for your post and I hope your bad experience gets better.
Take Care...
That's one piss-poor tip, seeing as it doesn't work.
Well this is one consistent bug our techs found other than standard hardware failures that become more evident with Vista using the faster querying and transfer mechanisms.
Using the faster SMB calls by default will manifest into problems with devices or servers not well equip to handle them easily. MS made this easier due to the outcry during the beta process, but there are still circumstances that are either 3rd party device or actual hardware failures.
Another problem that is common is older storage servers that only use NTLM; however, this is easily fixable by telling Vista to support both NTLMv2 and NTLM. If you will notice the people complaining about the authenication elevation problems and still having trouble accessing shares are often hitting into an environment where NTLM is assumed to be in use by the server/share.
PS The flow control default that I mentioned in my original post is a MS KB Article based on our testing, so yes it is a good tip, even if it doesn't apply to your environment. It also something that doesn't appear for some users until they are copying large files or stream video and the switch/router doesn't handle handing off form a 10/100 to a 100/1000 computer/device.
So your anecdotal evidence in one (yes, one) laptop you want us to believe is better than the anecdotal evidence of quite a number of people on the site.
It was one example of a computer our techs use in the field, we have a full hardware test lab that we use for research and also a small lab at our software develop facility.
We have a few hundred systems going all the time, and the luxury of using off the shelf brand names or building any type of test configuration our techs can come up with.
I'm sorry that you concluded that it is the 'only' system I was referencing, although even after rereading my post it seems quite clear it was a single example and not our only test environment.
Wow, so many Vista Experts on SlashDot
This is what I kept thinking to myself as I read through the tons of posts of how it didn't work for someone, or how they knew it was going to suck or how their friend had a horrible experience, or my favorite how aero sucked battery life and wouldn't play WoW.
Old Equipment Myth:
I'm sitting here on an a old test system that I pack around for Site Surveys, it is a 2004 Toshiba laptop 1Gb RAM, 64mb NVidia 5600 Video card, and the techs have WoW, CoH, SWG, LoTR installed odn it
Games Slower Myth:
The tech notes also show that in Coh, LoTR, and WoW the game runs 5-10% FASTER than XP for FPS and also allows higher texture settings in the games than XP because of the Video RAM Virtualization technologies in Vista (See it only has a 64mb video card, but is running texture levels for 256mb Video cards.)
Aero is Slow or Eats Battery:
This old test laptop is also running Aero, and the techs notes show that with Aero enabled, the battery life compared to XP is 5mins less, not a massive difference, but hey if people want to believe the negative hype, good for them. The tech notes also show that without Aero, Vista improves application drawing over XP in applications like AI, CorelDraw 10x. With Aero Enabled, this pushes to 15-20x because of the non-tearing the Aero composer adds to the already GPU assisted GDI/WPF drawing engine in Vista.
Vista Permissions:
If they really bug you, turn them off. You can run as administrator just like on good old XP(no prompts). And you would still be safer doing this than running XP. The UAC isn't as stupid as people think, but when dealing with milliions of Apps written without any concept of NT Security as was allowed on XP, there are going to be a few third party applications that need permissions.
Copying/Network Performance:
This is one we have seen. Here is a trick, Vista's network drivers turn off Flow control. If you are running on a 100/1000 swtich and other devices are 10 or 100 which is slower than your link into the router/hub, without flow control network performance can suffer as most home and small business routers/switch get overwhelmed. Turn on Flow control on your adapter - network file copying goes back to XP speeds or higher.
Vista is like WinME:
WinME was crap because it tried to stuff an 800lb gorilla in a DOS/Win9x OS, when many of the 'bloat/features' of WinME required a stronger kernel architecture to seamlessly handle all the new background process and features.
I hated WinME for many reasons, it was a rushed product, had no business putting things like system restore on an OS using FAT32, etc. If Vista sucked even a bit or sucked hard like WinME, I or one of my techs would be the first people posting here about how it sucks or to stay away from it. However, it does not. It is a natural progression of the NT technology line and continues to improve the underlying kernel technology and bring new ease of use to users.
Additional Notes:
Unlike the older test system I gave as an example, if you have the luxury of using Vista on a newer system, laptop or desktop, then you won't find even a 5min difference with Aero on or off, just like the 'themes kill performance myths' from the XP days.
Also if the laptop is newer(made in this year), you will find the Vista tie ins give the laptop a 10-20min boost of battery time over XP, and also more gracefully handles CPU throttling, video throttling, and entering sleep states. If the hardware is new and designed for Vista, it truly works better with Vista.
Vista is a Market Failure Myth:
Depends on what you base this on. However think in these terms, in six months there are more Vista users (by choice of the user) than there are Macs or OSX users in existence. Vista is the #2 most used OS on the planet right now with XP being #1, and this is six months into the product cycle, not 6 years like XP.
Vista Stability:
Vista is truly more stable and secure than XP and brings the NT code base up t
You went from calling all my information incorrect to hitting on a single point that is harder to trace than others.
So which is it now, everything I said was incorrect, or only you couldn't find kernel design references that were used in WinCE that came from NT, so you are going to pretend that is the only point you have contention with because you found out the other information I supplied was correct?
To find the WinCe information you are looking for you have to go back to the timeline between NT 3.5 and NT 4.0. WinCE was designed specifically to fit into low MEMORY footprint devices, it was not designed for low power or any other claim you seem to be making.
MS originally planned on using a variation of the kernel design of the Win3.1 or Win95 architecture, but when they found they could use a modified form of the NT kernel technologies without doing the client/server kernel design of NT(i.e. pushing the API interfaces to related to an agnostic kernel and embed the APIs needed for the WinCE platform), it would meet their minimalist memory requirements and offer features needed for terminal type computing devices, like true pre-emptive and near real-time performance.
Actually because WinCE could drop the subsystem references and move the API more into the kernel interface directly than, it was more realtime than NT in the 90s because they moddifed the scheduler from the NT Model for WinCE.
Now I know you aren't going to find this information on a lot of sites, as most people don't give a crap about the origins of WinCE, and its evolution into Windows Mobile. I honestly don't even care much about it other than I know it will not be around as the main mobile product from MS, as Vista Embedded is positioned to move into phone and other PDA markets, which is why the UMPC platform was designed to ease the development transition for desktop application designers to consider smaller screens and handheld devices as the first step.
However if you look at the code for the WinCE kernel code, which is available for academic use, you will see that it draws on the NT kernel design 'SPECIFICALLY', but forgoes the upper end features of the NT kernel like subsystems, abstracted API interface, etc.
BTW The reason I called the product WinCE, is because that is the basis of Windows Mobile/PocketPC and it WAS WinCE specifically when the original kernel design was put together and drawn on from the NT kernel designs.
I'm not here to argue WinCE is the NT kernel, but its basis was the NT kernel and it ALSO was NOT SPECIFCIALLY designed for power usage any more than NT was, which was my main and original point. It was designed to fit in a small memory footprint and was used for small 'terminal' type computing originally, not Mobile or PDA technology.
As I mentioned at the begining, you seem to focus only the credibility of WinCE, but you no longer are arguing about Windows Embedded XP/Vista. Why is that?
Did you actually look it up and see that it is being used in 'portable' devies that 'power consumption' is important. Or did you find out that it is also being used in small memory footprint and real-time devices like routers and even freaking print servers?
I actually think that no matter what I say, you are going to try to dismiss whatever crack you think you can get water into. So with that in mind I realize you are proud of your ignorance and determined to keep it.
Good Day...
I assume you can find wikipedia.com or microsoft.com, so go do your own freaking homework.
It is not my responsibility that you are this stupid and unwilling to educate yourself.
BTW, yes I and a lot of other people on SlashDot have seen a lot of OS kernel code, from Linux to even NT core code, and especially MACH with a BSD interface, which is what OS X is. Do you also not realize that many of us have seen and worked with Darwin specifically?
Even just questioning the accuracy of the Windows Embedded or WindowsCE/Pocket PC example I gave you is an immediate red flag that you are more stupid than anyone would have expected even on SlashDot.
I apologize for responding to your post, I assumed you might care or have a clue of what you were talking about. It is obvious you don't.
It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices.
Do you REALLY think that just because an OS wasn't designed for low power devices it cannot run well on low power devices? Most OS kernel designs are agnostic to things like this and if a proper power management mechanism is in place, makes this claim meaningless.
Here is an example:
WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista.
Windows XP & Windows Vista Embedded both work on very tiny and very low power devices as well.
And Windows Vista Embedded is Vista with features removed, just like OS X is on the iPhone. Get it?
So the OS begining 'designed' for low power is not notable or 'remarkable' that Apple was able to get OS X to run well on a low power device. Remove GUI bloat, add better or device specific power management and bingo, a Phone OS.
Also for the claims, removing 'space' for items like a keyboard and increasing the 'weight' are relevant to increasing battery life that other manufacturers don't have to deal with because overall size and weight won't matter to Apple's Fanboi base.
that if an employee from "a UI research group" submitted a report to me with such an obvious error I would fire him. (I guess that kinda fits that you would fire a graphical designer who submitted Safari as an example of his work?)
;)
I am part of a research group, and as insane as this must sound to you, I am a member of more than one.
Also as shocking as this might sound, not all my participation in certain research groups is for profit, as they are not my main source of work or income. You see, I also own a few companies and yes we have software development teams as well as marketing and graphics departments.
(Don't be shocked, but not everyone that reads SlashDot lives in their parent's basement.)
As for things I say, some are opinions, some are based on research data, and some are based on my work experience or current projects I am dealing with in the industry. However I am paid well for my opinions, research and consulting knowledge; so I don't take offense to you trying to dismiss my comments just because opinion could be a piece of the amalgamation of facts, research, and personal experience.
Besides, Einstein wasn't offended by such dismissals either when he used personal insight along with research.
Ok, the dishwasher is an easy solution, although maybe not the best other than using the wash and rinse cycles. And if you have really hard water, you might want to think twice.
:)
Other tips...
1) If you have bad/hard water avoid it, instead use filtered or store bought distilled/de-ionized water. Use a sink or tub and in place of running water, and shake the keyboard/device to ensure it is getting properly washed.
2) Some degreasing agents are ok, but they have to be thoroughly rinsed. (Common ones used in small shops are the chemicals in Windex, 409, etc. as they are designed to be easily rinsed or leave less residue.)
3) Drying: After rinsing electronics with clean water, if you can use an evaporation accelerator like rubbing alcohol or whatever would applicably be safe to the device. (i.e. rubbing alcohol is not good on LCDs) When you use an evaporation accelerator, you still need to give time for it to dry and placing in front of fan in a position it drains works well. This way you can avoid using heat and will also help push air through the device. I don't recommend heat unless you are also using a fan as just heat will not fully allow the water to escape as well as air flowing through the device will.
4) If the component originally had 'grease/lubricant' protecting parts of it, you will have to replace it. This can be from misting something as simple as vegetable oil if it isn't used in a dusty environment or using products like Duralube which will add the protecting lubricant and also help to keep contacts clean as well as protect them from water damage in the future.
5) Notice the mention of Duralube in the previous note. It can also be used to water proof electronics while helping keeping conductive parts clean. For example a telephone keypad, etc.
One old example I give techs: I have always installed outside gate and door phones, and instead of buying boxed phones or ugly water proof phones, I simply drench or immerse the phones in a product like Duralube. It will keep the phone water proof and working properly for years. This is also a good idea for telephone or network connectors that might get exposed to outside elements. - Test on cheap phones/equipment first as your results may vary.
6) For plastic finishes, use a misting of Endust, let dry partially, then lightly polish. For devices with screens, both Endust and Pledge type products can be used on scratched screen to remove the visual blemishes without harming the surface. According to the level of scratches, polish less to leave more 'product' on the screen to hide the scratches.
The main tricks are to clean so that you are aren't leaving dirt behind, and dry well and as fast as possible to avoid corrosion, and don't apply power until you are 100% certain there is no water inside.
If you are just trying to save a device from water damage, remove all power sources ASAP, and then rinse with clean water or drop them in rubbing alcohol, but only if alcohol is safe for the device.
I have dealt with devices rescued from floods and the first thing was to flush them in a vat of rubbing alcohol to clean and remove damage caused by water in addition to accelerating the evaporation process without using heat.
Good Luck and I make no guarantees or warranties on the methods discussed, implied or not.
A simple Google search for "iTunes market share" reveals that they've cornered 70% of the digital music sales marketplace
;)
Sorry, I was going by profit and downloads. I forgot iTunes is a lost leader and that subscription services that do make money don't count downloads in comparison to iTunes as users can download 10s of 1000s of songs per month. Again, I will repeat, iTunes is not the leader in 'distribution, downloads, or profit'. They are only the leader in 'purchased specific downloads', which is a tiny part of the market to your chagrin.
Also, 1999 was Media Player 6
Sorry, I forget anal pricks like you would only go by release dates and not 'general' beta availability. Considering WMP7 was in Win2K & WinMe, technically was widely in use in 1998, and available for separate public download in 1999, with Music services available.
You don't bore me, daft ignorance makes me laugh.
they want a sleek, graphically appealing and (for them) intuitive user experience.
If Safari is your idea of well designed or graphically appealing you either have a massive Jobs stalking issue, or you are not a graphic designer.
Sadly IE7 on Vista is far prettier than Safari or even Safari running on OS X. It is also more intuitive for non-tech people.
If a developer or graphic designer submitted Safari as an example of their work to me I would fire them.
(PS I am part of a UI research group, and Apple has a lot to learn still.)
1) Mac users threw a fit when MS tried to impose Windows UI ideals on them with Office back in the 90s, and MS scrapped Office and redesigned it from the ground up for the Mac UI guidelines. Apple needs to learn the same lesson that MS already 'gets'.
2) UI paradigm. Futhering the Windows UI, MS is pushing the UI paradigm with IE7 and Vista by getting away from old concepts like menus and wasted screen space, again Apple needs to catch up, especially if they are going to keep forcing iCrap on Windows users.
3) Performance, Stability. Apple software on Windows is horrible. From bad video performance, glitching sound, to crashes, Apple software is by far the most poorly written software from a major Software vendor. (Maybe Apple does this on purpose to make Windows look bad, or maybe their developers are just really stupid.)
4) IE7, IE8... People seem to forget IE7 has come 200x from IE6 in implementing standards. To the point where it pretty much supports everything out there, the only thing it does bad is that it will still try to render 'old' or 'incorrect' pages, and for end users, this is a 'feature' to them, rather than getting a blank page or goofy looking page as you get on Safari.
Safari has nothing on IE7 for standards other than it DOES NOT render improperly coded pages. People forget that the ACID2 test is to see if the browser will ignore 'bad' code, not whether it supports 'features' of standards.
Also IE8 gets another massive standards surge and is coming this year.
For non-technical users, here is how it plays out...
Apple can't keep putting out Quicktime, iTunes, and now Safari with Mac UIs and poor performance and expect Windows users to 'see the light' and run to Apple. Instead it makes users think Apple is retarded and run the other way, vowing to never buy a Mac and avoid their software at all costs. Most PC users wouldn't buy iPods if they were forced to use iTunes before deciding on an MP3 player.
iTunes was *the* application that made digital distribution mainstream
With this line you certify yourself as insane or a fanatic...
More content is purchased through many other services than iTunes. iTunes was never the leader, EVER.
There were also services LONG before iTunes and even before Apple bought out the iTunes software in 2000.
When you mention Sony as being the first online store, you are forgetting companies that existed before them, like mp3.com, eMusic, etc.
You also are forgetting other digital distribution companies that are still around and make more money than iTunes store does, like Audible.com which back in 1999 even integrated into WMP, like I SAID BEFORE.
Talk about living in the Apple bubble. And where did you even get your feked up timeline of history? Does the Apple site give out propaganda sheets when you download iTunes now?
I can't believe people are really this stupid...
The issue there is that Mac OS X's own international character support does all the hard work for the applications: they don't generally need to worry about it. On Windows, it's a very different story
Really? Seems that Unicode has been a part of the NT platform since 1992, Windows developers seem to do quite fine with letting Windows handle character and font support. I can make a 10 line application that handles most languages on Vista, and you are going to tell us that it is 'harder' on Windows?
Nope...
As I understand it MS did this not to help Apple but to get Apple to settle their 10+ year legal battle. A little office and IE for the Mac and 150 Million investment in Apple and everybody is happy.
;)
It is very possible that was their entire motive, but if Apple didn't need the help they wouldn't have agreed to it and would have pushed the lawsuit instead. The origins of the lawsuit from Apple were for Capital gain, not because they had a strong case.
MS could have stopped Office development for the Mac in 1992 when Office took off in the Windows world which was ruling the world. There was no 'financial' reason that MS even kept the Mac Word and Excel versions alive. This would have really hurt Apple/Mac playing in role in a business.
Even now if MS completely yanked all their Mac software, it would hurt Mac and OS X more than people realize. And MS has no reason to keep it alive and a separate development project. (MS develops a specific version for the Mac, not a port, and this costs as much as the Windows version, yet yields 4% of the revenue of the Windows Version.)
So MS is still being nice to Apple, more than a lot of people realize.
Apple and MS don't hate each other, but it plays well for Apple when marketing to their customers.
This isn't about shutting down these companies. This is about making Linux unfree.
No...
MS = GM
*nix = Kit Car
You will always still be able to get a free kit car, and for businesses, that isn't such a good idea, as some employees just want a car to drive. So they can go with a Linux Vendor and get a car easily and know it will work well.
People like you and others will always still be able to build their own kit car and beholden to NOBODY.
This is more about business and making it easier for them to adopt Linux than it is about infringing on your ability to keep Linux free and your favorite kit car.
This also doesn't undermine the kit car concept, as technologies evolve in the OSS world, these features will be added to the same 'kit cars' business can choose to drive as well.
Go read the Article where Sun explains their Linux and MS decisions. MS is playing a role, but they are also helping out when they could be doing the opposite and stopping the *nix movement just as easily. Everyone in the *nix world already hates them, they would have nothing to lose, but instead are trying to do the right thing for once.
The OSS zealot movement inside MS is very strong right now, if we reject MS and stop this internal movement, MS may reject the internal movement and shut it down and stop letting it have a major impact on the company's operations. And I think this internal movement is a good thing for everyone.
It could be worse...
MS seems to be giving an ok to pretty much any commercial Linux vendor that would have customers needing solid support without any fear from MS or other companies trying to nail them for patents. (Note they are getting MS protection on things not even related to MS, that is pretty big and a broad acceptance.)
However, it could be worse, MS could just have ignored all these companies and pushed MS Linux or even a Linux Subsystem for NT as an alternative for business and left every Linux distributor to fend for themselves in the commericial market. This would be worse...
MS is not the devil anymore, we can't continue to just hate them for the sake of hating them. IBM and DRDOS got screwed by MS, not Linux. Wordperfect and Lotus screwed themselves with horrible products. Novell screwed themselves with horrible client software and high prices.
So yes MS feked up, but not as bad as they could have.
MS helped Apple several times along the way, when they could have went in for the kill. If MS was truly predatory or evil, there would be no Apple, especially when Apple was very dependent on IE and Office.
If this was MS playing the role of borg, they wouldn't even deal with these companies and like I said, would be pushing MS Linux or Linux on NT as the only solution for non-Windows *nix.
Instead MS has a BSD subsystem for NT that is not hardly even marketed other than for integration with the *nix community, and MS is looking for ways to partner with *nix OS vendors they could easily shun and effectively kill off in the corporate/business sectors. But they aren't.
So things could be a lot worse...
(If I'm wrong and MS starts shutting down these companies, I will freely admit it and join everyone here with pitch forks outside Redmond. Until then, MS giving credibility to Linux companies is a good thing.)
Urge's search features are exactly what the iTunes store has had from the beginning. Your post is a sad example of Microsoft-shilling when they don't know better.
My example is Urge is a refined variation that DOES work better than iTuens.
However, do you realize the WMP had built in Store and Web Page Store support with integrated searching in the UI going back to at least WMP7 and this is before the year 2000?
This far predates when it appeared in iTunes, I assure you. So are you just trying to be a Apple-shilling fool by trying to pretend iTune introduced this?
I suppose the new features in OSX where you can put part of your web page on your desktop is also an Apple innovation, yet Win98 had this feature back in 1997-1998, and it was called active desktop. This is how WIndows users had weather maps on their desktop for almost 10 years now...
I get so tired of the Apple 'innovated' first crap. Apple 'refines' but seldom innovates, just like MS does.
Most technologies used today are based on so much pre-existing technology, the only 'innovation' is in the cohesive application of the technologies.
Because they focus on elegant interfaces that don't spam you with junk you rarely click.
That is a great thing, but you are implying that all other companies don't also consider UI 'overload'. MS was slapped around in the press this year for ripping out the concept of Menus in Vista/IE7 and even Office 2007 because they are dated ideas that are 'overload' and confusing by the junk that populated them.
So can I assume you think MS's UI designs are better than Apple then because Apple still hasn't given up a dated UI concept like a Menu Bar that Spams irrelevant information?
The problem with your logic is you assume Safari is easier to use because of the lack of features. When the UI of IE7 and even Firefox ARE MORE MINIMALIST, yet the products themselves offer more features for people that need them. There is a balance to this, and it would be different if IE7 or Firefox were cluttered with UI Junk, and they aren't.
I agree there is something to be said of the surrounding product support.
However at what point do you realize that this is based upon false reasoning by the supporting companies?
I tend to question authority a bit too much, and just because Apple says jump and other companies are stupid enough to jump, doesn't mean you really need to jump.
There are a lot of products that are far beyond the iPod,iPhone and work well for the majority of people. For example you talk about your iPod integration to your steering wheel. You do realize there are bluetooth devices that offer features like this without the proprietary iPod requirements.
There are also devices that work well by voice command, one of which I have and I don't have to even click a button in my car, but just say "Volume Up" "Next Track" etc. Also why even go through the trouble of docking your iPod in your car? Buy a car like the 2007 Dodge Avenger that has all the features of the iPod built in, syncs automatically to your Music Collection and you don't have to even pull your iPod out of your pocket. These are features and synergy BEYOND iPod thinking.
People tend to let themselves be consumed into a product's enviroment, and that is where trouble happens as they no longer can see products or features outside of the iPod world. And there are products and technologies and things that are easier and work better for a lot of people.
As long as Apple owns your mindset so that you think, how this works with my iPod, you will start to lose your ability to accurately look at other technology that might serve you better than an iPod or supporting technology you have married it to.
I don't disagree, I just don't think it is a good thing.
With a minor background in psychology and the Jim Jones aspect to the iPod I see it as a bit disturbing. I remember people being interviewed about the end of the world in 1990 (no, not Jim Jones), and they were so convinced that the world was going to end they sold all their possessions, and then asked about what happens if the world doesn't end, their response was, "It has to end, I sold all my stuff."
We need to pull back and keep facts about the technology relevant and not the 'love' we have for the products. These are not people or ideals to form emotional bonds with, yet it is very common to see 1000s of people on the anti-establishment SlashDot even fall into this trap when it comes to iXXXX thinking.
Take care.
Have you taken a good look at their mouse design up till the last few years? ;) I'm not even sure they bothered changing in recent years but I know I managed to plug in my 5 button mouse on a G4 server I was forced to administrate a few months ago, and the mouse worked to some degree at least
Actually this is a thought that still goes through my head.
Apple basically told their entire customer base that the users were TOO STUPID to use a mouse with more than one button, and every Mac Fanboi rushed out to agree with Apple, not even realizing that they were arguing how stupid they were in agreement with Apple.
The religion Apple generates is almost scary sometimes. I do give them Marks for having a brilliant marketing department, it is up there with Jim Jones. However, I'm scared that they will release iKoolAid...
As for WMP11, it's a total piece of ugly crap that tries to rip off everything in iTunes, even down to the left-side source list and the upper-right search field with the magnifying glass and everything
You do know MS previewed this in a beta of WMP before almost a year it was ever added to iTunes?
I think you are making my point for me, thank you for your ignorance.
Of course some people prefer cars like the first generation Dodge Viper, which had almost no features, not even power windows or a credible radio option. It was fast 0-60, but 0-100 the Corvette was actually faster because of the technology GM used.
;)
A lie.
Well I owned both, did the whole Indy flight for ordering one of the first Vipers, etc.
Go look up AERODYNAMICS, and how the lack of aerodynamic design gave the performance edge to the Corvette and especially the ZR1 Corvette in comparison to the Viper. Also notice that Dodge revamped the Aerodynamic design of the Viper because of this embarassment.
Indeed. It's absolutely clear that Apple are wrong to focus on the 80 side of the 80/20 rule, as we can see from the utter market failure of the iPod
If you think the iPod was successful besides anything but marketing, you are mind-f**king yourself.
Pick up a Creative Zen Vision M, cheaper, more colors, more features, supports all audio/video formats so you dont' have to convert everything you drop on it, etc.
The Zen hits the 80/20 rule better than the iPod, as the Zen doesn't force iTunes down your throat, nor does it make you wait 20mintues to copy over a few song files because Apple insists on not support WMA or other formats that your music may already be stored in. Even a Divx movie takes no conversion on the Zen.
iPod = Marketing/Cool
This is not a receipe for LONG TERM success, Palms used to be cool as well until market saturation for the 'features' provided peaked.
If Apple thinks they are going to shove Safari at users that alreayd have a Corvette and tell them that the Miata they are offering is better because it has a Apple logo on it, they are NOT going to win the PC market place.
This is NOT consumer electronics where the average buyers are cattle. (And sadly Apple continues to do this even with their own computing hardware, want a fast Video Card, Cad/Gaming level laptop, then you sadly CAN'T buy a MAC.
I am actually NOT a Apple or Mac hater, I would rather they listen to engineers like myself and STOP FORCING crap on users because they know their marketing or fanbase with LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. I want the Apple that did provide the best Graphics, OS, Hardware, Products, not the lackluster 'good enough' crap of today.
iTunes is a continual kludge of technology as Apple 'finds' neat ideas.
I remember when MS previewed the new Album layout of WMP11, six months later iTunes somehow had the exact same layout added to it. iTunes is a constant progression of ideas thrown together and is still bloated and buggy. But hey Apple released these features first, so that means Apple rocks! (gag)
iTunes is a sad example of people 'putting' up with software when they don't know better or are in love with Steve Jobs.
(I'm happy to give Vista a portion of the blame, but only so much.)
This is something you can easily test, use WMP11 on Vista and a Zune or Creative Zen. Notice how smooth and fast the process is in comparison. Oh and no crashes, no massive memory usage, no lost tracks, etc etc....
I personally prefer Urge for music, but that is because I am a subscription person. It is nice to reload my 30gb Zen every other day with a new set of 15,000 songs for $15 a month.
(PS The search integrated WMP11 features that work with Urge are brilliant, there is no easier way to search for old songs, artists, and have access to them like they are part of your library before you even click 'download'.)