I just started into a more detailed explanation with less 'generic' terms to explain my earlier post that I can now scrap.
I thought I was saving the non-technical readers by using more generic terms, but instead it created more of reaction like Frankenstein to fire. "Object based I/O" for example.
You summarized the point more effectively, without even having to explain the NT Object Manager, nature of the NT Kernel's handling of APIs with agnostic objects to upper level NT layers and even how the 'object' nature of the NT API set deals with OS subsystems.
The real world technical examples of why dealing with objects is a good thing was a nice touch and something I would have skipped.
So thank you...
It is strange that with all the 'geeks' here, it is like 1 out of a 1000 that could even define what a UNIX model OS is let alone have any understanding of NT's architecture and why it is very much not like UNIX for valid reasons.
- You can choose User Files or a Complete volume image.
Many users do a periodic Complete backup and daily user file backups to complete a total recovery solution.
A side benefit of Windows Backup is that it also works with the Windows 'Previous Versions', which is like Time Machine on OS X, but also includes 'on volume' snapshot/copy on write archived versions of all your documents. It is also more accessible and elegant than Time Machine, as it is integrated into the Shell and even older application that have an Open or Save dialog box get access to 'previous versions' of your documents.
So in Windows Vista or Win7, you can right click on the main volume and hit previous versions and it will list all the archive points on the volume and all the backup points on your external storage device(network share etc.)
Also recovering or viewing a 'previous version' from the volume or a backup is as easily as hitting open and viewing the Folder or Volume as it looked at a particular day or time, being able to browse through the entire volume and even search it as it existed on that date and time.
No Time Machine interface needed, and even your external backups are not needed for the basic functionality as it uses the Volume Shadow features of NTFS every time you modify a file on your computer.
--- 2) Scripted Backups, with folder syncing, etc. Tools like Copy and XCopy have been replaced in Windows and you have RoboCopy as well as new PowerShell copy features.
RoboCopy is probably what you are looking for, as it is a complete backup and archiving tool, in addition to performing basic file copying. It does folder syncing, mirroring, etc, etc and can create a perfect copy of even the system volume with all attributes, NTFS meta data, and ACLs kept in tact that you can simply use RoboCopy again from the boot DVD in the WinPE environment to restore a volume exactly.
(WinPE is essentially NT with a generic GUI, so unlike XP, it allows NT and even Win32/64 commandline and some GUI utilities to run on what is essentially the 'MinWin' layers of NT. WinPE is also what Vista and Win7 use for setup/upgrades.)
--- 3) Other utilities. ---
If the built in Complete Backup/User Data Backup tools or the RoboCopy utility don't provide the features you want, there are additional 'IT' scale tools in the resource kit that add even more functionality, as well as the PowerShell features.
You can even click 'install SUA' and use or compile any *nix utility you like and use it. NT doesn't care if you are using the BSD subsystem or Win32.
There are also the Win32 ports of the *nix utilities that a lot of *nix users love.
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One PS about Powershell...
PowerShell is more of a CLI for the NT architecture.
Which means it is the first CLI designed around the object based kernel architecture of NT, and unlike a *nix CLI, doesn't deal with just device I/O and text, but uses the 'object' constructs that NT is uses instead.
So Powershell can request and interact with devices and I/O on an object level as well as pass and work with objects from the NT and Win32 Subsystem that would be basic devices and textual on *nix.
i.e. It can work directly with an object and its properties at the CLI level from the NT kernel and not just textual parameters and understands NT objects in the kernel from things like the token based security of NT to even the Win32 subsystem WMI objects that create the GUI, other interfaces all the way through process and services that work with NT in object form. (This is one area NT was designed to be more advanced than UNIX, as the basic device and textual nature of the UNIX model was considered to be outdated when NT was created, and using a real 'object' model that exposed information, functions, and properties for I/O was seen as the more robust system.
Interesting about a regions ice thinkness; however, this has nothing to do with CO2 levels, or global warming...
Maybe the politics and religion of SlashDot can for once leave the science to let's say the 'scientists'?
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There are so many factors in 'global warming' from desalination and currents to polar winds just to top off a couple of important things that makes this report have nothing to do with overall climate status/change.
There is also the effect of mankind's pollution in opacity, as just the increases the Bush administration allowed in the past eight years would have once again decreased the amount of sunlight that gets to the surface, giving the earth a temporary cooling, that when stabalized could mean the global warming effects would hit many times faster than even the most extreme left alarmist would argue.
I love the goofs that want to tell everyone the Global Warming is in effect on a hot summer day and the other goofs that tell us it doesn't exist on a cold day.
Climate disturbance caused by man's contribution to enviornmental factors are not so easy to understand, but is something that needs to be taken seriously, as the science does show humans DO impact the climate. If it is more than expected, then watch as Europe and the north coast of America freezes over, which would be 'Global Warming'.
Do people honestly think that Global climates changes are 'not' important to mankind? History shows that natural changes nearly caused the demise of the human race several times.
It is something we should study as much as we can and prevent as much as we can, and with the 'chaotic' variable called man affecting the climate, the study and monitoring is needed now more than ever.
Filtered results at the search engine site is common for ALL search engines; however, providing the results in an OpenSearch or 'dataset' like RSS/XML set of results that can be FURTHER filtered it would be able to be used or 'checked' by 3rd party software that further checks the results.
This has several benefits:
#1) The software can catch things SafeSearch doesn't, cause it isn't that great.
#2) The software can FURTHER filter the results and strip out things SafeSearch doesn't have a problem with, but some parents might. Hence letting the users or 'parents' have control over what is acceptable instead of what Google thinks is acceptable.
Unless you want Google to think for you and all parents out there with no additional choices, which is pretty much the only option at the moment, where MS and other providers, even freaking Wiki provide the content in a matter that can be further used or filtered by what 'parents' want.
Is Wiki evil because they believe an RSS OpenSearch dataset is the RIGHT THING TO DO?
Once again, until Google plays nice, they are kicked off the playground.
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Why do people defend Google, a company that makes money off of Ad revenue under the guise of being a 'search provider' or 'email provider' or 'insert software here' that catalogs people's activities and data mines their email to enhance their Ads for their corporate clients.
If MS even began to do something 1% as corrupt as what Google's business model is based on, people would be screaming from every window of the DOJ...
Google is not a 'good' company that does wonderful things, they don't make money by showing pictures of cute puppies, but instead lean toward creating a slide show by slicing up cute puppies and tracking how much you watch the slide show.
Get it? Or do you work at Google and drink the kool-aid?
Then why doesn't it also block Microsoft Live search? Simply typing "hot babes" [live.com] into a Microsoft Live search returns hardcore porn as the very first link.
Because Live Search not only has content filtering, but can return the 'filtered' results in an XML/RSS formatted 'OpenSearch' feed that can be further 'checked' by software like LIVE FAMILY SAFETY.
Once again if people will pay attention, if Google would provide their results in a manner that could be further filtered and be 'dataset' like then they wouldn't be returning goat porn to kids after parents do install filtering software from ANY COMPANY.
Ok, the Summary is #1 wrong, and #2 people here have no idea what the hell they talking about.
The FAMILY SAFTEY is working as it is supposed to, as it is designed to setup for your freaking KIDS...
On Basic, it allows Google.com, and that is working as intended.
On Strict, it does not, as some parents wouldn't want their kids using Google that WILL RETURN DONKEY PORN VIDEOS because there is no way to intelligently filter the Google results.
If Google doesn't want to be blocked on Strict, they can provide RSS OPENSEARCH features, like everyone else is doing. However Google is intent of refusing to provide RSS OpenSearch features.
The BROKEN here is Google not supporting a web standard in their search engine results and method of returning results.
As for the whole MS is keeping people from Google, this is insane. They have no locks on Live search even for IE users (letting people use any search engine easily as their default Browser search engine).
MS has even had to 'code' around Google's lack of standards in the OpenSearch and other areas to allow 'Search Tips' and dropdown features from Google Search, since Google doesn't provide the standard 'hint' or 'search tip' features that ARE a standard and other search engines and even sites like Wikipedia provide inherently.
Google is the ones locking the doors here, in several ways, and yet someone the 'intelligent' people at SlashDot haven't even noticed any of this going on? Go look up Search Connector and RSS Search feeds, and RSS Search filtered results. Everyone and their dog supports them, except Google.
They are even integrated in Windows7 Explorer so users can search inside a Folder or Open/Save Dialog box and get web pages, video, images, links, etc from just about any online search engine or provider of content EXCEPT GOOGLE because they refuse to support RSS OpenSearch and RSS OpenSearch Filtering.
This time it comes down to MS doing the right thing, and Google intentionally not 'playing nice with others' and by proxy it breaks the abilities of the Live Family Safety features on the strict setting. If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.
This time it is MS providing the standard web search technology and is the OPEN search engine when it comes to interfacing with all the OPEN standards.
flash is slow in window mode because it doesn't use video acceleration. in full screen it does so cpu usage is moot
That is great for flash animations and video ads isn't it? Technically you are wrong about this as well.
flash supports h264 playback and mp3/aac so it supports the latest video standard, highest quality possible right now
h.264 is good, but best? MP3 best? Really? Then why are most BluRay movies encoded in VC1 (which is aka WMV) ?
With Silverlight you can only work with WMV or Microsoft technologies and you have to pay royalties and buy the video codec.
Wrong again, have you even looked at Silverlight?
Additionally if you want to talk about 'pay' do you have any idea of the Flash 'Sever' costs? Something Silverlight DOES NOT REQUIRE or NEED, and even if the site wants to do more advanced 'media' serving, Windows Server provides all the 'extra' features with no additional costs.
On the high end of Video and content providing by both technologies, here is your 'pay' plan...
Flash = Server + Flash Server Silverlight = Windows Server
And the Windows Server option is not only cheaper, but you get the full Server OS to use for other things than just Flash delivery.
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That is where I stopped reading your reply, three strikes and you don't have a clue...
You need to go look up the specifications for Silverlight 2 for yourself.
Additionally, you make WMV sound like it is the old closed WMV of 10 years ago.
WMV = VC1 - which is one of the HD codec standards, probably used on the majority of your BluRay Discs if you own any.
VC1 (i.e. WMV) is also used by several cable and ohter media distribution operators for SD and HD content delivery.
Also, just to put things in perspective, as of last year, there was more video streamed on the Internet using VC1/WMV than any other format. Yes, even eclipsing Flash content on all the YouTube type sites.
New Audio/Video providers are not looking to Flash, for several reasons, quality being the number one and the lack of video and audio features they can provide to their users.
Imagine if Netflix Instant Streaming was based on Flash, it would have failed, with horrid video quality, buffering nightmares, dropped clients, lost server connections, no accelerated assistance to smooth or recreate the image, and on and on and on.
What scares me about your post is how certain you are, and how wrong you are at the same time...
Silverlight inherently supports H.264 and VC-1 - the two HD standards, and you are probably happily watching a movie on your BluRay player that is even VC-1 encoded as it is the preferred encoding format for many studios. (VC-1 = WMV)
Additionally, Silverlight supports additional truly open formats, not some format solely controlled by one company like Adobe and FLV. (BTW Adobe Flash Video, even HD is horrid at best compared to Silverlight.)
Also to note, Silverlight3 allows for virtually any codec to be used.
True points, but Flash on Linux from Adobe is less 'open' than Silverlight from Microsoft. Did you happen to notice that Adobe used what they had opened and jumped through some licensing hoops to get you their 'proprietary' Flash player?
Microsoft has considered doing the same, but it would involve either opening up the Vista API to open source, or make them shove together a fully closed solution with less functionality.
Microsoft turning Silverlight over t Mono and the Moonlight project is a win win, as Microsoft doesn't have to open their precious 'IP' that is non-Silverlight related from the Vista APIs, and yet it gives users a full open source solution.
If you want to support open source, Silverlight is your donkey to bet on, if you want Adobe semi-open solutions, keep using Flash and be happy.
I can remember when people were in love with Apple for opening up Darwin and the OS X kernel as required for the BSD and MACH licensing, but when it came to OS X and the 'Apple' portions, people realized the opening of Darwin was to get the rights to the code and also 'use' the community and repackage everything back under the upper levels of OS X and a sue happy Apple.
Adobe didn't make their Linux Flash player to be 'good' to the Linux community, they made it to regain control of the Linux community that was going the way of the open 'Flash' players that Adobe had no control over. And apparently their 'play' to win the Linux users worked, as you are an example of a Flash fan happily installing a non-open Flash player that has full Adobe control.
- MS has virtually no control over moonlight, and also seems pretty good about providing the mono team with what they need to replicate both Silverlight and other.NET features.
>>>including needing administrator privileges to install the plugin
Ouch... Do you realize how many outdated Flash players are running around these IT environments?
Not that users should have admin, but if the IT people were doing their jobs, Silverlight is an automatic update/patch on Windows and can be installed originally via Windows Update. Flash requires a bit more work and admin scripts to install the updates.
Which is safer, a third party plugin with 1000s of exploits, or a managed code, and sandboxed plugin from MS that is automatically kept up to date without administrator intervention?
So these 'work environments' have Flash plugins installed and running for the 'ease' of their users, and have no idea the security risk this involves; therefore, there are more people using Flash so it must be the best solution?
I understand MLB's point here, but really is the direction we really want the industry to go, with Adobe being the 'security' experts protecting our users let alone the additional work IT people have to go through to keep Flash Updated?
Scary as hell, and if I was a malious software coder, I know where my biggest market and ease of access exists - Flash...
Flash - Admin updates required Flash - 1000s of 'known' exploits Flash - Really bad threading and performance
Silverlight - Non-Admin Automatic Updates(Windows) Silverlight - Virtually no exploits with additional sandbox containing it Silverlight - Great performance, and the best Video streaming delivery for SD and HD content. PERIOD.
For users that think Flash is 'optimized' open a Web Page with Flash Advertising and then open another page with a HD Silverlight Video or Silverlight animated content. Notice the CPU/GPU usage for the Flash 'ad' alone is 5-10x the Silverlight control, even when the system is decoding HD video.
-- Speaking of Flash -- Tip of the Day For Overlockers...
If you want a 'quick' stress test of your your overclock settings. Simply open a few web pages with a Flash ad and Flash video content.
If your system is clocked too high or you have voltage settings wrong, etc, Flash will pop the system almost instantly. Something running a 24hr burn in test won't even do on some systems.
When our techs overclock the new AMDs or i7s, they boot into a test environment and run Flash to see test stability, especially with SMP or multi/core/thread CPUs.
This is something a couple of our techs discovered with two test i7 systems a few months back, as they ran the 24hr stress tests, and including throwing the biggest and baddest games at the system.
It passed with flying colors until they had it totally fail when opening a web page after the Flash plugin was installed.
Turns out one system was at the 'edge' of its abilities and the other system was a new mobo and the tech didn't properly set the CPU voltage.
So it was 'good' old Flash that popped both systems even after they survived 48hrs of stress tests shoving GPU and CPU to full load in numerous applications and scenarios.
So if nothing else, keep Flash around for system building...
* This is not Windows specific...
* This is only true of the official Adobe Flash Player as far as our Techs have found.
I'm glad you put time in your response, but there is so much factually wrong with your points that I just don't have the time to properly address them.
Let me just say, your post is really flawed in that you seem to find it strange that I blame MS for the security problems of the past few years.
I am not a MS employee or advocate, just someone that deals with NT a bit more than most Slashdotters.
MS did screw up with XP - users and compatibility should have been secondary to security, no matter if they did a more *nix like UAC back then or just let things break.
Oh and PS... I will, as soon as the installer lets me create a non-administrator account.
Really, you want to install an OS with no root/admin level account at all? How do you suggest you would even install an application?
Administrator is not an automatic account like root anymore, it is the user's Administrator account created at installation that is the semi-root equivalent.
You see having all installations with Administrator as the login name is a security hole, as hackers only have to snatch the password, just like USERNAME: root is a security flaw, because you can shove passwords at or even look for root logins if you are hacking the system to obtain the root password.
Give me 30mins and a Van outside your office and I will show you how I can tag what the root access to your systems (unless your computers are highly shielded, and I doubt it unless you work at the FBI). With Windows, it is not as easy, as there is not one account you are looking for, and have to guess which one has 'admin' level access.
The default account should be the admin/root with a password, and then the 'installing administrator' should create the non-administrator accounts for the users. This is pretty basic stuff, even if you are setting up your computer for a grandmother.
Also, there is no reason not to do this when Windows also gives you several options for account levels, from non-static content accounts to guest shared users, to average users, to power users, and to Administrators.
Oh yes - the stupid F* choice to make it so that even "Administrator" can be locked out of files such as the ones put on there by malware.
Actually, no...
1) If you boot into the WinPE with Admin rights, you can access and delete anything off the volume.
2) If the file 'locks' itself when the OS loads, the Administrator can't override a system level 'lock' 'easily' anymore than a root user could on Linux, you have to resort to a terminate level command, and taskmanager doesn't just offer this up, so people like apparently never looked any further.
There are 'ways' to use your administrator rights and 'unlock' malware files. Tools you can get in the resource kit do just fine with dumping any locks and gaining control of anything, even on a 'normal' boot where the malware tries to add additional FS and other 'tricks' to lock the file or process.
Truly, resource kit, whitepapers or anything beyond TaskManager would give you these answers.
Given the fabulously intricate NT security model... why did they invent API calls to let you inject and run random code into any other process owned by the same user? WHAT FUNCTION DOES THIS SERVE? Good Lord.
Ok, not sure how to handle this, if you are serious.
1) Do you think Windows is the only OS that you can access non-owned threads/processes? You need to look at every OS out there I'm afraid.
2) The specific 'subclassing' APIs you are talking about are actually Win32, NOT NT. Win32 is just an OS subsystem running on NT.
3) As for low level protections, when MS did introduced 'protected' pipelines in Vista, Slashdot users thought it was DRM and went nuts.
When it was just what you are talking about 'processes/thread' protected from other processes/threads even with the same security. And like I mention above, they are actually more protected under NT than most other OSes.
4) Even the realtime prioritization schedulers were shoved through protected pipelines for security and performance, so that media on Vista was more BeOS like, and again SlashDot users thought it was DRM and screamed.
For one, I don't believe Windows was originally designed to be a multi-user OS, was it? Everything it does that pretends to be has been an afterthought kludge. I honestly don't know if this is the case with NT-based systems so feel free to correct me.
Wrong. NT was very much designed around a multi-user model, they just did not enable any multi-user interfaces beyond telnet. The same multi-user NT level separation and code running today was in the first NT release.
3rd parties were providing multi-user on NT back in 1992-1993 when it first shipped.
NT 4.0 added in RDP, but the multi-user model and concurrent multi-user access was already there, it was just the GUI protocol added.
But let's not pretend that it's the "exact same", either. In 2000 and XP none of it mattered because everyone ran as Administrator and did whatever the hell they wanted, which resulted in just about every Windows machine you'd ever come across being infested with malware and trash. In Vista, UAC hassles people to the point where they either get trained to just click "yes" to everything
Not exactly... MS screwed up with XP, as NT users including Win2K users usually business or professional users in a work environment and people didn't run as Administrator anymore than they ran as root on a *nix.
Along comes XP that is a replacement to the Win9X line of OS that had NO CONCEPT of security as they were a closed consumer level OS as most home users were not part of a network, let alone the Internet when Win9X was designed.
XP is where MS made a fatal mistake. They had two choices - break Win9X Win32 applications, or relax NT security and also run standard users as Administrator by default.
This was bad for several reasons.
1) Developers that had no concept of security, were not forced to update their software to do Security API checks, so even more years of bad software.
2) Users got 'use' to a everything runs at admin level and running as a 'power user' and elevating with "Run As..." was never needed, so users were never shoved down the path to understanding security.
3) It left holes open in XP that cause a lot of the security backlash XP took up until around SP2. And is why people today thing Windows or NT are poor at security.
Expanding on #3, this is where it gets interesting. NT itself and even the Win32 subsystem running on NT have a lot of security. In fact NT's security model was and probably still is more advanced than most *nix OSes.
When you see NT security at work, you see even low level kernel call obtaining a security token and having a full object based security model for every process, message, call, etc.
At kernel level NT does more security control than people realize, and then when you add in NTFS and ACLs and the 'object' nature of the NT messaging system, it is quite an expansive security model and there is NOTHING wrong with it.
This is why when people yell for MS to re-write NT, they have no idea what they are talking about. Even Win32 is not bad when it comes to security and it is not even the final say on security on NT, as it is just an OS client subsystem running on the NT kernel.
So move ahead from XP to Vista. Users are NOT use to dealing with elevating, have no concept of it, and developers still aren't writing software properly with security API checks or even keeping their hands off of OS level areas.
This makes the UAC in Vista a bitch for Microsoft, as they have to now balance several more years of poorly written applications that have no idea of NT security, and they also have to deal with users that never had to use "Run As..." or be forced to elevate no matter what they were doing.
This pissed off stupid developers as they now thing Vista is breaking their horrid software, it is also pissing off the users of that software.
And the UAC is pissing off users because they are not use to dealing with security themselves. And strangely, even t
but OS X's Quartz 2D is something completely different
Actually, no it isn't...
Quartz comes at it from another API set rather than pure page description, but in the end, produces Display Postscript/PDF.
The only way to draw on OS X and avoid Display PDF/Postscript is to go back to QuickDraw which only renders in bitmap forms and is more than a generation behind even GDI and GDI+ technologies that are 10 years old in the Windows world.
I don't want to anger anyone, but people should do some research on this. Developers that deal with high levels of rendering on OS X, hit ceilings all the time.
Microsoft was keeping up with OS X with GDI+ introduced in Win2k on some levels, but with Vista and the new display models introduced they jumped more than a generation ahead of OS X or anything else out there.
Microsoft's display model isn't the end all be all either, but it is a good step considering Microsoft's history of duct taping GDI and expecting it to get by with high end graphic representation.
Take Care and truly go compare these things. And if you are an OSS developer, there are things you can learn from both Apple and Microsoft and use to advanced the OSS world which is really weak in a any solid standards that even come close to these technologies.
This is why many people shiver when they see people say SVG is what MS should have used instead of XAML, the reality is, SVG can't even do 1/50th of the things XAML inherently is designed to do, even just in page or display rendering of complex vector images, let alone the protocol mechanism, animation technologies and programming event models that can trigger in XAML.
That's a puzzling remark. You're saying there are graphics so complex that they can't be represented by a vector algorithm, but can be represented as a bitmap? Forgive me, perhaps you know what you are talking about, but I swear I just caught a whiff of bullshit.
Well you can sit there and call it BullShit, or you can take 5 minutes and learn something...
I will even be charitable and give you a direction to head to learn...
Why do you think PDF's have to rasterize complex vector images or information is lost? Even look at Adobe Illustrator created files, the PDF relationship hurts both products, as AI is held back at times by the PDF language and for complex artwork, and AI cannot simply become a PDF, and the vector image has to be rasterized.
Next area to look...
Go back to Postscript and Display PDF technologies. Notice what they lack in things they inherently represent. Think in tersm of transparent vector masks upon layer with multi-point gradients. Not only are these concepts outside of Display PDF, but the more complex they get, they easily push out of the latest PDF specfications and even push beyond native AI file format understanding.
Even take a product like CorelDraw, it has inherent graphical concepts that cannot translate to PDF or AI formats, so they are either 'approximated' or rasterized when converted. Ask any Mac or PC graphic designer that works between the products.
Now go to the source language of PDF, the latest and greatest, and what graphic concepts are understood. Throw in even 3D spacial coordinates and multipoint blend and complex forms of color transparencies. PDFs have no mechanism to represent this.
Finally go read XAML and XPS and WPF specification from Microsoft. XAML is the format used from the application to the screen to the ptiner, etc, and encompasses XPS (static page) and WPF (dynamic) graphical constructs.
XAML on Vista and Win7 inherently understand very complex forms of graphics and layers of these in native vector form, and not only in static formats, but in full dynamic animation forms as well.
Here is a test, why do you think as vast as Adobe is and after buying Flash, that Flash itself is not based on any Adobe PDF or Postscript technologies and has to use the Flash constructs for the vector complexities?
And even with Flash, many times it must also rasterize as the complextity extends beyond's its inherent abilities - especially in translating them to a native drawing API of the OS it is running on.
I know I have more than given you a ton of things to consider and look up, but I am trying to really be fair here, so you maybe do take the time to look them up and learn a bit about graphics and the differences.
Right now, MS XAML is far more advanced than PDF, Flash, or any other display format technology out there.
And there lies the reason companies like Xerox have really paid attention and even helped in refining XAML as the future of graphics description...
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Now I am not going to say XAML or the forms that create WPS, XPS are perfect are the best at everything, nor fix everything for the future. However for a v1.0 specification and technology used as the backbone of display in an OS, it is pretty impressive.
And the OS point is important, as when you are using Vista or WPF inherent vector XAML drawing, the Aero/DWM composer understands it, lets rendering and redraws happen at the composer level in vector format, allowing for very complex and rich UI and animation concepts via XAML.
Disclaimer, this is an observation, but may seem a bit of a troll...
Once again we see market dominance and poor attention to security collide.
What makes this story interesting is the 'features' Adobe leaves enabled in PDF document features that even Microsoft knows better than to allow.
This creates the interesting aspect of Adobe losing touch and Microsoft actually getting it for once.
If you look at the MS XAML (XPS) document/display formats that compete directly with PDF, Microsoft got it right.
1) Less vulnerbilities - the lack of internal to external scripting of XAML and the sandbox nature of the XAML display and print formats dual sandbox the content inside a managed code environment.
2) XPS is void of scripting which more closely compares to PDF documents.
3) For print industry and press people, XPS/XAML is still turning heads even as new as it is compared to Postscript/PDF. This is not only in consistent print abilities, but speed as well.
4) Add all these together and then realize XAML/XPS can inherently draw and reproduce graphics that are outside the abilities of PDF and Adobe begins to have a reputation problem with companies like agfa, xerox, vari, etc.
(Yes PDF can display anything, but most advanced drawn graphics have to be rasterized because the language cannot inherently draw them. - This also increases the storage sizes and the processing times of high speed printers and presses.)
*A side note, because of OS X's dependence on Display PDF, it also has the same inherent drawing limitations when dealing with advanced graphics. Forcing applications to hack through the native drawing abilities of OS X, and in contrast developers on the Vista Windows side of the market are finding they no longer have to deal with limitations of GDI+ which is comparative to Display PDF on OS X.
These people should be discouraged from even using a computer, let alone 'decoding' the secret DRM of Windows 7. (Talk about bigfoot in the freezer again crap.)
Not only is almost EVERYTHING wrong, some of it borders on insanity or pure stupidity...
For example: Under XP you could select 'Stereo Mix' or similar under audio recording inputs and nicely capture any program then playing. No longer.
WRONG!
Recording devices, Right Click, Hit Show Disabled Devices, Enable Stereo Mixer - you can even select it as your default input device for older software so you can loop record ANYTHING.
The other crap is either A) they don't under stand how audio works in Vista or Win7 or B) then have no idea how to use their freaking sound card.
Our techs verified on day one of both Vista and Win7 that you can Stereo Mix loop from even a DRM'd WMA or iTunes file and record it back to the same computer in another application with the built in 'Stereo Mix' device input once you enable it.
As for the 'Line In' and other crap from this article, it is pure crap...
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Slashdot, how do you decide to run articles lately? Let the most computer illiterate person on the staff pick 5 articles, pin them to the wall, and throw a dead rat at them?
HOLY FREAKING FUD OF ALL TIME BATMAN.
(The troll authoring this crap, go back to your village, they can't find another idiot as 'good' as you.)
If you are wanting to cite gestures as prior art, sure there is Firefox, but you could go back to the 80s or even pen-windows of the early 90s or even the TabletPC of 2002.
Apple literally ran from the TED conference to throw the multi-touch ideas from this presentation into a UI product.
If you notice, even the 'gesture' ideas the presenter 'made up on the fly' are exactly what Apple uses on the iPhone.
There are tons of prior art on the gesturing aspects of this patent, and Apple has some big b*lls to try think it will hold up. Especially, since the one of the main companies that will be forced to challenge the patent is MS, and Apple can't win against MS prior art, patents, and especially money...
So in a sick way, I hope Apple does what they will do and sue companies using a multi-touch interface, and wait until MS or equivalent steps in to take what is theirs out of defense alone or to protect another company, as MS has done before.
And after Apple loses the patent rights, watch as Apple pays royalties for every iPhone or iPodTouch, if not completely lose the rights to use the interface on the devices completely.
except for Photoshop, and I plan to buy it eventually
The funny part of this, is Photoshop is one of the few pieces of software that has the Adobe Phone Home features that is not cracked or disabled 99% of the time.
So your computer name, info, IP, MAC Address, etc are sent to Adobe with 99% of the 'cracked' copies out there running around for both the PC and Mac.
Be sure to unplug that iCable when you use it...:)
Well not so much confused, just typing without proofing, and you are right, it is multi-cast.
However, Multi-cast tends to work better on the Internet today than even a year or two ago.
It is not perfect or 'simple', but a solid host designed to handle the publishing points offsets a huge chunk of bandwidth compared to trying to solely unicast the streams.
The closer we get to IPv6 or basic ClassD becoming standard replacements it will get to the millions per stream before too long, right now a few 10s of 1000s is not out of expectation levels though, and 100s of 1000s with some providers that are fully equipped on newer networks.
The site does not specify Silverlight 2.0; however, considering that is the latest release, lets assume so for the sake of argument...
Everyone running Mac PPC, Linux, and FreeBSD has been left out
Uh?
1) OS X
Silverlight 2.0 is available for OS X.
I do understand that 1.1 and up do not work on the PPC, so if the site does require 2.0, then it probably won't work on the PPC.
So this could be 'technically' accurate; however, Apple has been dropping support for PPC themselves. So why should MS support an Apple platform that Apple no longer fully supports?
(Yes there are many Apple applications that WILL NOT RUN on PPC OS X, and 10.6 is also suppose to drop support for PPC.)
2) Linux Silverlight 2.0 is available via moonlight (yes the 2.0 support is Alpha, but it works, and especially works for video.)
3) FreeBSD If you are using FreeBSD, and don't know how to get Moonlight binaries for FreeBSD, you shouldn't be running FreeBSD, and you need to get a Mac or Windows, preferably a system with less 'scary' buttons.
You can run Moonlight (Yes even 2.0 Alpha versions) on FreeBSD, the code and binaries are out there.
--- So, even though they picked Silverlight, it can run on 99.9999% of the computers in the world.
And this still isn't good enough for the SlashDot world. Holy cow... ---
How about from the PIC's viewpoint.
By Using Silverlight they get:
-Unicast stream - one stream for each bitrate, so extremely light server load, meaning if they have 5 bitrates available, they only have to provide bandwidth for the 5 bitrates combined once, even if 500 million people are watching.
-MBR content - this means they can provide several BitRates of the broadcast and depending on what the client's bandwidth is, scale from a 56K modem quality bitrate to a full HD quality bitrate. And do so seamlessly, and even upscale or downscale while viewing if your connection bandwith changes on the fly. (This is why NetFlix uses Silverlight/WMV/VC1 encoded content as well.)
-Quality - Silverlight natively handles VC1/WMV formats, and this is the preferred format for BluRay HD content because of quality. So they can offer broadcast level video if they choose with full 7.1 surround if they got fancy.
---
Microsoft has actually done Ok work with Silverlight, especially in the light video/codec department client with far better quality and lighter bandwidth than Flash or other solutions, and even better client performance.
Anyone watch video with Flash lately? Wow, talk about a freaking pig - version 10 especially. I personally would take Silverlight content on Linux or OS X or Windows over Flash crap any day.
With Flash you get to watch your CPU spike and run around 30% even with GPU acceleration enabled and 70% with GPU acceleration turned off.
In contrast, maybe 10% with Silverlight.
Test it, 99.9% of the time, a Flash Ad or Flash crap on a page will eat more CPU % to show a flashing gopher than a HD Silverlight Video playing on the same page.
I would have said this may be Windows XP to Vista's ME. Which is to say, ME had an extremely short life, and most people skipped it.
I 'might' agree with you on this if WinME was even the OS class as XP, and because it isn't the analogy fails.
Win9X does not equal NT - It would be like saying System9 to OS X was a basic OS update, and it wasn't it was a revamp to a new platform, just like moving from the dated Win9X OSes to XP was.
WinME wasn't popular, and there were 'real' reasons it wasn't popular - it wasn't an early release with bad video drivers like Vista, it was a bad OS design.
WinME 'tried' to do things that the aged DOS/x86 Assembly line of OSes just couldn't handle. It introduced features like System Restore, that used 'artifical' methods to implement on a inadequate FAT32 FS.
The 'features' added in WinME were more than the Win9X architecture could handle, and the Win9X developers tried to give it their all, and fell short, very short. WinME is the only version of Windows I have never ran on a personal system for day to day use and to test applications on.
It had some good ideas, but was bad in how it implemented them. And this goes from performance issues for the overhead of features to the buggy nature of the OS.
Why I'm writing this post is not so much directed at you, but others here.
For some reason people here still try to say Win9X and NT versions in the same breath, and related them to each other.
These are two entirely different OS technologies, and I don't see people compare Linux to Minix when talking about versions, nor do I see people consider System 1-9 in the same league as OS X.
Yet I see people complain about XP or Vista then move to use the same arguments from Win9X.
It would sound insane if I were to say something like, "OS X sucks because even the memory manager in System 9 was horrible"... (See how insane that sounds, yet people do it with Windows every day on this site by mixing up the Win9X era of OSes and the NT Oses.)
So everyone here that really doesn't understand, go learn, and stop thinking about Windows based on WinME or Win98 that you used 10 years ago, it is not the same platform in any aspect as current versions of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for this post.
I just started into a more detailed explanation with less 'generic' terms to explain my earlier post that I can now scrap.
I thought I was saving the non-technical readers by using more generic terms, but instead it created more of reaction like Frankenstein to fire. "Object based I/O" for example.
You summarized the point more effectively, without even having to explain the NT Object Manager, nature of the NT Kernel's handling of APIs with agnostic objects to upper level NT layers and even how the 'object' nature of the NT API set deals with OS subsystems.
The real world technical examples of why dealing with objects is a good thing was a nice touch and something I would have skipped.
So thank you...
It is strange that with all the 'geeks' here, it is like 1 out of a 1000 that could even define what a UNIX model OS is let alone have any understanding of NT's architecture and why it is very much not like UNIX for valid reasons.
How the hell do Windows users backup their files?
Well to make this an easy answer...
----
1) Windows Backup
- You can choose User Files or a Complete volume image.
Many users do a periodic Complete backup and daily user file backups to complete a total recovery solution.
A side benefit of Windows Backup is that it also works with the Windows 'Previous Versions', which is like Time Machine on OS X, but also includes 'on volume' snapshot/copy on write archived versions of all your documents. It is also more accessible and elegant than Time Machine, as it is integrated into the Shell and even older application that have an Open or Save dialog box get access to 'previous versions' of your documents.
So in Windows Vista or Win7, you can right click on the main volume and hit previous versions and it will list all the archive points on the volume and all the backup points on your external storage device(network share etc.)
Also recovering or viewing a 'previous version' from the volume or a backup is as easily as hitting open and viewing the Folder or Volume as it looked at a particular day or time, being able to browse through the entire volume and even search it as it existed on that date and time.
No Time Machine interface needed, and even your external backups are not needed for the basic functionality as it uses the Volume Shadow features of NTFS every time you modify a file on your computer.
---
2) Scripted Backups, with folder syncing, etc. Tools like Copy and XCopy have been replaced in Windows and you have RoboCopy as well as new PowerShell copy features.
RoboCopy is probably what you are looking for, as it is a complete backup and archiving tool, in addition to performing basic file copying. It does folder syncing, mirroring, etc, etc and can create a perfect copy of even the system volume with all attributes, NTFS meta data, and ACLs kept in tact that you can simply use RoboCopy again from the boot DVD in the WinPE environment to restore a volume exactly.
(WinPE is essentially NT with a generic GUI, so unlike XP, it allows NT and even Win32/64 commandline and some GUI utilities to run on what is essentially the 'MinWin' layers of NT. WinPE is also what Vista and Win7 use for setup/upgrades.)
---
3) Other utilities.
---
If the built in Complete Backup/User Data Backup tools or the RoboCopy utility don't provide the features you want, there are additional 'IT' scale tools in the resource kit that add even more functionality, as well as the PowerShell features.
You can even click 'install SUA' and use or compile any *nix utility you like and use it. NT doesn't care if you are using the BSD subsystem or Win32.
There are also the Win32 ports of the *nix utilities that a lot of *nix users love.
----
One PS about Powershell...
PowerShell is more of a CLI for the NT architecture.
Which means it is the first CLI designed around the object based kernel architecture of NT, and unlike a *nix CLI, doesn't deal with just device I/O and text, but uses the 'object' constructs that NT is uses instead.
So Powershell can request and interact with devices and I/O on an object level as well as pass and work with objects from the NT and Win32 Subsystem that would be basic devices and textual on *nix.
i.e. It can work directly with an object and its properties at the CLI level from the NT kernel and not just textual parameters and understands NT objects in the kernel from things like the token based security of NT to even the Win32 subsystem WMI objects that create the GUI, other interfaces all the way through process and services that work with NT in object form. (This is one area NT was designed to be more advanced than UNIX, as the basic device and textual nature of the UNIX model was considered to be outdated when NT was created, and using a real 'object' model that exposed information, functions, and properties for I/O was seen as the more robust system.
Some think PowerShell is
Interesting about a regions ice thinkness; however, this has nothing to do with CO2 levels, or global warming...
Maybe the politics and religion of SlashDot can for once leave the science to let's say the 'scientists'?
---
There are so many factors in 'global warming' from desalination and currents to polar winds just to top off a couple of important things that makes this report have nothing to do with overall climate status/change.
There is also the effect of mankind's pollution in opacity, as just the increases the Bush administration allowed in the past eight years would have once again decreased the amount of sunlight that gets to the surface, giving the earth a temporary cooling, that when stabalized could mean the global warming effects would hit many times faster than even the most extreme left alarmist would argue.
I love the goofs that want to tell everyone the Global Warming is in effect on a hot summer day and the other goofs that tell us it doesn't exist on a cold day.
Climate disturbance caused by man's contribution to enviornmental factors are not so easy to understand, but is something that needs to be taken seriously, as the science does show humans DO impact the climate. If it is more than expected, then watch as Europe and the north coast of America freezes over, which would be 'Global Warming'.
Do people honestly think that Global climates changes are 'not' important to mankind? History shows that natural changes nearly caused the demise of the human race several times.
It is something we should study as much as we can and prevent as much as we can, and with the 'chaotic' variable called man affecting the climate, the study and monitoring is needed now more than ever.
Umm ... you mean like SafeSearch [google.com]?
Ya, exactly, except the opposite...
Filtered results at the search engine site is common for ALL search engines; however, providing the results in an OpenSearch or 'dataset' like RSS/XML set of results that can be FURTHER filtered it would be able to be used or 'checked' by 3rd party software that further checks the results.
This has several benefits:
#1) The software can catch things SafeSearch doesn't, cause it isn't that great.
#2) The software can FURTHER filter the results and strip out things SafeSearch doesn't have a problem with, but some parents might. Hence letting the users or 'parents' have control over what is acceptable instead of what Google thinks is acceptable.
Unless you want Google to think for you and all parents out there with no additional choices, which is pretty much the only option at the moment, where MS and other providers, even freaking Wiki provide the content in a matter that can be further used or filtered by what 'parents' want.
Is Wiki evil because they believe an RSS OpenSearch dataset is the RIGHT THING TO DO?
Once again, until Google plays nice, they are kicked off the playground.
---
Why do people defend Google, a company that makes money off of Ad revenue under the guise of being a 'search provider' or 'email provider' or 'insert software here' that catalogs people's activities and data mines their email to enhance their Ads for their corporate clients.
If MS even began to do something 1% as corrupt as what Google's business model is based on, people would be screaming from every window of the DOJ...
Google is not a 'good' company that does wonderful things, they don't make money by showing pictures of cute puppies, but instead lean toward creating a slide show by slicing up cute puppies and tracking how much you watch the slide show.
Get it? Or do you work at Google and drink the kool-aid?
Then why doesn't it also block Microsoft Live search? Simply typing "hot babes" [live.com] into a Microsoft Live search returns hardcore porn as the very first link.
Because Live Search not only has content filtering, but can return the 'filtered' results in an XML/RSS formatted 'OpenSearch' feed that can be further 'checked' by software like LIVE FAMILY SAFETY.
Once again if people will pay attention, if Google would provide their results in a manner that could be further filtered and be 'dataset' like then they wouldn't be returning goat porn to kids after parents do install filtering software from ANY COMPANY.
Ok, the Summary is #1 wrong, and #2 people here have no idea what the hell they talking about.
The FAMILY SAFTEY is working as it is supposed to, as it is designed to setup for your freaking KIDS...
On Basic, it allows Google.com, and that is working as intended.
On Strict, it does not, as some parents wouldn't want their kids using Google that WILL RETURN DONKEY PORN VIDEOS because there is no way to intelligently filter the Google results.
If Google doesn't want to be blocked on Strict, they can provide RSS OPENSEARCH features, like everyone else is doing. However Google is intent of refusing to provide RSS OpenSearch features.
The BROKEN here is Google not supporting a web standard in their search engine results and method of returning results.
As for the whole MS is keeping people from Google, this is insane. They have no locks on Live search even for IE users (letting people use any search engine easily as their default Browser search engine).
MS has even had to 'code' around Google's lack of standards in the OpenSearch and other areas to allow 'Search Tips' and dropdown features from Google Search, since Google doesn't provide the standard 'hint' or 'search tip' features that ARE a standard and other search engines and even sites like Wikipedia provide inherently.
Google is the ones locking the doors here, in several ways, and yet someone the 'intelligent' people at SlashDot haven't even noticed any of this going on? Go look up Search Connector and RSS Search feeds, and RSS Search filtered results. Everyone and their dog supports them, except Google.
They are even integrated in Windows7 Explorer so users can search inside a Folder or Open/Save Dialog box and get web pages, video, images, links, etc from just about any online search engine or provider of content EXCEPT GOOGLE because they refuse to support RSS OpenSearch and RSS OpenSearch Filtering.
This time it comes down to MS doing the right thing, and Google intentionally not 'playing nice with others' and by proxy it breaks the abilities of the Live Family Safety features on the strict setting. If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.
This time it is MS providing the standard web search technology and is the OPEN search engine when it comes to interfacing with all the OPEN standards.
flash is slow in window mode because it doesn't use video acceleration. in full screen it does so cpu usage is moot
That is great for flash animations and video ads isn't it? Technically you are wrong about this as well.
flash supports h264 playback and mp3/aac so it supports the latest video standard, highest quality possible right now
h.264 is good, but best? MP3 best? Really? Then why are most BluRay movies encoded in VC1 (which is aka WMV) ?
With Silverlight you can only work with WMV or Microsoft technologies and you have to pay royalties and buy the video codec.
Wrong again, have you even looked at Silverlight?
Additionally if you want to talk about 'pay' do you have any idea of the Flash 'Sever' costs? Something Silverlight DOES NOT REQUIRE or NEED, and even if the site wants to do more advanced 'media' serving, Windows Server provides all the 'extra' features with no additional costs.
On the high end of Video and content providing by both technologies, here is your 'pay' plan...
Flash = Server + Flash Server
Silverlight = Windows Server
And the Windows Server option is not only cheaper, but you get the full Server OS to use for other things than just Flash delivery.
----
That is where I stopped reading your reply, three strikes and you don't have a clue...
Then why is it not feature complete and never has been?
This is something you should be asking the mono and moonlight teams.
Maybe open source isn't as efficient?
Right Now it only? Really?
You need to go look up the specifications for Silverlight 2 for yourself.
Additionally, you make WMV sound like it is the old closed WMV of 10 years ago.
WMV = VC1 - which is one of the HD codec standards, probably used on the majority of your BluRay Discs if you own any.
VC1 (i.e. WMV) is also used by several cable and ohter media distribution operators for SD and HD content delivery.
Also, just to put things in perspective, as of last year, there was more video streamed on the Internet using VC1/WMV than any other format. Yes, even eclipsing Flash content on all the YouTube type sites.
New Audio/Video providers are not looking to Flash, for several reasons, quality being the number one and the lack of video and audio features they can provide to their users.
Imagine if Netflix Instant Streaming was based on Flash, it would have failed, with horrid video quality, buffering nightmares, dropped clients, lost server connections, no accelerated assistance to smooth or recreate the image, and on and on and on.
What scares me about your post is how certain you are, and how wrong you are at the same time...
Silverlight inherently supports H.264 and VC-1 - the two HD standards, and you are probably happily watching a movie on your BluRay player that is even VC-1 encoded as it is the preferred encoding format for many studios. (VC-1 = WMV)
Additionally, Silverlight supports additional truly open formats, not some format solely controlled by one company like Adobe and FLV. (BTW Adobe Flash Video, even HD is horrid at best compared to Silverlight.)
Also to note, Silverlight3 allows for virtually any codec to be used.
http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx#whatsnew
True points, but Flash on Linux from Adobe is less 'open' than Silverlight from Microsoft. Did you happen to notice that Adobe used what they had opened and jumped through some licensing hoops to get you their 'proprietary' Flash player?
Microsoft has considered doing the same, but it would involve either opening up the Vista API to open source, or make them shove together a fully closed solution with less functionality.
Microsoft turning Silverlight over t Mono and the Moonlight project is a win win, as Microsoft doesn't have to open their precious 'IP' that is non-Silverlight related from the Vista APIs, and yet it gives users a full open source solution.
If you want to support open source, Silverlight is your donkey to bet on, if you want Adobe semi-open solutions, keep using Flash and be happy.
I can remember when people were in love with Apple for opening up Darwin and the OS X kernel as required for the BSD and MACH licensing, but when it came to OS X and the 'Apple' portions, people realized the opening of Darwin was to get the rights to the code and also 'use' the community and repackage everything back under the upper levels of OS X and a sue happy Apple.
Adobe didn't make their Linux Flash player to be 'good' to the Linux community, they made it to regain control of the Linux community that was going the way of the open 'Flash' players that Adobe had no control over. And apparently their 'play' to win the Linux users worked, as you are an example of a Flash fan happily installing a non-open Flash player that has full Adobe control.
- MS has virtually no control over moonlight, and also seems pretty good about providing the mono team with what they need to replicate both Silverlight and other .NET features.
>>>including needing administrator privileges to install the plugin
Ouch... Do you realize how many outdated Flash players are running around these IT environments?
Not that users should have admin, but if the IT people were doing their jobs, Silverlight is an automatic update/patch on Windows and can be installed originally via Windows Update. Flash requires a bit more work and admin scripts to install the updates.
Which is safer, a third party plugin with 1000s of exploits, or a managed code, and sandboxed plugin from MS that is automatically kept up to date without administrator intervention?
So these 'work environments' have Flash plugins installed and running for the 'ease' of their users, and have no idea the security risk this involves; therefore, there are more people using Flash so it must be the best solution?
I understand MLB's point here, but really is the direction we really want the industry to go, with Adobe being the 'security' experts protecting our users let alone the additional work IT people have to go through to keep Flash Updated?
Scary as hell, and if I was a malious software coder, I know where my biggest market and ease of access exists - Flash...
Flash - Admin updates required
Flash - 1000s of 'known' exploits
Flash - Really bad threading and performance
Silverlight - Non-Admin Automatic Updates(Windows)
Silverlight - Virtually no exploits with additional sandbox containing it
Silverlight - Great performance, and the best Video streaming delivery for SD and HD content. PERIOD.
For users that think Flash is 'optimized' open a Web Page with Flash Advertising and then open another page with a HD Silverlight Video or Silverlight animated content. Notice the CPU/GPU usage for the Flash 'ad' alone is 5-10x the Silverlight control, even when the system is decoding HD video.
--
Speaking of Flash
--
Tip of the Day For Overlockers...
If you want a 'quick' stress test of your your overclock settings. Simply open a few web pages with a Flash ad and Flash video content.
If your system is clocked too high or you have voltage settings wrong, etc, Flash will pop the system almost instantly. Something running a 24hr burn in test won't even do on some systems.
When our techs overclock the new AMDs or i7s, they boot into a test environment and run Flash to see test stability, especially with SMP or multi/core/thread CPUs.
This is something a couple of our techs discovered with two test i7 systems a few months back, as they ran the 24hr stress tests, and including throwing the biggest and baddest games at the system.
It passed with flying colors until they had it totally fail when opening a web page after the Flash plugin was installed.
Turns out one system was at the 'edge' of its abilities and the other system was a new mobo and the tech didn't properly set the CPU voltage.
So it was 'good' old Flash that popped both systems even after they survived 48hrs of stress tests shoving GPU and CPU to full load in numerous applications and scenarios.
So if nothing else, keep Flash around for system building...
* This is not Windows specific...
* This is only true of the official Adobe Flash Player as far as our Techs have found.
I'm glad you put time in your response, but there is so much factually wrong with your points that I just don't have the time to properly address them.
Let me just say, your post is really flawed in that you seem to find it strange that I blame MS for the security problems of the past few years.
I am not a MS employee or advocate, just someone that deals with NT a bit more than most Slashdotters.
MS did screw up with XP - users and compatibility should have been secondary to security, no matter if they did a more *nix like UAC back then or just let things break.
Oh and PS...
I will, as soon as the installer lets me create a non-administrator account.
Really, you want to install an OS with no root/admin level account at all? How do you suggest you would even install an application?
Administrator is not an automatic account like root anymore, it is the user's Administrator account created at installation that is the semi-root equivalent.
You see having all installations with Administrator as the login name is a security hole, as hackers only have to snatch the password, just like USERNAME: root is a security flaw, because you can shove passwords at or even look for root logins if you are hacking the system to obtain the root password.
Give me 30mins and a Van outside your office and I will show you how I can tag what the root access to your systems (unless your computers are highly shielded, and I doubt it unless you work at the FBI). With Windows, it is not as easy, as there is not one account you are looking for, and have to guess which one has 'admin' level access.
The default account should be the admin/root with a password, and then the 'installing administrator' should create the non-administrator accounts for the users. This is pretty basic stuff, even if you are setting up your computer for a grandmother.
Also, there is no reason not to do this when Windows also gives you several options for account levels, from non-static content accounts to guest shared users, to average users, to power users, and to Administrators.
Oh yes - the stupid F* choice to make it so that even "Administrator" can be locked out of files such as the ones put on there by malware.
Actually, no...
1) If you boot into the WinPE with Admin rights, you can access and delete anything off the volume.
2) If the file 'locks' itself when the OS loads, the Administrator can't override a system level 'lock' 'easily' anymore than a root user could on Linux, you have to resort to a terminate level command, and taskmanager doesn't just offer this up, so people like apparently never looked any further.
There are 'ways' to use your administrator rights and 'unlock' malware files. Tools you can get in the resource kit do just fine with dumping any locks and gaining control of anything, even on a 'normal' boot where the malware tries to add additional FS and other 'tricks' to lock the file or process.
Truly, resource kit, whitepapers or anything beyond TaskManager would give you these answers.
Given the fabulously intricate NT security model ... why did they invent API calls to let you inject and run random code into any other process owned by the same user? WHAT FUNCTION DOES THIS SERVE? Good Lord.
Ok, not sure how to handle this, if you are serious.
1) Do you think Windows is the only OS that you can access non-owned threads/processes? You need to look at every OS out there I'm afraid.
2) The specific 'subclassing' APIs you are talking about are actually Win32, NOT NT. Win32 is just an OS subsystem running on NT.
3) As for low level protections, when MS did introduced 'protected' pipelines in Vista, Slashdot users thought it was DRM and went nuts.
When it was just what you are talking about 'processes/thread' protected from other processes/threads even with the same security. And like I mention above, they are actually more protected under NT than most other OSes.
4) Even the realtime prioritization schedulers were shoved through protected pipelines for security and performance, so that media on Vista was more BeOS like, and again SlashDot users thought it was DRM and screamed.
Ok, let's get this one out of the way...
For one, I don't believe Windows was originally designed to be a multi-user OS, was it? Everything it does that pretends to be has been an afterthought kludge. I honestly don't know if this is the case with NT-based systems so feel free to correct me.
Wrong. NT was very much designed around a multi-user model, they just did not enable any multi-user interfaces beyond telnet. The same multi-user NT level separation and code running today was in the first NT release.
3rd parties were providing multi-user on NT back in 1992-1993 when it first shipped.
NT 4.0 added in RDP, but the multi-user model and concurrent multi-user access was already there, it was just the GUI protocol added.
But let's not pretend that it's the "exact same", either. In 2000 and XP none of it mattered because everyone ran as Administrator and did whatever the hell they wanted, which resulted in just about every Windows machine you'd ever come across being infested with malware and trash. In Vista, UAC hassles people to the point where they either get trained to just click "yes" to everything
Not exactly... MS screwed up with XP, as NT users including Win2K users usually business or professional users in a work environment and people didn't run as Administrator anymore than they ran as root on a *nix.
Along comes XP that is a replacement to the Win9X line of OS that had NO CONCEPT of security as they were a closed consumer level OS as most home users were not part of a network, let alone the Internet when Win9X was designed.
XP is where MS made a fatal mistake. They had two choices - break Win9X Win32 applications, or relax NT security and also run standard users as Administrator by default.
This was bad for several reasons.
1) Developers that had no concept of security, were not forced to update their software to do Security API checks, so even more years of bad software.
2) Users got 'use' to a everything runs at admin level and running as a 'power user' and elevating with "Run As..." was never needed, so users were never shoved down the path to understanding security.
3) It left holes open in XP that cause a lot of the security backlash XP took up until around SP2. And is why people today thing Windows or NT are poor at security.
Expanding on #3, this is where it gets interesting. NT itself and even the Win32 subsystem running on NT have a lot of security. In fact NT's security model was and probably still is more advanced than most *nix OSes.
When you see NT security at work, you see even low level kernel call obtaining a security token and having a full object based security model for every process, message, call, etc.
At kernel level NT does more security control than people realize, and then when you add in NTFS and ACLs and the 'object' nature of the NT messaging system, it is quite an expansive security model and there is NOTHING wrong with it.
This is why when people yell for MS to re-write NT, they have no idea what they are talking about. Even Win32 is not bad when it comes to security and it is not even the final say on security on NT, as it is just an OS client subsystem running on the NT kernel.
So move ahead from XP to Vista. Users are NOT use to dealing with elevating, have no concept of it, and developers still aren't writing software properly with security API checks or even keeping their hands off of OS level areas.
This makes the UAC in Vista a bitch for Microsoft, as they have to now balance several more years of poorly written applications that have no idea of NT security, and they also have to deal with users that never had to use "Run As..." or be forced to elevate no matter what they were doing.
This pissed off stupid developers as they now thing Vista is breaking their horrid software, it is also pissing off the users of that software.
And the UAC is pissing off users because they are not use to dealing with security themselves. And strangely, even t
but OS X's Quartz 2D is something completely different
Actually, no it isn't...
Quartz comes at it from another API set rather than pure page description, but in the end, produces Display Postscript/PDF.
The only way to draw on OS X and avoid Display PDF/Postscript is to go back to QuickDraw which only renders in bitmap forms and is more than a generation behind even GDI and GDI+ technologies that are 10 years old in the Windows world.
I don't want to anger anyone, but people should do some research on this. Developers that deal with high levels of rendering on OS X, hit ceilings all the time.
Microsoft was keeping up with OS X with GDI+ introduced in Win2k on some levels, but with Vista and the new display models introduced they jumped more than a generation ahead of OS X or anything else out there.
Microsoft's display model isn't the end all be all either, but it is a good step considering Microsoft's history of duct taping GDI and expecting it to get by with high end graphic representation.
Take Care and truly go compare these things. And if you are an OSS developer, there are things you can learn from both Apple and Microsoft and use to advanced the OSS world which is really weak in a any solid standards that even come close to these technologies.
This is why many people shiver when they see people say SVG is what MS should have used instead of XAML, the reality is, SVG can't even do 1/50th of the things XAML inherently is designed to do, even just in page or display rendering of complex vector images, let alone the protocol mechanism, animation technologies and programming event models that can trigger in XAML.
That's a puzzling remark. You're saying there are graphics so complex that they can't be represented by a vector algorithm, but can be represented as a bitmap? Forgive me, perhaps you know what you are talking about, but I swear I just caught a whiff of bullshit.
Well you can sit there and call it BullShit, or you can take 5 minutes and learn something...
I will even be charitable and give you a direction to head to learn...
Why do you think PDF's have to rasterize complex vector images or information is lost? Even look at Adobe Illustrator created files, the PDF relationship hurts both products, as AI is held back at times by the PDF language and for complex artwork, and AI cannot simply become a PDF, and the vector image has to be rasterized.
Next area to look...
Go back to Postscript and Display PDF technologies. Notice what they lack in things they inherently represent. Think in tersm of transparent vector masks upon layer with multi-point gradients. Not only are these concepts outside of Display PDF, but the more complex they get, they easily push out of the latest PDF specfications and even push beyond native AI file format understanding.
Even take a product like CorelDraw, it has inherent graphical concepts that cannot translate to PDF or AI formats, so they are either 'approximated' or rasterized when converted. Ask any Mac or PC graphic designer that works between the products.
Now go to the source language of PDF, the latest and greatest, and what graphic concepts are understood. Throw in even 3D spacial coordinates and multipoint blend and complex forms of color transparencies. PDFs have no mechanism to represent this.
Finally go read XAML and XPS and WPF specification from Microsoft. XAML is the format used from the application to the screen to the ptiner, etc, and encompasses XPS (static page) and WPF (dynamic) graphical constructs.
XAML on Vista and Win7 inherently understand very complex forms of graphics and layers of these in native vector form, and not only in static formats, but in full dynamic animation forms as well.
Here is a test, why do you think as vast as Adobe is and after buying Flash, that Flash itself is not based on any Adobe PDF or Postscript technologies and has to use the Flash constructs for the vector complexities?
And even with Flash, many times it must also rasterize as the complextity extends beyond's its inherent abilities - especially in translating them to a native drawing API of the OS it is running on.
I know I have more than given you a ton of things to consider and look up, but I am trying to really be fair here, so you maybe do take the time to look them up and learn a bit about graphics and the differences.
Right now, MS XAML is far more advanced than PDF, Flash, or any other display format technology out there.
And there lies the reason companies like Xerox have really paid attention and even helped in refining XAML as the future of graphics description...
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Now I am not going to say XAML or the forms that create WPS, XPS are perfect are the best at everything, nor fix everything for the future. However for a v1.0 specification and technology used as the backbone of display in an OS, it is pretty impressive.
And the OS point is important, as when you are using Vista or WPF inherent vector XAML drawing, the Aero/DWM composer understands it, lets rendering and redraws happen at the composer level in vector format, allowing for very complex and rich UI and animation concepts via XAML.
Disclaimer, this is an observation, but may seem a bit of a troll...
Once again we see market dominance and poor attention to security collide.
What makes this story interesting is the 'features' Adobe leaves enabled in PDF document features that even Microsoft knows better than to allow.
This creates the interesting aspect of Adobe losing touch and Microsoft actually getting it for once.
If you look at the MS XAML (XPS) document/display formats that compete directly with PDF, Microsoft got it right.
1) Less vulnerbilities - the lack of internal to external scripting of XAML and the sandbox nature of the XAML display and print formats dual sandbox the content inside a managed code environment.
2) XPS is void of scripting which more closely compares to PDF documents.
3) For print industry and press people, XPS/XAML is still turning heads even as new as it is compared to Postscript/PDF. This is not only in consistent print abilities, but speed as well.
4) Add all these together and then realize XAML/XPS can inherently draw and reproduce graphics that are outside the abilities of PDF and Adobe begins to have a reputation problem with companies like agfa, xerox, vari, etc.
(Yes PDF can display anything, but most advanced drawn graphics have to be rasterized because the language cannot inherently draw them. - This also increases the storage sizes and the processing times of high speed printers and presses.)
*A side note, because of OS X's dependence on Display PDF, it also has the same inherent drawing limitations when dealing with advanced graphics. Forcing applications to hack through the native drawing abilities of OS X, and in contrast developers on the Vista Windows side of the market are finding they no longer have to deal with limitations of GDI+ which is comparative to Display PDF on OS X.
These people should be discouraged from even using a computer, let alone 'decoding' the secret DRM of Windows 7. (Talk about bigfoot in the freezer again crap.)
Not only is almost EVERYTHING wrong, some of it borders on insanity or pure stupidity...
For example:
Under XP you could select 'Stereo Mix' or similar under audio recording inputs and nicely capture any program then playing. No longer.
WRONG!
Recording devices, Right Click, Hit Show Disabled Devices, Enable Stereo Mixer - you can even select it as your default input device for older software so you can loop record ANYTHING.
The other crap is either A) they don't under stand how audio works in Vista or Win7 or B) then have no idea how to use their freaking sound card.
Our techs verified on day one of both Vista and Win7 that you can Stereo Mix loop from even a DRM'd WMA or iTunes file and record it back to the same computer in another application with the built in 'Stereo Mix' device input once you enable it.
As for the 'Line In' and other crap from this article, it is pure crap...
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Slashdot, how do you decide to run articles lately? Let the most computer illiterate person on the staff pick 5 articles, pin them to the wall, and throw a dead rat at them?
HOLY FREAKING FUD OF ALL TIME BATMAN.
(The troll authoring this crap, go back to your village, they can't find another idiot as 'good' as you.)
If you are wanting to cite gestures as prior art, sure there is Firefox, but you could go back to the 80s or even pen-windows of the early 90s or even the TabletPC of 2002.
If you want to find where Apple got the specific 'gestures' they implemented on the iPhone, here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html
Apple literally ran from the TED conference to throw the multi-touch ideas from this presentation into a UI product.
If you notice, even the 'gesture' ideas the presenter 'made up on the fly' are exactly what Apple uses on the iPhone.
There are tons of prior art on the gesturing aspects of this patent, and Apple has some big b*lls to try think it will hold up. Especially, since the one of the main companies that will be forced to challenge the patent is MS, and Apple can't win against MS prior art, patents, and especially money...
So in a sick way, I hope Apple does what they will do and sue companies using a multi-touch interface, and wait until MS or equivalent steps in to take what is theirs out of defense alone or to protect another company, as MS has done before.
And after Apple loses the patent rights, watch as Apple pays royalties for every iPhone or iPodTouch, if not completely lose the rights to use the interface on the devices completely.
(Apple's ego could actually end up killing them.)
except for Photoshop, and I plan to buy it eventually
The funny part of this, is Photoshop is one of the few pieces of software that has the Adobe Phone Home features that is not cracked or disabled 99% of the time.
So your computer name, info, IP, MAC Address, etc are sent to Adobe with 99% of the 'cracked' copies out there running around for both the PC and Mac.
Be sure to unplug that iCable when you use it... :)
Well not so much confused, just typing without proofing, and you are right, it is multi-cast.
However, Multi-cast tends to work better on the Internet today than even a year or two ago.
It is not perfect or 'simple', but a solid host designed to handle the publishing points offsets a huge chunk of bandwidth compared to trying to solely unicast the streams.
The closer we get to IPv6 or basic ClassD becoming standard replacements it will get to the millions per stream before too long, right now a few 10s of 1000s is not out of expectation levels though, and 100s of 1000s with some providers that are fully equipped on newer networks.
The site does not specify Silverlight 2.0; however, considering that is the latest release, lets assume so for the sake of argument...
Everyone running Mac PPC, Linux, and FreeBSD has been left out
Uh?
1) OS X
Silverlight 2.0 is available for OS X.
I do understand that 1.1 and up do not work on the PPC, so if the site does require 2.0, then it probably won't work on the PPC.
So this could be 'technically' accurate; however, Apple has been dropping support for PPC themselves. So why should MS support an Apple platform that Apple no longer fully supports?
(Yes there are many Apple applications that WILL NOT RUN on PPC OS X, and 10.6 is also suppose to drop support for PPC.)
2) Linux
Silverlight 2.0 is available via moonlight (yes the 2.0 support is Alpha, but it works, and especially works for video.)
3) FreeBSD
If you are using FreeBSD, and don't know how to get Moonlight binaries for FreeBSD, you shouldn't be running FreeBSD, and you need to get a Mac or Windows, preferably a system with less 'scary' buttons.
You can run Moonlight (Yes even 2.0 Alpha versions) on FreeBSD, the code and binaries are out there.
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So, even though they picked Silverlight, it can run on 99.9999% of the computers in the world.
And this still isn't good enough for the SlashDot world. Holy cow...
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How about from the PIC's viewpoint.
By Using Silverlight they get:
-Unicast stream - one stream for each bitrate, so extremely light server load, meaning if they have 5 bitrates available, they only have to provide bandwidth for the 5 bitrates combined once, even if 500 million people are watching.
-MBR content - this means they can provide several BitRates of the broadcast and depending on what the client's bandwidth is, scale from a 56K modem quality bitrate to a full HD quality bitrate. And do so seamlessly, and even upscale or downscale while viewing if your connection bandwith changes on the fly. (This is why NetFlix uses Silverlight/WMV/VC1 encoded content as well.)
-Quality - Silverlight natively handles VC1/WMV formats, and this is the preferred format for BluRay HD content because of quality. So they can offer broadcast level video if they choose with full 7.1 surround if they got fancy.
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Microsoft has actually done Ok work with Silverlight, especially in the light video/codec department client with far better quality and lighter bandwidth than Flash or other solutions, and even better client performance.
Anyone watch video with Flash lately? Wow, talk about a freaking pig - version 10 especially. I personally would take Silverlight content on Linux or OS X or Windows over Flash crap any day.
With Flash you get to watch your CPU spike and run around 30% even with GPU acceleration enabled and 70% with GPU acceleration turned off.
In contrast, maybe 10% with Silverlight.
Test it, 99.9% of the time, a Flash Ad or Flash crap on a page will eat more CPU % to show a flashing gopher than a HD Silverlight Video playing on the same page.
I would have said this may be Windows XP to Vista's ME. Which is to say, ME had an extremely short life, and most people skipped it.
I 'might' agree with you on this if WinME was even the OS class as XP, and because it isn't the analogy fails.
Win9X does not equal NT - It would be like saying System9 to OS X was a basic OS update, and it wasn't it was a revamp to a new platform, just like moving from the dated Win9X OSes to XP was.
WinME wasn't popular, and there were 'real' reasons it wasn't popular - it wasn't an early release with bad video drivers like Vista, it was a bad OS design.
WinME 'tried' to do things that the aged DOS/x86 Assembly line of OSes just couldn't handle. It introduced features like System Restore, that used 'artifical' methods to implement on a inadequate FAT32 FS.
The 'features' added in WinME were more than the Win9X architecture could handle, and the Win9X developers tried to give it their all, and fell short, very short. WinME is the only version of Windows I have never ran on a personal system for day to day use and to test applications on.
It had some good ideas, but was bad in how it implemented them. And this goes from performance issues for the overhead of features to the buggy nature of the OS.
Why I'm writing this post is not so much directed at you, but others here.
For some reason people here still try to say Win9X and NT versions in the same breath, and related them to each other.
These are two entirely different OS technologies, and I don't see people compare Linux to Minix when talking about versions, nor do I see people consider System 1-9 in the same league as OS X.
Yet I see people complain about XP or Vista then move to use the same arguments from Win9X.
It would sound insane if I were to say something like, "OS X sucks because even the memory manager in System 9 was horrible"... (See how insane that sounds, yet people do it with Windows every day on this site by mixing up the Win9X era of OSes and the NT Oses.)
So everyone here that really doesn't understand, go learn, and stop thinking about Windows based on WinME or Win98 that you used 10 years ago, it is not the same platform in any aspect as current versions of Windows.
Take Care