The only thing related to 'new' monitors is that some of the video specifications for HD-DVD and Blu-RAY DVD (HD formats) require to authenication(HDMI) all the way to the video display.
Which is the same as with any stand alone player you would buy for these HD Discs.
Vista just supports the full HD specifications, so if the Movie maker requires the Monitor to report it is a real monitor (HDMI - An Intel Lock Thing), then Vista will try to report it is a real monitor (not a copying device) and will play the video.
There are older monitors that in theory if they don't provide proper HDMI support, then it will report to the HD Movie that it can't verify the monitor is a 'monitor using HDMI', so then Video quality is not full HD when played.
The only relevance Vista has to this, is it is the first OS to fully support the HD specifications (Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray).
These formats have the 'possibility' to let Movie Companies 'require' your monitor authenicates with an HDMI response to play at full resolution. However, Vista is no different in this respect than a Stand alone HD Player you would buy at Walmart (when available).
However it was something that people that don't understand this specification tried to bash Vista with. They could just as easily bash all the HD Players coming to the market, as Vista is DOING NOTHING different than what they are doing, to conform with the specification.
If anyone needs to be slapped up side the head on this, is ANY MOVIE company that 'requires' the HDMI authenication, and also Intel, as they are the ones that made this 'monitor' specification so they could sell 'their' chip to every monitor company in the world.
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The other thing you could be refering to is the new graphics subsystem in Vista takes advantage of 3D Video cards more than before. This doesn't mean they are required for it to run or anything like that, but for some of the more advanced visual effects like the 'Glass' Borders (Just the pretties of the Desktop), MS is using the Pixel Shaders from the newer video cards.
What this means, to get the 'Glass' effect, you need a video card that has a PS in Hardware. But they have been on the market for years now. Even the older GeforceFX 5200 video cards have Hardware level Pixel Shaders 2.0 (PS).
But even the new 3D API replacing GDI+ in Vista (WPF) will run even on a 1991 VGA Video card. Vista can do great things with old cards, and even greater things with newer cards. MS is ensuring that no one is really left behind. It is just the 'pretty' effects of the Desktop that you lose by not having a newer 2003 or later video card.
The level of hardware required for the 'pretty' stuff, is just PS 2.0 support (DirectX 9). And most cards made since 2003 have this feature.
Even if you needed to upgrade your video card to get the 'pretty' effects, you can get the cheaper version of these video cards for around 40-50 dollars. And chances are, if you do any games or anything else, you already have a card that supports it.
A good check on the Video Cards to see which ones support this is look for DirectX 9.0 support in Hardware. If you look by Brand, any ATI 9200 or higher series (like the 9600 and 9800 or newer) and Nvidia any of the cards that have an FX or newer model number, like GeforceFX 5200-7900 etc etc.
I was going to respond to the crap you are saying on stuff you have no clue about; however, even if MS released an OS so perfect God himself came down and said this is divine, you would be the person to go, "Ya, but it doesn't support Hell 2.0 and they are using God for market hype."
Give it up, you hate MS, that is fine, but quit posting your 'theories' or 'views' on crap you technically are very challenged in understanding.
Not true, don't make me post links to screen shots all over the web of Office 2007 on Vista. Do a search Office 2007 screenshot Vista
There is title bar rendering issues with some chipset drivers under the glass model, but it was 'known' in the Office 2007 beta notes, as it wasn't even until the 'technical' release of Office 2007 that they even allowed Office 2007 to install on Vista, there is nothing happening with Office 2007 on Vista that was not disclosed or expected. Not to mention that it runs with no rendering or display issues on the majority of test installations.
As for the UI learning curve, if tabs instead of menus confuse you, you might want to work with something other than comptuers. The Tab to Menu paradigm is the only major UI change, although it does LOOK different, so I guess that might scare people that actually HAVEN'T used it.
So just as Dvorak, you are out to prove you have no freaking clue about what you are talking about as well?
don't know what you think the Mac OS X specs are, but my wife is running Tiger (OS X 10.4.x) on a 5 year old 400MHz G4 laptop quite happily. 'Will run on 800MHz' sounds a bit stiff. Although it is relegated to a music server, I also have a 400MHz G3 laptop happily running Tiger with 512MB RAM.
What happened to the argument that G4mhz didn't equal Intel mhz?
We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.
As for RAM, the more the better no matter what OS. Vista will run on lower than the 512mb of RAM MS recommends. Apple recommends 256mb for the current version of OSX, but the next version Apple has stated will also recommend 512mb of RAM. Even in your post you note you are running OSX on a G3, but state you are using 512mb of RAM.
RAM is cheap, it should not freak people out to see a 512mb recommended anymore.
Vista technically would run on a 1995 Pentium Processor, but who would want to run any OS on such an old processor, even if Vista's legacy compatibility goes back that far.
Also I'm not sure how you got OSX 'Tiger' to run a G3, unless you know of a trick I don't know of. I didn't think it would install, nor function properly without the altivec extensions.
This is kind of a silly debate. I'm not knocking OSX, it REALLY wasn't my point. I was just giving an example that Vista doesn't have that high of tech requirements, truly...
So basically, I can buy windows vista for $x00 and then turn it into windows XP? Why am I upgrading again?
I should have been a bit more clear. You can turn off the extra stuff you probably would be using, like DWM features turn themselves off, also there are the 'extra' monitoring systems, etc.
The stuff I was refering to are nice features of Vista, but not so much of end user features that would be used on low end hardware. Why would care if Vista is running a service for using USB 2.0 drives to speed the caching sequence if you don't even have a USB 2.0 capable port on your computer for example.
am no mac user, but OSX compares to Vista. It is like comparing the speed increase you'll get if you downgrade XP to windows 98. If Vista is still 30% faster than OSX on the same machine, you could have a point. But I'm guessing it will be quite the opposite...
Actually NO. OSX compares to WindowsXP. The only thing OSX has over WindowsXP is the off-screen OpenGL composer (bitmap based).
The Graphics engines, and many other things are on par or actually offer less than WindowsXP. For example NTFS, the file system for Windows has more features and 'overhead' than HPS.
Also look up the graphical susbystem comparisons. OSX has nothing like the vector Composer in Vista, nor the GDI replacement API.
Here is how the graphics in OSX and Windows compare
System 6-9 (QuickDraw) = Windows 16/32 GDI
(Both are also comparable to Display Postscript) Mac OSX Quartz/PDF = Windows (2K/XP) GDI+
(Look up the features, they are virtually the same.)
Windows Vista has not only WPF, but a full roundtrip Vector Composer. Something that exists on NO OS in existence, even though it is just cute glass now, future applications will show how this really makes a difference, not only for developers but end users.
OSX is pretty though, and Apple's graphic designers are dang good. However if what OSX was doing was 'above' WindowsXP then you wouldn't see 'cute utilties' that not only make WindowsXP look like OSX, but also give you all the visual functionality and 'pretties' of OSX. But WindowsXP users can get all the Mac Pretties if they want.
However, there are things that happen on Vista, that you can't even mimic on the OSX desktop even if you wanted to.
So lets kill the myths.
1) OSX Vista... OSX = WindowsXP would be more accurate
2) OSX is not slower on the same hardware because it is doing more, the
'technical' overhead in WindowsXP is actually higher than OSX.
3) OSX should in fact run a 'bit' faster because of the Offscreen Bitmap
rendering.
4) XP and OSX both use the same level of Video Accelerated features,
with the exeption of the Offscreen Bitmap rendering.
(Both only have basic vector GPU acceleration feature for vector and
other Quartz/GDI+ features.)
5) Vista is doing more than Offscreen GPU drawing, it is using the 3D GPU
features for a Vector acceleration and using roundtrip Vector Composer.
Even handling true 3D scenes without resorting to a Gaming Engine.
OSX is awesome, but you can't live by the Apple marketing hype or marketing myths. Their marketing department is good, but not always truthful. So even if their marketing department says OSX does XYZ, it doesn't actually mean OSX is doing it. The developers write OSX, not the marketing team.
Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers
Insane specs? The Specs for Vista are the same as last release of OSX. Actually less when you consider Vista will run on 800mhz machines with 512mb of RAM quite well. (Yes we test it on this configuration.)
So what are insane specs to you? 512MB of RAM for 'optimal' performance? Ok, $40 DirectX 9.0 Card for 'high end glass' (PS in Hardware)? Ok, GeforceFX 5200 $50
Also as a side note, if you are running Vista on legacy hardware. Like a PII 400Mhz with 128mb of RAM, there are several high end monitoring services that turn off, and can be turned off to run at the same performance as WinXP, which is still faster than Win9X and even Win2k on the same hardware.
Trying to truly find your point here, what do you consider 'insane' specs? Am I missing something?
So let me get this straight, you were giving Google the benefit of the doubt by stating that they have "disclosed they data mine", and then stating that they turn mail data over to advertisers. You then refused to provide any evidence.
Sorry, I assumed you might have caught the articles on/. before about it, or were capable of using Google yourself. I have provided links on this topic in previous article threads
Try www.google.com or www.altavista.com -they are 'search' engines that will 'find this stuff' for you.
Do your own homework, I have nothing to prove to you if you are too lazy to check this out for yourself.
Microsoft is a monopoly. Monopolies cannot use their monopoly product (the OS, and according to MS, IE is part of the OS) to leverage other products.
Bullcrap... Do you feel the need to 'excuse' Google and Firefox's business entanglement by this?
If you are going to dog IE for using MSN as default, then you should do the same with Firefox and Google.
As for your statement about 'because they are a monopoly' is pure crap. Go look at ATT, even after the Monopoly breakup. They still 'bundled' services and pushed customers to use their services by linking from other services. And to this day you get a discount if you use ATT Local/Long Distance/DSL, etc in bundles.
A ruling of 'trying to use monopoly buisness practiices' as the Microsoft case STATES, does not mean that FOREVER they are not allowed to do COMMON BUSINESS PRACTICES that other companies do everyday. Just because you make up new rules and go, but they are monopoly.
What next, they can't have employee parking, because they are a monopoly? Or wait, they can't advertise on TV? Maybe they can't say print the word Microsoft on any of their web pages? How insane will you and other go on this subject to 'create' false rules for them? Pick whatever you are going to make up before an issue like this is raised and debated at least, be freaking consistent.
The ramifications and ruling of the US vs MS is very clear on what MS has to do, and no matter how much you would like to yell monopoly everytime MS does something that everyone else does, you need to first go back to the rulings, even the initial OVERRULED case, and see what is 'required' of MS in this regard.
Making MSN the default search engine is NOT a part of this ruling. PERIOD. Even if you do think MS is a Monopoly. BTW They are NOT a monopoly, they were convicted of using monopolistic business practices, not that they are one. The only ruling that called them a Monopoly in the traditional sense was the origianl ruling that was overturned.
Get over it. OK? Unless you are FORCED to use Windows and are writing this on a Windows PC because there ARE NO OTHER OS OPTIONS, they quit using this un-factual excuse. (Because I would bet you are not using Windows and don't have to use Windows. Linux and OSX are better products and alternatives than people like you apparently give them credit, especially if you are so stupid you feel you are still forced to use MS Windows.)
I however know many people using OSX, Linux, BSD, etc etc and are NOT locked into using ANYTHING from MS. (Hence not a freaking Monopoly.)
Now, this is not impossible to be gotten around. The entire reason why Windows XP was shipped one year after Windows 2000 is simple: Microsoft wanted to bundle Windows Messenger, and a new version of IE and Outlook Express with Windows 2000. But they couldn't. How do you get around that?
Saying that WindowsXP was to bundle messenger is so insane. First WinXP is more than a 'slight' revision of Win2k. Go look up the differences.
And then to say that it was all to ship messenger, nuts...
MSN Messenger was planned to replace the base Windows Messenger, before XP Shipped. Wow, why didn't they just bundle MSN Messenger? (You do realize they are different, right?)
The bundled Windows Messenger was also available on Win2k, and it also didn't support the ad generating features that MSN Messenger does, so why would MS even freaking care about making a new Windows just to 'bundle' it?
And then you go on about IE and Outlook Express. You know what feature changed in Outlook Express between Win2K and WinXP? None that I know of. Wow, I glad they released WinXP just to get that no-new feature application in.
Oh and to destroy any furture tinfoil theories about Vista, it doesn't even bundle a version of Messenger.
HFS+ is subject to fragmentation [themacintoshguy.com] (but Apple, like MS, provides no tools to help you deal with it)
Ok, both companies deal with in their own way. Apple has on the fly for small and critical files.
And MS, WTF are you talking about, NTFS is 'less prone' to fragmentation than many file systems, but with that aside, MS had provided defragging tools in the OS for 10 years now. Windows also defrags in the background, and especially critical files that change like the profiles, pagefile, hive, etc.
So how does Apple and MS NOT deal with defragging again? Do you even use either OS?
Ummmm...what other way is there to read that? That's a very funny way to say that Google targets the ads in-house and doesn't turn data over, me thinks
Here is the fact, Google does not comment on whether data mined information is 'shared' with advertisers or not. We assume it is just in house as that is ALL THEY HAVE ADMITTED TO.
So neither I nor anyone else can prove whether it is just in house or not, I was giving Google the benefit of the doubt to diffuse the debate, I did not want to start a flame war base on my mistrust of their activities. Just knowing they read everyone's mail is enough to make my skin crawl.
I defend all companies when people on Slashdot feel the need to lie about them to further their arguments (or lie about what they said afterwards). I don't think Google makes MS look less evil, we don't all share the same POV, in case you weren't aware of that. I don't have a problem with Microsoft, and I don't consider either company evil. A company is not a living creature with a conscious, therefore I don't think any company is truly evil. I
And looking through your posts it is very clear you don't feel MS is 'evil' and jump in to defend them when people are truly dogging on them with false data. (Gag) I wish I had looked at your other history of posts before responding, I would not have wasted my time on a bloviating hypocrite like yourself.
I apologize for giving you the benefit of the doubt and even starting this response, you are truly undeserving.
Uhm no it isn't. Every single browser except IE has superb support for W3C standards. As long as any non-IE browser gets more market share, webmasters who want to design a website according to the W3C standards will be able to do so, instead of holding themselves back and resorting to IE-specific hacks to make the website render correctly in IE, just because IE's the only one that doesn't render things properly.
Ok, this isn't entirely true.
IE actually does have a high level of W3C compliance, and in fact supports the latest versions better than a lot of other browsers. (MS is actually the author of some of the more stricter versions of the W3C specifications, ironic I know.) IE7 is very heavy on compliance, but it does continue to allow non-W3C tags.
Here is where people like to jab IE for not being W3C compliant, it is not that it FAILS to support W3C, but more that it allows NON-W3C things to happen.
For example, aligning text to the bottom of a cell in a table. It is ok in IE, but NOT a standard. So this is how people sucker others into believing that IE is less 'capable' because they can add that to the list of non-compliance, when IE is actually not doing something but allowing for something outside the standard.
The second part no one tells people is the reasoning behind some of the non-standards in IE. Back when the Internet was young, a lot of non-tech people were building web pages.
These people that would forget an end tag or improperly next a tag, and then their pages would FAIL to render in standard of the time Netscape. MS decided rather than failing, the browser should be smart enough to just go, ok the end tag is missing, but we can assume it is supposed to be here so we will render it anyway.
(Old timers, like myself can testify the hours spent looking for a missing tag or one that was nested improperly. And this was important, as Netscape would just show a blank page if a tag was messed up. IE came along, and even crap coded pages or when a script generated page created some funky HTML, it would display the page like there was not a problem.)
This is also why a lot of early designers, and even to this day less 'strict' designers of sites prefer IE because IE is very forgiving if the page doesn't fully meet proper syntax. The page will fail to function or even display in browsers like Firefox or Safari, but IE will go, "Ok, this page is messed up, but we will show it anyway."
But by continuing to allow poor HTML syntax, it is double edge sword, as people attack IE for failing W3C compliance because it allows this stuff, also site designers end up using non-standard syntax or just don't care about proper syntax because the page works in IE and that is good enough for them. (So this hurts non-IE users when visiting these sites)
For example I myself have used non-standard background and valign tags in the course of my life, I usually code so the page still looks ok in non-IE browsers, but by using these tags, it is a bit prettier in IE.
Also remember a lot of this controversy is going away, as MS is forcing their people to meet XHTML and they are shoving XHTML at all the MSDN people, ASP.NET 2.0 is very strict on XHTML, and even the new version of FrontPage is hard on pages that don't conform to strict standards. And in this regard, we need to give MS kudos for 'finally' stepping up to the plate.
So does this mean IE is BAD because it doesn't adhere fully to the standards? You be the judge. I personally would rather have a browser that support non-standard stuff if it means the page will display from some site where the people or the script creating it screws up. Even if it means it supports weird and non-standard tags.
Mach, L3, L4, all are microkernel client server designs.
Yep, but NT is not a tradition or true MACH kernel.
Open GL code is made by the graphic card vendors.
Ok, now you are scaring me. DirectX is actually implmented in the display driver also, but ATI and Nvidia did not write DirectX anymore than they wrote OpenGL.
Unless you are maybe talking about OpenGL extentions, which is a way new GPU specific features can be added to OpenGL.
Really not sure where you are coming from on this. OpenGL
And hardware acceleration was in the origional SGI plans.
Yes, and hardware accleration was in OpenGL before DirectX ever existed, this so was not my point. Go read again, the keyword: 'Gaming'.
SGI had toyed with adding more APIs to OpenGL for gaming and other uses, but even after circulating stuff on OpenGL++, they never went forward with it. Microsoft even tried to create some of these technologies for OpenGL with SGI, and HP in a project called Fahrenheit it was at the end of the MS/SGI relationship.
And what a professional job they did, as revealed in the name of API calls that they thought they would never have to make public..... such as 'PrestoChangoSelector'
Well at least no one is claiming they ripped it off from Apple or someone else.
Maybe MS put the screwy stuff in there on purpose.:)
(I personally suspect that the development of NT and the hiring of VMS programmers was a specific attempt to kill DEC which it ultimately succeeded in doing-- however since the DEC suit was settled, I am not sure that there are any antitrust options available in this case, but IANAL and I don't know the lawsuit well or the settlement. Technologically, NT pales in comparison to VMS.)
The DEC Microsoft lawsuit is quite distorted, as it was more about the hiring of the DEC employees and 'fear' that the VMS technologies would be used by Microsoft. NOT that they were used.
Basically DEC was afraid that Cutler or his team had brought over technology from a project called Mica which was the new version of VMS they were working on at DEC. However, DEC had dropped the Mica project, which is why Cutler was so willing to leave DEC, they were canning his project and stifling his ability to do new things.
This lawsuit ended well for both DEC and Microsoft, as Microsoft got the people they wanted and DEC got money and development help and support for the Alpha CPU.
This lawsuit pre-dates the direction of the NT Kernel, let alone the implementation of the NT Kernel. Although the settlement did leave the door open for Cutler to be more free in using his ideas, as you can witness in some of the upper level constructs of NT.
There are a lot of people that like to claim NT is a just a new version of VMS, and this 'could' have been possible, but NT went a completely different direction.
When Cutler came to MS, they were given an open slate to work from, MS even held Xenix in case they wanted to implement the new OS based on a *nix path.
During the NT development process, the direction and goals for NT changed frequently and dramatically. It initially was to have more of an OS/2 framework, and the only concept that was even left from this was HPFS, which NTFS borrows ideas from, but ultimately was a rewritten FS.
There are also the rumors of the similarities between NT and VMS, and some of this has credibility, as Cutler was the architect of both, so why would people expect him to abandon his design style from one project to the next?
What people see as 'copies' from VMS are more of Cutler's touches to the direction of the NT project, but are not VMS copies. The DEC lawsuit did NOT allow for Microsoft using VMS code.
People should also note that the VMS Kernel and the NT Kernel are from two different worlds completely. VMS was not a MACH derivative, it was a monolithic kernel, far from the NT Kernel, although it did have support for modules, which would be more like the current OSX kernel. VMS had no concepts of a subsystem model which is a hallmark of the non-bound API Kernel (Client/Server) in Windows NT.
It would be more accurate to call VMS and NT brothers because they have the same father, but that doesn't mean one brother is a copy of the other whatsoever.
Think of this logically. Working at DEC, Cutlers work with Mica had to adhere to the VMS model and DEC's requirements. When Cutler went to Microsoft, he no longer had these constraints, and he was able to take what their team saw as the best OS theories of the time and implement them. Basically it was a dream project of getting to start an OS from scratch using the best ideas of the day. With this in mind why would Cutler even want to try to emulate or recreate older VMS technologies for a new OS concept? He had a blank check of available technologies to work from, and even they were able to take current things that only existed in theory and implement them.
DEC and Microsoft ended up parting friends from this, and like I mentioned in my other post DEC was a strong supporter of NT, not only from the lawsuit, but partnered with Microsoft with NT and Alpha beyond the requirements of the lawsuit.
As for Microsoft destroying DEC, that is a far stretch. NT on Alpha helped the success of the Alpha CPU, bringing it to the desktop and server markets, which VMS could not have done.
The windows shell (and much of microsoft interface design) does not provide a complete logical structure. Instead of providing a complete logical structure, the windows shell operates on the principle of wishful thinking. For instance, this rename command. The syntax listed earlier is intuitive in the sense that a user is likely to try it, but the user would try it with fingers crossed because it doesn't really make sense. You can't close your eyes and picture the digital gears and pullies that would make the function work that way. The user would be pleased because the software worked the way they 'wanted' it to. But this design philosophy means that are always guessing and memorizing behavior. Design by what the typical guess is nice I suppose if you are typical and probably quicker to learn since guesses yield fruit. Design by logic will always provide a system that is more complete, and allows more rapid problem solving once learned.
See I don't disagree with you on this, or pretty much anything else you said.
However as for relevance, people were dissing the new Shell technology that Microsoft is developing, many that have no idea how it works, what it gives access to, etc.
What I quoted above from what you said is a good example of why the new Shell technology from Microsoft is a step in the right direction. Not only have they went back to the drawing board basically, but have approached it with a new approach of making syntax more consistent, while adding in a whole new level of command line functionality.
Sure most of Windows (Especially XP & 2003 Server) have evolved to have command line tools to manage the system, but they are fragmented tools that don't have consistency. The existing CUI in Windows in many ways is just a replication of DOS syntax with adaptations to make it fit in the NT world.
The new Shell is to address this, and to give Windows a solid command line system that works based on the WindowsNT model and take various concepts from many areas that 'have been done before' but to also address this functionality to be a true CUI based on what NT is and needed for NT, not a DOS clone, nor a *nix clone.
People jumping in and saying, MS should just do everything like a *nix shell is short sighted at the very least. WindowsNT is not a *nix, the input\output model is not the same, etc, etc.
WindowsNT also has the advantage of using the object models of NT in the new CUI that you don't have in the *nix world. It can be debated whether the 'complete' integration of most of the NT technologies is a good thing or not, but the fact is they are and because of this and the object model they are based on, MS was able to create a shell concept that works from this. In addition offer an interface to the shell for third party integration that works within the new Shell syntax through the object model of the applications installed on the Windows system. (Developers can allow CUI to their applications via these MS technologies by providing common object interfaces as they pretty much already do through the Windows GUI.)
In *nix such a concept is hard because of the fragmentation or the nature of the model of the average *nix OS. It is hard to create a common command line syntax that lets you administrate and control all the services, tools and applications. In the *nix world you end up editing configuration files scattered throughout the system for the various applications and services. (I know there are some efforts for unified models, but it isn't at the level of Windows especially when MS controls all of Windows.)
I personally would like to see more unification between the syntax on certain *nix platforms, leave in legacy as much as possible and where needed, but try to bring the syntaxes together. And this is happening, slowly over the past 25 years, but a bigger effort of a standard model should be explored for each *nix variant.
MS has always done well against *nix just because of this, even though the fragmentation of tools and
In Win95, another process could easily corrupt another one's process memory. A simple demonstration of this fact were all the in-memory game patch tools which never required driver-level access.
I didn't say they were impossible, especially Win95. Virtually all OSes have the potential for failure in OS level memory protection. It is called a freaking Bug.
You are missing the bigger point, as the prior post acts like Windows included very little or NO memory protection. When in fact it did, especially NT which was developed in over 15 years ago. Want to find a company that didn't put memory protection in until 2000, go look up Apple. This is NOT one area where Microsoft sucked. PERIOD.
IAs for the NT Kernel, it's so suspiciously similar to the VMS and RSX-11 kernels there was almost a lawsuit over it. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising because the primary designer (Dave Cutler) was the same guy for all three!
I actually though you might have looked some of this up, but here is where you start to lose all credibility.
The VMS kernel is a monolithic kernel that supports modules, it is not a hybrid (client/server) kernel like you will find in NT. If any Kernel architecture influenced the NT kernel it was the MACH concept for small low level portability, but certainly not VMS.
As for the lawsuit, this claim I find astounding, as Digital (Owner of VMS and where Cutler also worked) were very CLOSE partners with Microsoft, in fact they showcased their new Alpha CPU at the 1992 Comdex running an unreleased WindowsNT. (I was actually there, so quote me on this.)
If Digital had any intention of bringing litigation to Microsoft over the design of NT, there is no record of and actually record to the contrary.
VMS was a very simplistic OS technology, especially at the time NT was written.
Are you just trying to blow smoke, and if so up what? Or do you assume that all of us here are 15yr olds and were NOT around during the 80s and 90s?
Selecting a word and changing the font? Have you conveniently forgotten the Macintosh?!
Here is where you lost all credibility, what are you a child?
MS Word was RUNNING on the Macintosh when the select and modify concepts were written by Microsoft and adapted by other applications on the Mac in the subsequent years.
Are you the only person in the world that doesn't realize that MS Word was more popular on the Mac than on the PC, until like 1993/1994 when the success of Windows 3.1 was becoming substantial?
(Here is a Hint when looking up the Mac history, office based applications like MS Word, MS Excel, Adobe PageMaker where the key APPLICATIONS that gave the Mac credibility in Office and business environments.)
Yes, Apple (1978-1983 with the Lisa) and MIT (1984 with X-Windows) both copied the modern GUI from Xerox. Of course, their development efforts were simultaneous and independent. Microsoft (1985 with Windows), however, is in a bit of a different time scope.
Again you think we are children. Gates announced Windows for the IBM PC and started development on it almost at the exact same time Apple started working on the GUI for Lisa. (Go look up history, here is another search tip, look up Comdex Windows Lisa Apple)
Apple's big lawsuit against Microsoft was based on a few specific items that were not common to Xerox. Apple was using 'copyright' law because the success of Windows hurt their sales, especially in people that bought Mac to run MS Word and MS Excel which they could now but a Windows PC and run.
"Client/server kernel technology, not monolithic or microkernel"? Do you have any idea what you're saying? I'm guessing you haven't taken an introductory class in operating system design. Please take a few minutes to view Wikipedia's informative article on the subject. In short, there was and still is plenty like it.
Actually I do know a little bit about kernel technology, but you seem to be able to only recant words from wik
, MS treated users to blue screens of death for decades when simple things like memory protection were well known. Crashes became commonplace to where they were just accepted as a part of computing by people.
You kind of lost all credibility... BSDs and Memory Protection are for the most part not related. The only Memory protection errors creating BSDs were in device drivers, the user application model on even Win95 (the hybrid it was) was protected memory.
Windows NT going back to 1992 also has full memory protection, a concept that MS actually did work on the improvement of the technology.
As for MS copying everything, explain a few things. The NT Kernel, nothing existed like it, and nothing since is like it either. Or how about selecting a word and changing the font, you know select and modify that exists in every GUI. It didn't exist prior to MS Word cira 198x, but now you see it used in almost every application and OS. There are literally thousands of things like this that MS was the 'creator/innovator' of, even if you choose to have a revisionist history.
What has Microsoft copied that everyone thinks is a 'copy' of something?
The GUI? Well, Apple and XWindows both copied this from Xerox, as well as Microsoft. Every major OS made now is a copy of the Xerox technology, so how is Microsoft different here?
Windows? It is based on the NT OS technology, something that is unique from both *nix and other OS/Kernel technologies at the time and since. There is nothing like it. It is a client/server kernel technology, not a monolithic or microkernel.
What else has Microsoft copied? The WinAPI, nope, they created it from scratch, the GDI/GDI+, nope again they created it, RTF - kind of a copy, but the document independance was new at the time and MS gave the RTF specs away. XHTML? Nope they were one of the main designers behind it as well.
What else could it be that I hear people refer to all the time that they copied?
Well there is techology like Visual Basic, which had a new GUI IDE model, but Microsoft basically made the creators rich (instead of just stealing their ideas) and bought them out.
MS technologies are actually 'less' copied than Applications and OSes. MS Word was NEVER a copy of Wordperfect, in fact by 1992, Wordperfect was scrambling to copy the concepts that had been successful in MS Word on the Mac for years.
Now should we put the same eye of scrutiny to Apple or even Linux? Linux was a monolithic copy of Minix, and even its technologies and microkernel design go back to what 1983, and if you follow the *nix concepts back to the 1960s.
OSX? The core OS technology Apple advertises that they copied the technology. It is a BSD based interface to a Mach kernel, almost a direct copy in fact of the source. How about even looking at the GUI in OSX? They use PDF/Display Postcript (licensed from Adobe - not their creation), for 3D composition they use OpenGL, which again they were not even a significant contributor to the project. It was SGI technology and later work into moving it to a gaming acceleration API was work done directly BY MICROSOFT.
Kind of fun to realize the OpenGL stuff OSX and all the 'open source' projects use has MS created code in it, but of course MS is the great innovation copier.
Keep repeating the/. myths and people actually start to believe this crap.
How about even instead of listening to me, you go look this up instead of just assuming MS is what others tell you it is.
TPM is this, whether you enter your pin/password at BIOS or whether you enter it at the Vista Login screen. That is the difference.
The data on the hard drive is 'still' encrypted to the 'user', meaning their specific administration GUID assigned to the user, including their password pin.
So again, for the system to be 'pre-encrypted', they would have to setup the user administration account in Windows Vista (And this is different that XP), and also assign the user a password before they ever shipped the computer.
Since DELL and no company ever did this for XP installations, I see no reason they would go to all the time and trouble to lock a persons hard drive, especially when it is AGAINST MS's RECOMMENDED OEM specifications.
But lets say, they create a User for their customer, and turn on BitLocker. And now let's say YOU are the customer. All you would have to do is 'TURN OF BITLOCKER' in the Control Panel. The Drive would be decrypted and you could install Linux on a second partition or WindowsXP on a second partition or whatever you wanted.
So even if a company is so stupid to try and turn this on and create a unique user and password for every customer, and wait for the drive to lock to itself, any person that would want to multi-boot, would be smart enough to click the cute little button to turn it off.
It is a not a permanent lock, nor can a system be sent a user where it the user could not turn it off or the user would not be able to log in. See, the OEM would have to give the user the SPECIFIC admin account information used to turn on BitLocker for the person to get into the computer.
Are you starting to see how far fetched this would be? There is no way Dell or an OEM is going to waste time doing this, nor compromise their sales by locking their own customers out of the computers they are buying. .
Actually this feature is pretty much as set in stone as you can get. The guy writing the article knows little to nothing about bitlocker, especially baiting people into believing it has any anti-Linux intentions.
As for it being a real feature and as the person above posted, they are correct and it is.
I am truly looking at the help file for Bitlocker in Vista as I type this. (We have also tested BitLocker on several systems, it does what it is supposed to do, and it has to be enabled by the END USER, as their key/pin is used to encrypt the drive.
And lets say as a goof Dell did enable this feature, and assigned a key and pin to the person buying the computer, all you do is type in your pin for access and then turn BitLocker off. (It can be turned on and off for the entire drive quite easily once it has been enabled.)
It is 100% optional, and not something recommended for the average person, it also is not recommended for volumes that need to be access from another OS in a multi-boot environment, so just don't use it.
You do realize it even locks out WindowsXP if you are dual booting WindowsXP and Vista and you use BitLocker to encrypt your Vista partiion?
What will likely happen is that when you a buy a computer, it will already be enabled.
Well it would be pretty hard to enable, unless they magically know who is buying the computer ahead of time,
The whole point is the END USER has to create their own key and pin/biometric at the TIME the drive is Encrypted.
So unless you see Dell becoming 1800 Ms Cleo, or see Gateway flying people to their factory just so they can enable the feature for that person, I think your tinfoil hat may be leading you down the wrong path...
Google has never admitted to handing over ANY data to advertisers
Ok, back down... I never said they handed anything over. I said they use the information to target advertising, and as you point is a source of revenue for them as they use this information to gain advertising contracts.
So if your friend emails you about your herpes problem, chances are you are going to see more herpes medicine or condom ads. Which would be quite nice for you if you used a shared computer with your kids.
Now do you get it?
And why do you feel the need to defend Google, they are one of the few companies that makes MS look less evil?
Any body that is dual booting will also know that making a partition formatted fat32 will allow copying of files between os's.
Or, maybe we could actually put on a thinking cap and just not turn on BitLocker? Wow, what a concept...
Does anyone get this? It is NOT TURNED ON UNLESS YOU TURN IT ON?
So if you are Dual Booting, simply don't turn on BitLocker, because you would have NO reason to. Makes perfect sense to me, and I don't see any motive in this technology, and yes I have used it on test systems.
Suggesting that people need to now go back to using FAT32 has nothing to do with BitLocker in this context.
The article was VERY misleading to bait everyone here, and guess what, fools it did make. Go to www.microsoft.com or even wikipedia.com and read about what it is and why there should be no dual-booting tinfoil hat theories about it.
Why argue about a security technology that will only be used by a few people with laptops or truly have secure data that they are only accessing from a Vista Machine.
The article saying MS being anti-Linux because of this technology is the STUPIDEST thing I have read in a while.
Does this mean MS is anti-WindowsXP because it sure as hell CANNOT read the data on a Vista Volume that has Bitlocker enabled either.
I know it was the register, but how could someone be so stupid?
In summary, Bitlocker is 1) Optional 2) Drive Level 128 or 256bit Security 3) Not EVER turned on by default or EVER required to use Vista. 4) Something that requires administrator access to Enable 5) Not recommended for the 'average' user, per MS's instructions because a lost PIN literally means the data is lost. 6) MS also explains not to use it on ANY Volume you would want to gain access to from another OS, including WindowsXP, as it is not able to read a BitLocker secured drive either.
So, if you are dual-booting, JUST DON'T USE IT, OK?
Slashdot Mirror
special new monitors
:)
The only thing related to 'new' monitors is that some of the video specifications for HD-DVD and Blu-RAY DVD (HD formats) require to authenication(HDMI) all the way to the video display.
Which is the same as with any stand alone player you would buy for these HD Discs.
Vista just supports the full HD specifications, so if the Movie maker requires the Monitor to report it is a real monitor (HDMI - An Intel Lock Thing), then Vista will try to report it is a real monitor (not a copying device) and will play the video.
There are older monitors that in theory if they don't provide proper HDMI support, then it will report to the HD Movie that it can't verify the monitor is a 'monitor using HDMI', so then Video quality is not full HD when played.
The only relevance Vista has to this, is it is the first OS to fully support the HD specifications (Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray).
These formats have the 'possibility' to let Movie Companies 'require' your monitor authenicates with an HDMI response to play at full resolution. However, Vista is no different in this respect than a Stand alone HD Player you would buy at Walmart (when available).
However it was something that people that don't understand this specification tried to bash Vista with. They could just as easily bash all the HD Players coming to the market, as Vista is DOING NOTHING different than what they are doing, to conform with the specification.
If anyone needs to be slapped up side the head on this, is ANY MOVIE company that 'requires' the HDMI authenication, and also Intel, as they are the ones that made this 'monitor' specification so they could sell 'their' chip to every monitor company in the world.
----
The other thing you could be refering to is the new graphics subsystem in Vista takes advantage of 3D Video cards more than before. This doesn't mean they are required for it to run or anything like that, but for some of the more advanced visual effects like the 'Glass' Borders (Just the pretties of the Desktop), MS is using the Pixel Shaders from the newer video cards.
What this means, to get the 'Glass' effect, you need a video card that has a PS in Hardware. But they have been on the market for years now. Even the older GeforceFX 5200 video cards have Hardware level Pixel Shaders 2.0 (PS).
But even the new 3D API replacing GDI+ in Vista (WPF) will run even on a 1991 VGA Video card. Vista can do great things with old cards, and even greater things with newer cards. MS is ensuring that no one is really left behind. It is just the 'pretty' effects of the Desktop that you lose by not having a newer 2003 or later video card.
The level of hardware required for the 'pretty' stuff, is just PS 2.0 support (DirectX 9). And most cards made since 2003 have this feature.
Even if you needed to upgrade your video card to get the 'pretty' effects, you can get the cheaper version of these video cards for around 40-50 dollars. And chances are, if you do any games or anything else, you already have a card that supports it.
A good check on the Video Cards to see which ones support this is look for DirectX 9.0 support in Hardware. If you look by Brand, any ATI 9200 or higher series (like the 9600 and 9800 or newer) and Nvidia any of the cards that have an FX or newer model number, like GeforceFX 5200-7900 etc etc.
Hope I didn't ramble too much.
Take Care
I was going to respond to the crap you are saying on stuff you have no clue about; however, even if MS released an OS so perfect God himself came down and said this is divine, you would be the person to go, "Ya, but it doesn't support Hell 2.0 and they are using God for market hype."
Give it up, you hate MS, that is fine, but quit posting your 'theories' or 'views' on crap you technically are very challenged in understanding.
and it STILL won't render correctly under Vista
Not true, don't make me post links to screen shots all over the web of Office 2007 on Vista. Do a search Office 2007 screenshot Vista
There is title bar rendering issues with some chipset drivers under the glass model, but it was 'known' in the Office 2007 beta notes, as it wasn't even until the 'technical' release of Office 2007 that they even allowed Office 2007 to install on Vista, there is nothing happening with Office 2007 on Vista that was not disclosed or expected. Not to mention that it runs with no rendering or display issues on the majority of test installations.
As for the UI learning curve, if tabs instead of menus confuse you, you might want to work with something other than comptuers. The Tab to Menu paradigm is the only major UI change, although it does LOOK different, so I guess that might scare people that actually HAVEN'T used it.
So just as Dvorak, you are out to prove you have no freaking clue about what you are talking about as well?
don't know what you think the Mac OS X specs are, but my wife is running Tiger (OS X 10.4.x) on a 5 year old 400MHz G4 laptop quite happily. 'Will run on 800MHz' sounds a bit stiff. Although it is relegated to a music server, I also have a 400MHz G3 laptop happily running Tiger with 512MB RAM.
What happened to the argument that G4mhz didn't equal Intel mhz?
We are running Vista on 400mhz systems with 128mb of RAM. (Systems slower than a G4 400mhz. PERIOD.
As for RAM, the more the better no matter what OS. Vista will run on lower than the 512mb of RAM MS recommends. Apple recommends 256mb for the current version of OSX, but the next version Apple has stated will also recommend 512mb of RAM. Even in your post you note you are running OSX on a G3, but state you are using 512mb of RAM.
RAM is cheap, it should not freak people out to see a 512mb recommended anymore.
Vista technically would run on a 1995 Pentium Processor, but who would want to run any OS on such an old processor, even if Vista's legacy compatibility goes back that far.
Also I'm not sure how you got OSX 'Tiger' to run a G3, unless you know of a trick I don't know of. I didn't think it would install, nor function properly without the altivec extensions.
This is kind of a silly debate. I'm not knocking OSX, it REALLY wasn't my point. I was just giving an example that Vista doesn't have that high of tech requirements, truly...
Take Care.
So basically, I can buy windows vista for $x00 and then turn it into windows XP? Why am I upgrading again?
I should have been a bit more clear. You can turn off the extra stuff you probably would be using, like DWM features turn themselves off, also there are the 'extra' monitoring systems, etc.
The stuff I was refering to are nice features of Vista, but not so much of end user features that would be used on low end hardware. Why would care if Vista is running a service for using USB 2.0 drives to speed the caching sequence if you don't even have a USB 2.0 capable port on your computer for example.
Take Care...
am no mac user, but OSX compares to Vista. It is like comparing the speed increase you'll get if you downgrade XP to windows 98. If Vista is still 30% faster than OSX on the same machine, you could have a point. But I'm guessing it will be quite the opposite...
... OSX = WindowsXP would be more accurate
Actually NO. OSX compares to WindowsXP. The only thing OSX has over WindowsXP is the off-screen OpenGL composer (bitmap based).
The Graphics engines, and many other things are on par or actually offer less than WindowsXP. For example NTFS, the file system for Windows has more features and 'overhead' than HPS.
Also look up the graphical susbystem comparisons. OSX has nothing like the vector Composer in Vista, nor the GDI replacement API.
Here is how the graphics in OSX and Windows compare
System 6-9 (QuickDraw) = Windows 16/32 GDI
(Both are also comparable to Display Postscript)
Mac OSX Quartz/PDF = Windows (2K/XP) GDI+
(Look up the features, they are virtually the same.)
Windows Vista has not only WPF, but a full roundtrip Vector Composer. Something that exists on NO OS in existence, even though it is just cute glass now, future applications will show how this really makes a difference, not only for developers but end users.
OSX is pretty though, and Apple's graphic designers are dang good. However if what OSX was doing was 'above' WindowsXP then you wouldn't see 'cute utilties' that not only make WindowsXP look like OSX, but also give you all the visual functionality and 'pretties' of OSX. But WindowsXP users can get all the Mac Pretties if they want.
However, there are things that happen on Vista, that you can't even mimic on the OSX desktop even if you wanted to.
So lets kill the myths.
1) OSX Vista
2) OSX is not slower on the same hardware because it is doing more, the
'technical' overhead in WindowsXP is actually higher than OSX.
3) OSX should in fact run a 'bit' faster because of the Offscreen Bitmap
rendering.
4) XP and OSX both use the same level of Video Accelerated features,
with the exeption of the Offscreen Bitmap rendering.
(Both only have basic vector GPU acceleration feature for vector and
other Quartz/GDI+ features.)
5) Vista is doing more than Offscreen GPU drawing, it is using the 3D GPU
features for a Vector acceleration and using roundtrip Vector Composer.
Even handling true 3D scenes without resorting to a Gaming Engine.
OSX is awesome, but you can't live by the Apple marketing hype or marketing myths. Their marketing department is good, but not always truthful. So even if their marketing department says OSX does XYZ, it doesn't actually mean OSX is doing it. The developers write OSX, not the marketing team.
Maybe the reason for the insane specs is because by the time it gets out it will run on old, outdated computers
Insane specs? The Specs for Vista are the same as last release of OSX. Actually less when you consider Vista will run on 800mhz machines with 512mb of RAM quite well. (Yes we test it on this configuration.)
So what are insane specs to you?
512MB of RAM for 'optimal' performance? Ok, $40
DirectX 9.0 Card for 'high end glass' (PS in Hardware)? Ok, GeforceFX 5200 $50
Also as a side note, if you are running Vista on legacy hardware. Like a PII 400Mhz with 128mb of RAM, there are several high end monitoring services that turn off, and can be turned off to run at the same performance as WinXP, which is still faster than Win9X and even Win2k on the same hardware.
Trying to truly find your point here, what do you consider 'insane' specs? Am I missing something?
So let me get this straight, you were giving Google the benefit of the doubt by stating that they have "disclosed they data mine", and then stating that they turn mail data over to advertisers. You then refused to provide any evidence.
/. before about it, or were capable of using Google yourself. I have provided links on this topic in previous article threads
Sorry, I assumed you might have caught the articles on
Try www.google.com or www.altavista.com -they are 'search' engines that will 'find this stuff' for you.
Do your own homework, I have nothing to prove to you if you are too lazy to check this out for yourself.
Microsoft is a monopoly. Monopolies cannot use their monopoly product (the OS, and according to MS, IE is part of the OS) to leverage other products.
Bullcrap... Do you feel the need to 'excuse' Google and Firefox's business entanglement by this?
If you are going to dog IE for using MSN as default, then you should do the same with Firefox and Google.
As for your statement about 'because they are a monopoly' is pure crap. Go look at ATT, even after the Monopoly breakup. They still 'bundled' services and pushed customers to use their services by linking from other services. And to this day you get a discount if you use ATT Local/Long Distance/DSL, etc in bundles.
A ruling of 'trying to use monopoly buisness practiices' as the Microsoft case STATES, does not mean that FOREVER they are not allowed to do COMMON BUSINESS PRACTICES that other companies do everyday. Just because you make up new rules and go, but they are monopoly.
What next, they can't have employee parking, because they are a monopoly? Or wait, they can't advertise on TV? Maybe they can't say print the word Microsoft on any of their web pages? How insane will you and other go on this subject to 'create' false rules for them? Pick whatever you are going to make up before an issue like this is raised and debated at least, be freaking consistent.
The ramifications and ruling of the US vs MS is very clear on what MS has to do, and no matter how much you would like to yell monopoly everytime MS does something that everyone else does, you need to first go back to the rulings, even the initial OVERRULED case, and see what is 'required' of MS in this regard.
Making MSN the default search engine is NOT a part of this ruling. PERIOD. Even if you do think MS is a Monopoly. BTW They are NOT a monopoly, they were convicted of using monopolistic business practices, not that they are one. The only ruling that called them a Monopoly in the traditional sense was the origianl ruling that was overturned.
Get over it. OK? Unless you are FORCED to use Windows and are writing this on a Windows PC because there ARE NO OTHER OS OPTIONS, they quit using this un-factual excuse. (Because I would bet you are not using Windows and don't have to use Windows. Linux and OSX are better products and alternatives than people like you apparently give them credit, especially if you are so stupid you feel you are still forced to use MS Windows.)
I however know many people using OSX, Linux, BSD, etc etc and are NOT locked into using ANYTHING from MS. (Hence not a freaking Monopoly.)
Now, this is not impossible to be gotten around. The entire reason why Windows XP was shipped one year after Windows 2000 is simple: Microsoft wanted to bundle Windows Messenger, and a new version of IE and Outlook Express with Windows 2000. But they couldn't. How do you get around that?
Saying that WindowsXP was to bundle messenger is so insane. First WinXP is more than a 'slight' revision of Win2k. Go look up the differences.
And then to say that it was all to ship messenger, nuts...
MSN Messenger was planned to replace the base Windows Messenger, before XP Shipped. Wow, why didn't they just bundle MSN Messenger? (You do realize they are different, right?)
The bundled Windows Messenger was also available on Win2k, and it also didn't support the ad generating features that MSN Messenger does, so why would MS even freaking care about making a new Windows just to 'bundle' it?
And then you go on about IE and Outlook Express. You know what feature changed in Outlook Express between Win2K and WinXP? None that I know of. Wow, I glad they released WinXP just to get that no-new feature application in.
Oh and to destroy any furture tinfoil theories about Vista, it doesn't even bundle a version of Messenger.
What a load of crap...
HFS+ is subject to fragmentation [themacintoshguy.com] (but Apple, like MS, provides no tools to help you deal with it)
Ok, both companies deal with in their own way. Apple has on the fly for small and critical files.
And MS, WTF are you talking about, NTFS is 'less prone' to fragmentation than many file systems, but with that aside, MS had provided defragging tools in the OS for 10 years now. Windows also defrags in the background, and especially critical files that change like the profiles, pagefile, hive, etc.
So how does Apple and MS NOT deal with defragging again? Do you even use either OS?
Ummmm...what other way is there to read that? That's a very funny way to say that Google targets the ads in-house and doesn't turn data over, me thinks
Here is the fact, Google does not comment on whether data mined information is 'shared' with advertisers or not. We assume it is just in house as that is ALL THEY HAVE ADMITTED TO.
So neither I nor anyone else can prove whether it is just in house or not, I was giving Google the benefit of the doubt to diffuse the debate, I did not want to start a flame war base on my mistrust of their activities. Just knowing they read everyone's mail is enough to make my skin crawl.
I defend all companies when people on Slashdot feel the need to lie about them to further their arguments (or lie about what they said afterwards). I don't think Google makes MS look less evil, we don't all share the same POV, in case you weren't aware of that. I don't have a problem with Microsoft, and I don't consider either company evil. A company is not a living creature with a conscious, therefore I don't think any company is truly evil. I
And looking through your posts it is very clear you don't feel MS is 'evil' and jump in to defend them when people are truly dogging on them with false data. (Gag) I wish I had looked at your other history of posts before responding, I would not have wasted my time on a bloviating hypocrite like yourself.
I apologize for giving you the benefit of the doubt and even starting this response, you are truly undeserving.
Uhm no it isn't. Every single browser except IE has superb support for W3C standards. As long as any non-IE browser gets more market share, webmasters who want to design a website according to the W3C standards will be able to do so, instead of holding themselves back and resorting to IE-specific hacks to make the website render correctly in IE, just because IE's the only one that doesn't render things properly.
Ok, this isn't entirely true.
IE actually does have a high level of W3C compliance, and in fact supports the latest versions better than a lot of other browsers. (MS is actually the author of some of the more stricter versions of the W3C specifications, ironic I know.) IE7 is very heavy on compliance, but it does continue to allow non-W3C tags.
Here is where people like to jab IE for not being W3C compliant, it is not that it FAILS to support W3C, but more that it allows NON-W3C things to happen.
For example, aligning text to the bottom of a cell in a table. It is ok in IE, but NOT a standard. So this is how people sucker others into believing that IE is less 'capable' because they can add that to the list of non-compliance, when IE is actually not doing something but allowing for something outside the standard.
The second part no one tells people is the reasoning behind some of the non-standards in IE. Back when the Internet was young, a lot of non-tech people were building web pages.
These people that would forget an end tag or improperly next a tag, and then their pages would FAIL to render in standard of the time Netscape. MS decided rather than failing, the browser should be smart enough to just go, ok the end tag is missing, but we can assume it is supposed to be here so we will render it anyway.
(Old timers, like myself can testify the hours spent looking for a missing tag or one that was nested improperly. And this was important, as Netscape would just show a blank page if a tag was messed up. IE came along, and even crap coded pages or when a script generated page created some funky HTML, it would display the page like there was not a problem.)
This is also why a lot of early designers, and even to this day less 'strict' designers of sites prefer IE because IE is very forgiving if the page doesn't fully meet proper syntax. The page will fail to function or even display in browsers like Firefox or Safari, but IE will go, "Ok, this page is messed up, but we will show it anyway."
But by continuing to allow poor HTML syntax, it is double edge sword, as people attack IE for failing W3C compliance because it allows this stuff, also site designers end up using non-standard syntax or just don't care about proper syntax because the page works in IE and that is good enough for them. (So this hurts non-IE users when visiting these sites)
For example I myself have used non-standard background and valign tags in the course of my life, I usually code so the page still looks ok in non-IE browsers, but by using these tags, it is a bit prettier in IE.
Also remember a lot of this controversy is going away, as MS is forcing their people to meet XHTML and they are shoving XHTML at all the MSDN people, ASP.NET 2.0 is very strict on XHTML, and even the new version of FrontPage is hard on pages that don't conform to strict standards. And in this regard, we need to give MS kudos for 'finally' stepping up to the plate.
So does this mean IE is BAD because it doesn't adhere fully to the standards? You be the judge. I personally would rather have a browser that support non-standard stuff if it means the page will display from some site where the people or the script creating it screws up. Even if it means it supports weird and non-standard tags.
And so far, this is but one project.
FTA.
"most significant change between Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2.0."
One, ya, but significant, more than ya...
Mach, L3, L4, all are microkernel client server designs.
Yep, but NT is not a tradition or true MACH kernel.
Open GL code is made by the graphic card vendors.
Ok, now you are scaring me. DirectX is actually implmented in the display driver also, but ATI and Nvidia did not write DirectX anymore than they wrote OpenGL.
Unless you are maybe talking about OpenGL extentions, which is a way new GPU specific features can be added to OpenGL.
Really not sure where you are coming from on this. OpenGL
And hardware acceleration was in the origional SGI plans.
Yes, and hardware accleration was in OpenGL before DirectX ever existed, this so was not my point. Go read again, the keyword: 'Gaming'.
SGI had toyed with adding more APIs to OpenGL for gaming and other uses, but even after circulating stuff on OpenGL++, they never went forward with it. Microsoft even tried to create some of these technologies for OpenGL with SGI, and HP in a project called Fahrenheit it was at the end of the MS/SGI relationship.
Look up stuff like 'Scene graphs'.
And what a professional job they did, as revealed in the name of API calls that they thought they would never have to make public..... such as 'PrestoChangoSelector'
:)
Well at least no one is claiming they ripped it off from Apple or someone else.
Maybe MS put the screwy stuff in there on purpose.
(I personally suspect that the development of NT and the hiring of VMS programmers was a specific attempt to kill DEC which it ultimately succeeded in doing-- however since the DEC suit was settled, I am not sure that there are any antitrust options available in this case, but IANAL and I don't know the lawsuit well or the settlement. Technologically, NT pales in comparison to VMS.)
The DEC Microsoft lawsuit is quite distorted, as it was more about the hiring of the DEC employees and 'fear' that the VMS technologies would be used by Microsoft. NOT that they were used.
Basically DEC was afraid that Cutler or his team had brought over technology from a project called Mica which was the new version of VMS they were working on at DEC. However, DEC had dropped the Mica project, which is why Cutler was so willing to leave DEC, they were canning his project and stifling his ability to do new things.
This lawsuit ended well for both DEC and Microsoft, as Microsoft got the people they wanted and DEC got money and development help and support for the Alpha CPU.
This lawsuit pre-dates the direction of the NT Kernel, let alone the implementation of the NT Kernel. Although the settlement did leave the door open for Cutler to be more free in using his ideas, as you can witness in some of the upper level constructs of NT.
There are a lot of people that like to claim NT is a just a new version of VMS, and this 'could' have been possible, but NT went a completely different direction.
When Cutler came to MS, they were given an open slate to work from, MS even held Xenix in case they wanted to implement the new OS based on a *nix path.
During the NT development process, the direction and goals for NT changed frequently and dramatically. It initially was to have more of an OS/2 framework, and the only concept that was even left from this was HPFS, which NTFS borrows ideas from, but ultimately was a rewritten FS.
There are also the rumors of the similarities between NT and VMS, and some of this has credibility, as Cutler was the architect of both, so why would people expect him to abandon his design style from one project to the next?
What people see as 'copies' from VMS are more of Cutler's touches to the direction of the NT project, but are not VMS copies. The DEC lawsuit did NOT allow for Microsoft using VMS code.
People should also note that the VMS Kernel and the NT Kernel are from two different worlds completely. VMS was not a MACH derivative, it was a monolithic kernel, far from the NT Kernel, although it did have support for modules, which would be more like the current OSX kernel. VMS had no concepts of a subsystem model which is a hallmark of the non-bound API Kernel (Client/Server) in Windows NT.
It would be more accurate to call VMS and NT brothers because they have the same father, but that doesn't mean one brother is a copy of the other whatsoever.
Think of this logically. Working at DEC, Cutlers work with Mica had to adhere to the VMS model and DEC's requirements. When Cutler went to Microsoft, he no longer had these constraints, and he was able to take what their team saw as the best OS theories of the time and implement them.
Basically it was a dream project of getting to start an OS from scratch using the best ideas of the day. With this in mind why would Cutler even want to try to emulate or recreate older VMS technologies for a new OS concept? He had a blank check of available technologies to work from, and even they were able to take current things that only existed in theory and implement them.
DEC and Microsoft ended up parting friends from this, and like I mentioned in my other post DEC was a strong supporter of NT, not only from the lawsuit, but partnered with Microsoft with NT and Alpha beyond the requirements of the lawsuit.
As for Microsoft destroying DEC, that is a far stretch. NT on Alpha helped the success of the Alpha CPU, bringing it to the desktop and server markets, which VMS could not have done.
The windows shell (and much of microsoft interface design) does not provide a complete logical structure. Instead of providing a complete logical structure, the windows shell operates on the principle of wishful thinking. For instance, this rename command. The syntax listed earlier is intuitive in the sense that a user is likely to try it, but the user would try it with fingers crossed because it doesn't really make sense. You can't close your eyes and picture the digital gears and pullies that would make the function work that way. The user would be pleased because the software worked the way they 'wanted' it to. But this design philosophy means that are always guessing and memorizing behavior. Design by what the typical guess is nice I suppose if you are typical and probably quicker to learn since guesses yield fruit. Design by logic will always provide a system that is more complete, and allows more rapid problem solving once learned.
See I don't disagree with you on this, or pretty much anything else you said.
However as for relevance, people were dissing the new Shell technology that Microsoft is developing, many that have no idea how it works, what it gives access to, etc.
What I quoted above from what you said is a good example of why the new Shell technology from Microsoft is a step in the right direction. Not only have they went back to the drawing board basically, but have approached it with a new approach of making syntax more consistent, while adding in a whole new level of command line functionality.
Sure most of Windows (Especially XP & 2003 Server) have evolved to have command line tools to manage the system, but they are fragmented tools that don't have consistency. The existing CUI in Windows in many ways is just a replication of DOS syntax with adaptations to make it fit in the NT world.
The new Shell is to address this, and to give Windows a solid command line system that works based on the WindowsNT model and take various concepts from many areas that 'have been done before' but to also address this functionality to be a true CUI based on what NT is and needed for NT, not a DOS clone, nor a *nix clone.
People jumping in and saying, MS should just do everything like a *nix shell is short sighted at the very least. WindowsNT is not a *nix, the input\output model is not the same, etc, etc.
WindowsNT also has the advantage of using the object models of NT in the new CUI that you don't have in the *nix world. It can be debated whether the 'complete' integration of most of the NT technologies is a good thing or not, but the fact is they are and because of this and the object model they are based on, MS was able to create a shell concept that works from this. In addition offer an interface to the shell for third party integration that works within the new Shell syntax through the object model of the applications installed on the Windows system. (Developers can allow CUI to their applications via these MS technologies by providing common object interfaces as they pretty much already do through the Windows GUI.)
In *nix such a concept is hard because of the fragmentation or the nature of the model of the average *nix OS. It is hard to create a common command line syntax that lets you administrate and control all the services, tools and applications. In the *nix world you end up editing configuration files scattered throughout the system for the various applications and services. (I know there are some efforts for unified models, but it isn't at the level of Windows especially when MS controls all of Windows.)
I personally would like to see more unification between the syntax on certain *nix platforms, leave in legacy as much as possible and where needed, but try to bring the syntaxes together. And this is happening, slowly over the past 25 years, but a bigger effort of a standard model should be explored for each *nix variant.
MS has always done well against *nix just because of this, even though the fragmentation of tools and
In Win95, another process could easily corrupt another one's process memory. A simple demonstration of this fact were all the in-memory game patch tools which never required driver-level access.
I didn't say they were impossible, especially Win95. Virtually all OSes have the potential for failure in OS level memory protection. It is called a freaking Bug.
You are missing the bigger point, as the prior post acts like Windows included very little or NO memory protection. When in fact it did, especially NT which was developed in over 15 years ago. Want to find a company that didn't put memory protection in until 2000, go look up Apple. This is NOT one area where Microsoft sucked. PERIOD.
IAs for the NT Kernel, it's so suspiciously similar to the VMS and RSX-11 kernels there was almost a lawsuit over it. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising because the primary designer (Dave Cutler) was the same guy for all three!
I actually though you might have looked some of this up, but here is where you start to lose all credibility.
The VMS kernel is a monolithic kernel that supports modules, it is not a hybrid (client/server) kernel like you will find in NT. If any Kernel architecture influenced the NT kernel it was the MACH concept for small low level portability, but certainly not VMS.
As for the lawsuit, this claim I find astounding, as Digital (Owner of VMS and where Cutler also worked) were very CLOSE partners with Microsoft, in fact they showcased their new Alpha CPU at the 1992 Comdex running an unreleased WindowsNT. (I was actually there, so quote me on this.)
If Digital had any intention of bringing litigation to Microsoft over the design of NT, there is no record of and actually record to the contrary.
VMS was a very simplistic OS technology, especially at the time NT was written.
Are you just trying to blow smoke, and if so up what? Or do you assume that all of us here are 15yr olds and were NOT around during the 80s and 90s?
Selecting a word and changing the font? Have you conveniently forgotten the Macintosh?!
Here is where you lost all credibility, what are you a child?
MS Word was RUNNING on the Macintosh when the select and modify concepts were written by Microsoft and adapted by other applications on the Mac in the subsequent years.
Are you the only person in the world that doesn't realize that MS Word was more popular on the Mac than on the PC, until like 1993/1994 when the success of Windows 3.1 was becoming substantial?
(Here is a Hint when looking up the Mac history, office based applications like MS Word, MS Excel, Adobe PageMaker where the key APPLICATIONS that gave the Mac credibility in Office and business environments.)
Yes, Apple (1978-1983 with the Lisa) and MIT (1984 with X-Windows) both copied the modern GUI from Xerox. Of course, their development efforts were simultaneous and independent. Microsoft (1985 with Windows), however, is in a bit of a different time scope.
Again you think we are children. Gates announced Windows for the IBM PC and started development on it almost at the exact same time Apple started working on the GUI for Lisa. (Go look up history, here is another search tip, look up Comdex Windows Lisa Apple)
Apple's big lawsuit against Microsoft was based on a few specific items that were not common to Xerox. Apple was using 'copyright' law because the success of Windows hurt their sales, especially in people that bought Mac to run MS Word and MS Excel which they could now but a Windows PC and run.
"Client/server kernel technology, not monolithic or microkernel"? Do you have any idea what you're saying? I'm guessing you haven't taken an introductory class in operating system design. Please take a few minutes to view Wikipedia's informative article on the subject. In short, there was and still is plenty like it.
Actually I do know a little bit about kernel technology, but you seem to be able to only recant words from wik
, MS treated users to blue screens of death for decades when simple things like memory protection were well known. Crashes became commonplace to where they were just accepted as a part of computing by people.
/. myths and people actually start to believe this crap.
You kind of lost all credibility... BSDs and Memory Protection are for the most part not related. The only Memory protection errors creating BSDs were in device drivers, the user application model on even Win95 (the hybrid it was) was protected memory.
Windows NT going back to 1992 also has full memory protection, a concept that MS actually did work on the improvement of the technology.
As for MS copying everything, explain a few things. The NT Kernel, nothing existed like it, and nothing since is like it either. Or how about selecting a word and changing the font, you know select and modify that exists in every GUI. It didn't exist prior to MS Word cira 198x, but now you see it used in almost every application and OS. There are literally thousands of things like this that MS was the 'creator/innovator' of, even if you choose to have a revisionist history.
What has Microsoft copied that everyone thinks is a 'copy' of something?
The GUI? Well, Apple and XWindows both copied this from Xerox, as well as Microsoft. Every major OS made now is a copy of the Xerox technology, so how is Microsoft different here?
Windows? It is based on the NT OS technology, something that is unique from both *nix and other OS/Kernel technologies at the time and since. There is nothing like it. It is a client/server kernel technology, not a monolithic or microkernel.
What else has Microsoft copied? The WinAPI, nope, they created it from scratch, the GDI/GDI+, nope again they created it, RTF - kind of a copy, but the document independance was new at the time and MS gave the RTF specs away. XHTML? Nope they were one of the main designers behind it as well.
What else could it be that I hear people refer to all the time that they copied?
Well there is techology like Visual Basic, which had a new GUI IDE model, but Microsoft basically made the creators rich (instead of just stealing their ideas) and bought them out.
MS technologies are actually 'less' copied than Applications and OSes. MS Word was NEVER a copy of Wordperfect, in fact by 1992, Wordperfect was scrambling to copy the concepts that had been successful in MS Word on the Mac for years.
Now should we put the same eye of scrutiny to Apple or even Linux? Linux was a monolithic copy of Minix, and even its technologies and microkernel design go back to what 1983, and if you follow the *nix concepts back to the 1960s.
OSX? The core OS technology Apple advertises that they copied the technology. It is a BSD based interface to a Mach kernel, almost a direct copy in fact of the source. How about even looking at the GUI in OSX? They use PDF/Display Postcript (licensed from Adobe - not their creation), for 3D composition they use OpenGL, which again they were not even a significant contributor to the project. It was SGI technology and later work into moving it to a gaming acceleration API was work done directly BY MICROSOFT.
Kind of fun to realize the OpenGL stuff OSX and all the 'open source' projects use has MS created code in it, but of course MS is the great innovation copier.
Keep repeating the
How about even instead of listening to me, you go look this up instead of just assuming MS is what others tell you it is.
Exactly, especially because 'Display PostScript' was so awesome when I first saw it back in 1989. It rocks!
:(
Ok, just following the fun, I know that OSX actually uses a newer form of PDF that is closer in capabilities to GDI+.
Windows 16/32 GDI
=Display Postrscript
Windows 2000/XP GDI+
=OSX Quartz 2D (PDF)
Windows Vista WPF
=Nothing Yet
TPM is this, whether you enter your pin/password at BIOS or whether you enter it at the Vista Login screen. That is the difference.
The data on the hard drive is 'still' encrypted to the 'user', meaning their specific administration GUID assigned to the user, including their password pin.
So again, for the system to be 'pre-encrypted', they would have to setup the user administration account in Windows Vista (And this is different that XP), and also assign the user a password before they ever shipped the computer.
Since DELL and no company ever did this for XP installations, I see no reason they would go to all the time and trouble to lock a persons hard drive, especially when it is AGAINST MS's RECOMMENDED OEM specifications.
But lets say, they create a User for their customer, and turn on BitLocker. And now let's say YOU are the customer. All you would have to do is 'TURN OF BITLOCKER' in the Control Panel. The Drive would be decrypted and you could install Linux on a second partition or WindowsXP on a second partition or whatever you wanted.
So even if a company is so stupid to try and turn this on and create a unique user and password for every customer, and wait for the drive to lock to itself, any person that would want to multi-boot, would be smart enough to click the cute little button to turn it off.
It is a not a permanent lock, nor can a system be sent a user where it the user could not turn it off or the user would not be able to log in. See, the OEM would have to give the user the SPECIFIC admin account information used to turn on BitLocker for the person to get into the computer.
Are you starting to see how far fetched this would be? There is no way Dell or an OEM is going to waste time doing this, nor compromise their sales by locking their own customers out of the computers they are buying.
.
One slight detail: Vista isn't out yet.
Actually this feature is pretty much as set in stone as you can get. The guy writing the article knows little to nothing about bitlocker, especially baiting people into believing it has any anti-Linux intentions.
As for it being a real feature and as the person above posted, they are correct and it is.
I am truly looking at the help file for Bitlocker in Vista as I type this. (We have also tested BitLocker on several systems, it does what it is supposed to do, and it has to be enabled by the END USER, as their key/pin is used to encrypt the drive.
And lets say as a goof Dell did enable this feature, and assigned a key and pin to the person buying the computer, all you do is type in your pin for access and then turn BitLocker off. (It can be turned on and off for the entire drive quite easily once it has been enabled.)
It is 100% optional, and not something recommended for the average person, it also is not recommended for volumes that need to be access from another OS in a multi-boot environment, so just don't use it.
You do realize it even locks out WindowsXP if you are dual booting WindowsXP and Vista and you use BitLocker to encrypt your Vista partiion?
This is NOT an evil plan against other OSes.
What will likely happen is that when you a buy a computer, it will already be enabled.
Well it would be pretty hard to enable, unless they magically know who is buying the computer ahead of time,
The whole point is the END USER has to create their own key and pin/biometric at the TIME the drive is Encrypted.
So unless you see Dell becoming 1800 Ms Cleo, or see Gateway flying people to their factory just so they can enable the feature for that person, I think your tinfoil hat may be leading you down the wrong path...
Google has never admitted to handing over ANY data to advertisers
Ok, back down... I never said they handed anything over. I said they use the information to target advertising, and as you point is a source of revenue for them as they use this information to gain advertising contracts.
So if your friend emails you about your herpes problem, chances are you are going to see more herpes medicine or condom ads. Which would be quite nice for you if you used a shared computer with your kids.
Now do you get it?
And why do you feel the need to defend Google, they are one of the few companies that makes MS look less evil?
Any body that is dual booting will also know that making a partition formatted fat32 will allow copying of files between os's.
Or, maybe we could actually put on a thinking cap and just not turn on BitLocker? Wow, what a concept...
Does anyone get this? It is NOT TURNED ON UNLESS YOU TURN IT ON?
So if you are Dual Booting, simply don't turn on BitLocker, because you would have NO reason to. Makes perfect sense to me, and I don't see any motive in this technology, and yes I have used it on test systems.
Suggesting that people need to now go back to using FAT32 has nothing to do with BitLocker in this context.
The article was VERY misleading to bait everyone here, and guess what, fools it did make. Go to www.microsoft.com or even wikipedia.com and read about what it is and why there should be no dual-booting tinfoil hat theories about it.
Why argue about a security technology that will only be used by a few people with laptops or truly have secure data that they are only accessing from a Vista Machine.
The article saying MS being anti-Linux because of this technology is the STUPIDEST thing I have read in a while.
Does this mean MS is anti-WindowsXP because it sure as hell CANNOT read the data on a Vista Volume that has Bitlocker enabled either.
I know it was the register, but how could someone be so stupid?
In summary, Bitlocker is
1) Optional
2) Drive Level 128 or 256bit Security
3) Not EVER turned on by default or EVER required to use Vista.
4) Something that requires administrator access to Enable
5) Not recommended for the 'average' user, per MS's instructions because a lost PIN literally means the data is lost.
6) MS also explains not to use it on ANY Volume you would want to gain access to from another OS, including WindowsXP, as it is not able to read a BitLocker secured drive either.
So, if you are dual-booting, JUST DON'T USE IT, OK?