We know from the linked article I provided Microsoft has put backdoors in Windows. Even if you want to deny that the NSAKEY went to the NSA it still existed. So they start the sentence with a lie and you expect me to believe the second half?
But you are arguing apples and oranges (pardon the pun).
The BitLocker (NTFS Encryption - Drive Wide) in Vista WILL NOT HAVE A BACKDOOR. PERIOD.
Do a search on this, it made news this week, as it was showcased to the FBI to ensure lost laptops would never be compromised easily.
The FBI and other US agencies like the NSA were happy about the level of protection for their own use, but were NOT so happy they would not have a backdoor for their own use to spy.
This is all from articles in the past week, go look it up.
Also if you want to debate the NSA items that you posted a link to, I am up for that, even though it is a bit off topic of my statement.
The NSA DOES NOT currently have a backdoor in Windows or IE. In fact is is highly debated whether one ever existed, even with the export restrictions on 128bit encrypted versions of IE, (as found in the NT 4 SP5 in question) (Seach for NSAKEY)
It was possible that a NSA requirement for the higher encryption versions and the IIS SSL handling required 128bit encryption technology to be able to be monitored by the NSA. (Remember back in the old days, when downloading IE there was the regular and 128bit encryption versions? The 128bit version was for release in the US only because of the encryption export laws that no longer exist.)
But things have changed, and even if that Key was for NSA access to IE or IIS for out of the US exporting monitoring of 128bit IE it has been gone for a while now.
What bugs me about your assertion is people are more up in arms about MS providing a NSA key for the export of the 128bit version of IE than people get up in arms about the current US president and the NSA randomly tapping phones and communications without legal warrant to do so.
Here is a link on the NSA Key info, and there are tons of other sites debating whether it ever was a backdoor for the NSA for IE communications or not. Either way, it no longer exists...
Oh almost forgot... They can't prove a negative without showing the source and build files. I don't expect they will and therefore don't plan to trust their solution for serious sensitive data. I can't imagine any other security-minded folks would either. If you want to keep the wife from finding your porn it's fine.
If you will look at what has happend in the past couple of years, the full source code for Windows has been provided to the EU and countries requesting it under the provisions of the EU. The same for the US goverment also has access to the full source code of Windows.
If Backdoors did exist in Windows, as you suggest, especailly ones pointing to MS or the NSA, the EU would have have been the first to raise flags as this is part of what they were looking for, and we would have heard about it by now as the EU would have shut MS Windows sales down and slapped MS upside the head until it was removed.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, I can put on a tinfoil hat too, but if the code and even build steps with easily comparable CRC information is provided to both the USA and EU and their govts, I would imagine someone would have found it by now.
Even in 'open source' work, we trust that the person writing the code isn't smarter than the other people reviewing it. At least with MS, if one was discovered, the lawsuits and consumer distrust would destroy them, so that does give the consumers a bit of an edge to keep them on the straight and narrow. And now that the source is no longer as locked as it used to be, at least non-MS people and competiting govts all are getting access to it and even in their own competition would bring issues like this to light.
Well if the information presented at Mix 06 is any indication, MS is actually in the process of opening up even more of their new technologies, even if it is a bit self serving.
The old days when they actually made non-windows counterparts to their technologies or allowed them to be easily used on non-MS technologies seem to be returning. Maybe someone is smacking Ballmer's business minded MS ONLY mentally back to the curb at MS. We can only hope, as they have a lot of bright people and if they start playing with the rest of us, things will get better for the entire industry.
To reference one of the items of Mix 06 and specifically refute the comments by the EU, here is a link to some of the new technology specifically on the web that will not be Microsoft locked, even though it is MS developed.
The EU is grasping at straws, truly. It is more a battle of USA technologies vs EU countries' technologies, and MS is seen as USA technology. I can understand the EU wanting to give some of their technologies a chance in their own markets, but the strange thing is the open source distributions and 'alternatives' to Windows being used are predominately USA products. Whoops...
There is NO possible way MS can control the internet. PERIOD. Everyone here at SlashDot is proof of it. If there is anything we should fear on the internet is censorhip and govt sponsored censorship.
Look at Yahoo, and EBay in China, they have not only went along with the censoring of words like 'human rights' but Yahoo also is very willing to turn over people that break the law in China, of which a person was recently disclosed to the Chinese Govt., and arrested for trying to publish documents on democracy.
Shame on Yahoo and EBay, especailly Yahoo, they not only circumvented personal privacy, but cost someone in China their life. And to me, that is a bit more scary than another round of rumors about Microsoft trying to control the Internet, which we know is NOT possible.
Even with the dominance IE saw over the past 8 years, it is still quite rare to find a site that only works in IE, and even Windows Update is moving from IE requirements.
If NTFS is so wonderful, so perfect, so infalible,why are the Windows restore partitions on many new PCs fat-32?
This is an easy answer, just surprised people think has to do with a problem with NTFS.
Many manufacturers use a DOS based restore utility, DOS cannot read NTFS. Why they use a DOS based utility is because it is old and easy technology.
That is it all there is to it.
BTW There are also lots of companies that don't use a FAT partition for restore files, this was an old technique that carries over from the Win9x days in the 90s. I also think it is a BAD thing when I encounter companies that use this method, like Dell does on some of their units.
Here is where it becomes a problem, the FAT partition can get corrupted if repair utilities are used on the drive. (Because of how Dell attempts to hide the partition). And sometimes third party tools will try to see the FAT parition as the main partition and mangle the partition data for both portions of the Drive.
The second reason this is a BAD idea, if your Drive fails and you need to reinstall the OS, what good is having a restore copy on the same damaged drive?
Just so people know, using FAT partitions like this are NOT something Microsoft recommends, for the same reasons I outlined above. MS has been trying to move people over to NTFS for years now because of the extra reliability. If you are running WindowsXP on a FAT32 partition you are 10 time more likely to have data loss and corruption resulting in errors and crashes. That is quite significant. FAT is just a quick and dirty FS, NTFS is a protected FS, both in integrity but also inherently has security surpassing most *nix File System formats.
Also if you are using a backup drive, like an external drive, and your OS can understand NTFS, you are better off formatting the backup Drive with NTFS, turning compression on for the drive (using NTFS Compression), and then you get more backup room and your data is safer than on a FAT partition. Just the journalling alone saves the File structure over and over when you power down the drive or lose power in a portable settings. FAT is far more easier to corrupt.
Oh, also why you see FAT on portable media, more OSes can read FAT32 than NTFS, so it is safer choice for USB Drives, etc. But you can always format them with NTFS, encrypt them, and nobody can ever read their contents unless they are you. (And again you can use the NTFS compression on them as well.)
Take Care, and I hope you give NTFS a second look if you are still in the Windows world. FAT is old and Bad, very bad.../smile
I was curious about this Microsoft Max thing so I clicked on it too see what this fire/rocket business is. So yeah, umm Microsoft Max is just iPhoto for Windows to those of you who aren't going to bother with going to the site.
Actually the iPhoto equivalent is another feature in Vista. But your comments are actually quite a compliment.
Max is a Album concept application that is written in WPF, mainly to showcase how little code it takes to create an application that does features like this.
There are other proof of concept applications starting to appear on the web.
The point was not that this application was so magical, what is magical, is that you compare it to iPhoto, yet it took a few hours for the people to write Max using the new WPF and Vista XAML development technologies.
How many weeks/months do you think it took to write iPhoto?
OK, I'll give you that. Apple brought decent search to Mac OS X in 2005 after Microsoft announced it would implement it in Vista, then Longhorn. Alas, Windows users will get their hands on it in...2007. Hmmmm...
Well lets start here, because a person responded trying to say Apple was working on this first.
Microsoft was to add a Database FS Search system back in 1996 to NT 4.0, it was pulled then due to bandwidth and performance constraints of the current hardware for personal computers. WinFS is the extention of this technology. Oh, and if you want to question this too, I suggest you GO LOOK IT UP instead of trolling about crap you don't understand.
This is such bollocks it's hard to know where to start. As Thurrott laments, one of the most fundamental features of a windowing system - the idea of depth in a 2D space and so marking out the active window - has been thoroughly fucked up by a team whose sole goal seems to have been to chase the teh pretty crowd. Those screenshots were damning. Usability has gone to shreds.
Actually the screenshots that Paul Posted are already outdated, this is why it is called a BETA.. Things change... Now if you love Paul and believe he is always correct, I can't prove ya wrong, my NDA will not allow me.
Do you actually have any evidence of this? Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
Well I started out working within the XWindows group, and later moved on to a consulting company that partnered with Microsoft in the early 90s, we were one of the companies that worked with the Alpha NT releases and gave feedback.
I'm not sure if this qualifies me, but I can pretty much diagram any portion of NT or the Windows OS, which is also why I am successful in bridging concepts back to the open source and *nix world, as I have fairly vast backgrounds in both.
It doesn't matter if you are using Linux, OpenBSD, or even WindowsXP, you are using technology I personally worked on at some point in my career.
As for the rewrite, maybe a broad term like rewrite is a little too broad. However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
This is the first time there is a complete new graphics model for Windows, new bridged graphics virtualization concepts, that do not exist in any OS.
The entire NT kernel has also been gone through, the way memory is handled, support for new tricks in the kernel, and expanding on some of the original NT concepts that are now possible with current hardware performance levels.
Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0.
You're a fucking idiot. A first class fucking nutcase.
Yep, I think you should go with that view. It is easier to believe I am nuts and stick your head in the sand. Then when Vista and MS technology once again dominate the computer industry for another 15years, you can look back and go, wow, it was a lot easier to be F***ing ignorant than to have looked at the technology and worked on comperable technologies on other OSes to have a chance at keeping up with MS...
BTW there are tons of articles on this topic, this is just the URL I had on my desktop from the last article on this subject I read. Do a Google with Microsoft FBI BackDoor...
And actually Microsoft has been selling the NO BACKDOOR feature to the security agencies, so THEY don't have to worry about their data falling into the wrong hands, and can use the new technology to ensure the data doesn't get in ANYONE'S hands, especially terrorists...
I lost all interest in Vista the second they dropped the idea of WinFS. You see they were finally going to catch up with everyone else in the world of the file system and instead have proven they couldn't handle it.
Caught up? What consumer level OS has a Database engine for a File System?
NTFS is the bar of which Linux and other *nix FS concepts have measured themselves against for a longtime. From the security, extensibility, inherent compression, journalling, inherent encryption, etc etc...
Heck Vista even uses the NTFS encryption layer to allow you to LOCK your Hard Drive to the point MS itself or the FBI couldn't even view the files on it.
Wait nevermind, I don't even want to argue this, go read what NTFS is on Wikipedia. Of all the thing people poke at Microsoft the features, functions, and realiability of NTFS are NOT ONE OF THEM.
Then read about WinFS as well. WinFS is something no other OS in the consumer market is even close to...
And if this is the reason you lost interest in Vista, guess what, just download WinFS. It is even available NOW...
As for Paul's reflections on Vista, I'm sure he is diappointed, there are a lot of people disappointed that development of Windows 2003 Server and the NT fork for Vista didn't get split off early so a lot of the core development for Vista could have actually been in the box sooner than late 2004. (Yes 2004)
Also take Paul's comments from his viewpoint, he gets inside information from Microsoft from his friends and that is how he made a name for himself. He is NOT a technical person or has ever been known for it. He also doesn't see things from a developer's perspective.
Vista doesn't look vastly different, even though most of the OS has been rewritten and has tons of new protections and features that just work. It does things in new ways, even though it 'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users.
From a developer's perspective, Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0. I know this is hard for the average user to see, espeically when most people don't have access to it. However, not only when Vista releases, but when people see the new level of functionality that can easily be developed and the new applications, it will become more clear what Vista really is. Vista is a new base for technology.
As one MS developer said, (paraphrased) - Vista is not apparently radical, we are giving people the tools to create fire, and that is what you will see at first, just fire. But just like fire has evolved from the caveman days, as developers see what Vista can really do, you will see applications that go beyond fire, and use the fire we are providing to propel a rocket into outspace using this fire.
Kind of a strange analogy, but Vista is giving the development world a new form of fire, and even though Vista just demonstrates fire with some sparkles at first, MS and other developers will harness the new APIs in Vista to do some really amazing things. If you look at some of the demonstrations or products like www.microsoft.com/max and realize how little programming is done by the development team to achieve some really impressive applications, you will begin to see the whole programming paradigm change with Vista technologies.
I'm not trying to trumpet Vista so everyone here will love it or use or buy. I am telling everyone here what I know about Vista and development on Vista is that if you are NOT a Microsoft Fan and use alternative technologies, you need to prepare, learn and even USE some of the ideas Microsoft has recreated in development, and bring these to other OSes.
If not, Microsoft will leapfrog the rest of the industry by everyone saying, "Aw Vista sucks," and under-estimating Microsoft once again...
Why did Microsoft make the surprise announcement that it would support business customers who also use Linux
A surprise? Ok, if I knew they were going to do this over two years ago, how did Virtual Server's support of Linux become a surprise?
The *nix subsystem is a BSD variant in Windows as well now, and if Linux gains more popularity, look for a Linux subsystem running on the NT core.
However with Virtual Server support, it is simple economics... Support Linux Images running in Windows 2003, so people that are relunctant to move to Windows, can move to Windows 2003 Server, and slowly migrate or not migrate the Linux applications that are running in Virtual Server.
Microsoft has a win win situation... The strange part is I find people in the Linux world think this is a 'good' thing for Linux. It is how Microsoft will ensure even heavy Linux Server companies can always choose Microsoft...
Of course - even if you do find an example (I doubt it), it doesn't change the fact that its just the distribution - the upstream developers will have released patch information, etc. There is no parallel for this sort of openess in the windows world.
Ok, so you think flaws in Linux have never been corrected without a full published disclosure? Really... I have this bridge I would like to sell...
As for distributions, I have seen everyone from Redhat to SuSE push through patches that were 'previously' undisclosed.
Even OpenBSD has done this, they do not always Announce the flaw before a patch is made available.
Yes, you are right it WOULD happen less in Open Source OSes due the process and nature of open source, but that does not mean it doesn't happen.
This really isn't big news.. Sorry you think it is...
PS. I have heard people from MS say many times that flaws are not disclosed if possible to give them time to create a patch. Heck even do a Google search on this. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME MICROSOFT HAS ADMITTED IT. Ok?
You may not have, but a lot of people did. The numbers of young people or starving students who bought a PS2 for gaming AND DVD
True, but the past does not ALWAYS predict the future.
This is several years later, and MOST University require Laptops, and most laptops have DVDs.
Just as they will have HD DVD before long as well. You will have better luck as a student getting mommy and daddy to get the laptop with the HD DVD player built in rather than spend another 400 bucks for a PS3.
It would also let you save your PS3 money for pizza, and just play PC games on the laptop or desktop PC, which by the time the PS3 hits, the PC capabilities will surpass the PS3 specs. We are already seeing on the market NOTEBOOKS that should surpass the capabilities of an XBox 360.
PS3 will be sold on its titles. Also the copy restrictions that come with Blu-Ray that both Microsoft and HP didn't like will keep Blu-Ray from ever taking back the lost market share. (If anyone does know about the copy restrictions, HD-DVD will let even protect movies be archived to a storage server, Blu-Ray requires the Content/Movies to STAY on the Disc. Microsoft sees a future where we rip our DVDs to are drives like we do music now, Blu-Ray will NOT let that happen, HD-DVD does, even if the protection tags along.)
Well I trust Sony so much, I know they will do the right thing and be the winner, just like they have in the past with so many products.
Just like my BetaMax, my Sony Memory Stick, and my Star Wars Galaxies Jedi they destroyed to turn the game over to a 10yr old audience....
Of course I also enjoy the rootkits they make, that is always nice and consumer confidence building.
Sony will do well in Japan, but don't look for it to happen in the US, and the PS3 is not the media transition for Blu-Ray adoption.
I have a PS2, Xbox with DVD remote, and I still watch movies on my Media center PC or my stand alone DVD players, I didn't start buying DVDs because of my PS2 or Xbox... Actually my laptop was the reason I started buying them...
Anyone remember the (deeply flawed) Cert statistics [tectonic.co.za] where Microsoft had 812 vulnerabilities compared to Unix + Linux's 2328?
Well, here's another reason why that report was flawed - it turns out that Microsoft are fixing multiple vulns in one advisory - from the article: Manzuik said Microsoft has been silently fixing bugs as far back as 2004. He referred to the company's MS04-007 [microsoft.com] bulletin as a classic example of Microsoft announcing a fix for a single vulnerability when in fact a total of seven flaws were quietly fixed.
A) Who in the tech world didn't aleady know this? B) Do you realize even *nix vendors do this, including Linux distributions? C) Do you also realize that Apple patches more items in a single Patch on average compared to MS by a factor of 10 or more?
If you search back through my posts, I responded and talked about this several months ago in a request that we need better exploit and bug tracking that what is currently available for industry standards.
For example, if my third party program creates a vulnerability in Windows, do you REALIZE that Windows gets the mark for the exploit, not my company or software, when Windows HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT?
This is the same with Apps on Linux, OSX, etc. You can't brand exploits to an OS based on third party applications, there needs to be higher levels of granularity.
For example, an Apache flaw get marked for almost every OS it runs on that exposes the exploit.
However I do believe that the granularity should list the difference between OS and Applcation level exploits but ALSO track the applications that are installed by the OS by default or in a standard configuration.
For example a Windows Media Player flaw should show up a mark for Microsoft for Windows Media Player, but also be a mark against Windows since it is part of the standard installation.
However a Microsoft Word Flaw should show a Mark for Microsoft, but not show up as an OS flaw or exploit.
This should also hold true for all *nix distributions. If the distribution in the standard install throws Application XXXX on the system, then the OS gets a mark. However if Application XXXX is only RAN on the OS, the Company's name should get the flaw, and not the OS itself.
And even with that said, the exploits list should also maintain a collection of 3rd party application exploits that could 'possibly' affect the OS.
This is just the like the JAVA exploits over the past year. They are Sun's responsibility. However I read several recent articles about it being an exploit in OSX because Apple includes the fix in their patch.
This needs to be clear so that we know it who the flaw belongs to, who is to fix it, who fixed it, and when they fixed it. We can't have stuff lumped into just an OS level.
So the articles I have seen on the latest JAVA flaw stating it is a flaw in OSX are just wrong and misleading.
As for the original article, I don't think anything was stated anybody didn't already know, except that it is somehow making 'press'. All OS vendors do not release every found exploit before they patch them, especially when the OS vendor has the SOLE responsibility to fix the exploit. Apple does this, Sun does this, even Linux distributions do this with exploits specific to their builds.
Now it can be debated if this is safer for the consumer or not. I tend to lean towards 'less press' on an exploit, as being safer for the consumer.
Simply here is why I lean this direction. Hackers and nerds and people that are 'capable' of using the exploit are 10-100 times more likely to read the 'tech industry' news and these advisories than the average person that is not into the technology news nor could care about it.
The second aspect to this, is the question, "Who can do more with this information?"
A typical user, depending on the exploit, can do nothing until one is issued, even in the *nix world, as Linux and others move to the desktop
Did MS pay the programmers for IM/WMP/IE out of their profits, reducing this? No? Well, then, *I* paid for this development in the increasing cost of Windows.
Ok, you had me until the end of the line. Windows cost the same as it did back in 1990... What increasing costs?
Also in terms of OS releases (Upgrade Tax) Windows is a lot lower than other OSes like Solaris and especially OSX with the $99 a year bug fix tax...
Complain because it takes 5 years for MS to create a new Windows version, but in that five year, all the new features, updates, and fixes are free. Apple hasn't been so good about this, and they are other companies in the industry that literally make their MONEY off of Maintenance and support fees. (Like IBM for example, if you ever managed an AS/400 you would see the inital cost of the OS is pennies compared to the updates and fixes.)
Windows Media Player development was also distributed for Macs and Solaris years ago for free, so again your argument is a little lost when you look at this.
The development costs os Windows Media technologies goes back to the AVI development of the early 90s, and then the mid 90s when the encoder and streaming tools were added to NT Server. So the Server absorbed the costs more than the $99 desktop version of Windows you would be using.
But since we were actually talking about the Media Player interface, do you realize that a moderate programmer can turn out a comperable interface in about a week? It is the codecs and other things that are not directly Windows related that would have been the 'development' costs.
Just like IE. The development costs is in the HTML rendering technologies that OTHER programmers use on the Windows Platform, the cute interface can be recreate with very little coding. And if you don't belive this, go search for the tons of IE knock offs over the years that used the IE HTML rendering technologies.
You know, I actually considered making a comment on how you'd have to go with a heavy dual drive laptop to get any more storage (or a slower 5400 RPM drive). But it is a state of the art laptop drive.
True, but there are also some 10,000 rpm drives hitting the markets, as well as some lower power 7200rpm and larger capacity units.
The strange thing is the 7200rpm 60gb drives that are STILL the fastest first debuted back in 2004, which is a long time ago in the computing world.
As desktop capacities and even RAID become more the mainstream, even lighter laptops will start incorporating them. Weight and space isn't so much the consideration of adding a second hard drive, but power consumption. However to meet the 500gb levels of desktops, notebooks will have to look to RAID for a while before the higher capacity small form factor drives are cost effective alternatives.
Hey, at least its a 7200 RPM 60GB hard drive, with the option of going up to 100GB. That's state of the art in laptops.
Well it may be enough, but it isn't the state of the art in laptops...
I have a twin 60gb 7200rpm RAID configuration in this laptop, giving me 120gb of storage with almost twice the speed, and this laptop is almost a year old.
Drives are pretty small and efficient anymore, so RAID configurations in laptops will become even more common, just as dual-core processors have, and even the newer laptops with Dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX Go Video in them.
The new Dell is not the top of the line, but the upper end of the line for a mid weight laptop.
3d games jam up the whole system (disk i/o, memory i/o, cpu bandwidth, graphics bandwidth that there's no damn difference how many cores you got on the cpu.
Actually, you would be surprised how little HD access there is high end games, also with faster drive. And with 2GB of RAM, there is more than plenty of room for ANY game and other processes.
As for the CPU, the Dual cores are designed to handle the bus bandwidths, or in effect Dual-Core CPUS would be worthless.
Also GPU operations that are offset to Video today are quite amazing. For example, running a high end game that stresses a high end video card, and does CPU based backends like physics and post processing, etc will consume about 60% of a normal CPU even at peaks, and with a second CPU core, this leaves a lot of room.
I agree Dell's marketing is a little strange, but they are right, with a dual-core processor, you can be encoding a Video stream or running virus scan in the background while getting your 60fps in your favorite Video game.
Even hyperthreaded CPUs, like the one I am typing on, I can be running Doom3, FS2004, Quake, WoW, CoH, HalfLife, and not NOTICE any frame or performance drops when letting my system even do a defrag or rip DVDs or anything that I would normally run in the background.
And this laptop was the top of the line last year, and is no where close to what the Dell offering has.
Also as for this being the 'fastest' gaming laptop, I am not so sure about that. There are models from companies like Sager, Pro-Star, etc that have dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX, and Dual-Core AMD 64bit processors. I'm sure they are bit heavier, but performance wise, I would be surprised that a single GPU laptop could keep up with a SLI notebook running the same Video chipset.
I actually apologize... My point was so lost in trying to defend my statement that Apple Dashboard is a copy of Konfabulator.
If you don't want to beleive it is a copy, don't... It isn't important.
I didn't intend on this getting into a freaking argument about Desk Applets, which has nothing to do with my origianl point that I think Burst vs Apple is crap and why we need patent reform.
Thanks for the post, the topic did sheer off the tracks at some point, starting where I made the mistake of mentioning the Dashboard Konfabulator comparision.
Considering how much press there was over the financial slap in the face Dashboard was to the Konfabulator people, I guess I was more shocked that Mac users didn't realize that Apple didn't dream up Dashboard, but mainly copied it.
All of these ideas go back to various underlying technologies and concepts, like I said even Win98 had desktop 'widgets/controls', but I didn't even try to seriously argue that Apple had ripped them off, or Konfabultor had ripped of MS. It was a natural advancement of the technology, like my origial post was trying to point out.
Apple didn't do anything 'technically' wrong, but in the consumer view 'at least the ones that read the press on it' saw it as a bad thing. Apple could have easily bought out Konfabulator or at least paid them for their work, as Apple themselves had used and promoted Konfabulator to make OSX seem richer before Dashboard ever existed. You don't use little companies and then steal their candy and still expect the world to see you as the 'kind' 'wonderful' Apple...
But as for the Burst vs Apple stuff, I think it is pure crap and why I am for patent reform.
Yeah, but unlike Windows, every other OS is not a monopoly! The rules about bundling are different for monopolies and non-monopolies, which is why it's illegal for Microsoft but legal for everyone else
No, and hmm, no...
This would be the opposite of what laws preventing monopolies are all about.
Also Microsoft NOR Windows were deemed a monopoly, MS was convicted of 'trying' to use monolopistic practices to make their OS a monopoly. They never said they succeeded.
Hence why I would bet you don't HAVE TO use Windows on your computer... Meaning they ARE NOT A MONOPOLY.
This is why secondary rules shouldn't be applied to Microsoft on this.
The EU is really messed up on this whole case, even people that work in the EU, have resigned over this, stating the EU was out of line. That is big news in the EU, and I have several friends that work in Brussels that state there is political motivation for 'trying to find a way' to hinder Microsoft.
Some countries have their pet OSes and projects, and these people would like to screw MS for the sake of the their country's software companies' success.
Look at the case, and look closely, the only thing they could actually get through was the bundling of Media Player? Wow, that is REALLY going to protect consumers, hence why consumers are NOT buying the N version of Windows.
There is a difference between limiting monopolistic type contracts (exclusive bundling, etc) and telling Microsoft to remove Media Player.
Even you, if you had to buy a copy of Windows, would you pay the same amount of money and not get Media Player? Sure it takes up 3mb on the Hard Drive, but seriously...
What will be next? Apple iTunes will become so popular that it will be the online music monopoly? It very well could happen, then every copy of OSX would have to ship without iTunes, and does that sound like consumer driven business or the competition, getting the govts to curtail the company doing the best?
Applets were driver based applications, designed because of the Mac's inability to multi-task applications. PERIOD. (Multi-tasking OSes made this concept dated)
There is a difference between an application an a widget that co-exists on desktop space.
There is a difference between a static application like HyperCard and applications that pull information from a live network.
If Hypercard was what you suggest it was, there would NEVER have been HTML or a NEED FOR IT or HTTP.
But since I am posting this to an HTTP Server and viewing it in HTML, I would bet that you are probably wrong.
What is it with people thinking Apple created everything, I really want to know how people get such a skewed view of reality. What is it? Maybe the kool-aid from the marketing department at Apple tastes really good?
Try reality for a minute, pretend Apple isn't wonderful all the time, and they didn't create everything in the computer world. (Just for a Minute, you can hold your breath that long if you need to, heck even leave your tinfoil hat on.)
And then Mac users wonder why engineers, developers, and technically minded people, even the ones like myself that use Macs, hate the average Mac user as the average Mac zealot knows so little about the technology they use, and are so smug about what they think they know.
Instead of reading Apple's marketing, try a book on computer science or even take a class on CIS...
I'm sorry for being so blunt, but my patience for arrogance with ignorance has ran thin this morning...
LOL. By your own argument you admit that Dashboard ("HTML based Widget technology") is NOT a ripoff of Konfabulator ("XML based Widget technology"). So, which one is it?
Do you even understand the difference between HTML and XML? Better yet, do you understand the similarities?
I can display a web page using either, and use the same FREAKING text in the page...
XML is a more advanced form of GML, which HTML is also based on. They also both WORK OVER THE INTERNET TO PULL LIVE DATA, AND CAN ENCAPSULATE DATA.
I suppose if the Apple Dashboard used.ASP or.PHP to define the 'widgets' that would mean it was a whole other 'idea' and had no similarity to the XML or the HTML versions of the SAME FREAKING APPLICATION IDEA.
Are you going to argue that because people also used DHTML or XHTML in widgets that they are 'different' from HTML widgets?
On my WindowsXP machine, USING ACTIVE DESKTOP built in from Win98 DAYS, I can display an XML based item on my desktop, so does that mean Apple is actually copying Windows more than Konfabulator because Konfabulator didn't use an XML format for the widgets?
So even with your messed up understanding, Apple is ripping of MS more than Konfabulator then...
They ripped off Konfabulator, pure and simple...
Does anyone on this site even know WTF they are talking about anymore? Geesh.
Wow you sure know your history better than I do. I had NO idea that Apple System 6 had a HTML based Widget technology on the desktop... Especially since HTML didn't exist for 4 years after System 6 was released. So tell me, when did Apple start predicting the future and innovating based on things that didn't exist yet? I rather think he does know his history better than you do. Hypertext (the 'H' in HTML) was inspired by Apple's Hypercard software. Tim Berners Lee's innovation, of course, was to place everything out on the Internet. So, yes, System 6 had the equivalent of HTML-based widgets on the desktop. I was using Hypercard in 1987 to animate Excel charts.
Ok, so you totally miss the point...
There WERE NO DESKTOP APPLETS that RAN ON THE DESKTOP linked to LIVE data on the INTENET using HTML.PERIOD.
DeskMate, as referenced was NOTHING more than Driver level Applications that ran along side normal applications, but didn't require you to close the main application, or also know as APPLETS. Multi-Tasking OSes have replace the need for APPLETS, as Windows and *nix users have enjoyed since the mid 1980s, even though Macs didn't get Multi-Tasking until later, and Pre-emptive multi-tasking until OSX...
Now back to your insane claim. The H in Hypertext NEVER CAME FROM Hypercard, that is the most insane freaking thing I have read all day.
Hypertext is a term that goes back to like 1965, and was later used more commonly to refer to a UI paradigm for displaying documents in the 1970s, meaning branch or perform a request...
Hypercard was INFLUENCED by HYPERTEXT UI constructs from the 1970 before STEVE FREAKING JOBS even thought about making a computer.
So now you are saying the whole HTML movement is from Apple's Hypercard? That is such an insult to HTML community and designers.
BTW Go back and read your link, it even says Hypercard was a result of HyperText work from the 60s and 70s.
HTML owes the UI heritage to Hypertext UI designs from the 60s and 70s and the format to the GML from the 60s. However this DOES NOT MEAN HTML or HTTP existed prior to 1990.
Pixels also existed back in the 1960s, but that doesn't mean Adobe Photoshop existed back then, and because Apple had MacPaint does not mean that Corel Fractal Painter was inspired by MacPaint either.
Slashdot Mirror
We know from the linked article I provided Microsoft has put backdoors in Windows. Even if you want to deny that the NSAKEY went to the NSA it still existed. So they start the sentence with a lie and you expect me to believe the second half?
But you are arguing apples and oranges (pardon the pun).
The BitLocker (NTFS Encryption - Drive Wide) in Vista WILL NOT HAVE A BACKDOOR. PERIOD.
Do a search on this, it made news this week, as it was showcased to the FBI to ensure lost laptops would never be compromised easily.
The FBI and other US agencies like the NSA were happy about the level of protection for their own use, but were NOT so happy they would not have a backdoor for their own use to spy.
This is all from articles in the past week, go look it up.
Also if you want to debate the NSA items that you posted a link to, I am up for that, even though it is a bit off topic of my statement.
The NSA DOES NOT currently have a backdoor in Windows or IE. In fact is is highly debated whether one ever existed, even with the export restrictions on 128bit encrypted versions of IE, (as found in the NT 4 SP5 in question) (Seach for NSAKEY)
It was possible that a NSA requirement for the higher encryption versions and the IIS SSL handling required 128bit encryption technology to be able to be monitored by the NSA. (Remember back in the old days, when downloading IE there was the regular and 128bit encryption versions? The 128bit version was for release in the US only because of the encryption export laws that no longer exist.)
But things have changed, and even if that Key was for NSA access to IE or IIS for out of the US exporting monitoring of 128bit IE it has been gone for a while now.
What bugs me about your assertion is people are more up in arms about MS providing a NSA key for the export of the 128bit version of IE than people get up in arms about the current US president and the NSA randomly tapping phones and communications without legal warrant to do so.
Here is a link on the NSA Key info, and there are tons of other sites debating whether it ever was a backdoor for the NSA for IE communications or not. Either way, it no longer exists...
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/ref/nsakey5
Oh almost forgot...
They can't prove a negative without showing the source and build files. I don't expect they will and therefore don't plan to trust their solution for serious sensitive data. I can't imagine any other security-minded folks would either. If you want to keep the wife from finding your porn it's fine.
If you will look at what has happend in the past couple of years, the full source code for Windows has been provided to the EU and countries requesting it under the provisions of the EU. The same for the US goverment also has access to the full source code of Windows.
If Backdoors did exist in Windows, as you suggest, especailly ones pointing to MS or the NSA, the EU would have have been the first to raise flags as this is part of what they were looking for, and we would have heard about it by now as the EU would have shut MS Windows sales down and slapped MS upside the head until it was removed.
I'm not saying it isn't possible, I can put on a tinfoil hat too, but if the code and even build steps with easily comparable CRC information is provided to both the USA and EU and their govts, I would imagine someone would have found it by now.
Even in 'open source' work, we trust that the person writing the code isn't smarter than the other people reviewing it. At least with MS, if one was discovered, the lawsuits and consumer distrust would destroy them, so that does give the consumers a bit of an edge to keep them on the straight and narrow. And now that the source is no longer as locked as it used to be, at least non-MS people and competiting govts all are getting access to it and even in their own competition would bring issues like this to light.
Well if the information presented at Mix 06 is any indication, MS is actually in the process of opening up even more of their new technologies, even if it is a bit self serving.
5 9106.aspx
The old days when they actually made non-windows counterparts to their technologies or allowed them to be easily used on non-MS technologies seem to be returning. Maybe someone is smacking Ballmer's business minded MS ONLY mentally back to the curb at MS. We can only hope, as they have a lot of bright people and if they start playing with the rest of us, things will get better for the entire industry.
To reference one of the items of Mix 06 and specifically refute the comments by the EU, here is a link to some of the new technology specifically on the web that will not be Microsoft locked, even though it is MS developed.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2006/03/23/5
The EU is grasping at straws, truly. It is more a battle of USA technologies vs EU countries' technologies, and MS is seen as USA technology. I can understand the EU wanting to give some of their technologies a chance in their own markets, but the strange thing is the open source distributions and 'alternatives' to Windows being used are predominately USA products. Whoops...
There is NO possible way MS can control the internet. PERIOD. Everyone here at SlashDot is proof of it. If there is anything we should fear on the internet is censorhip and govt sponsored censorship.
Look at Yahoo, and EBay in China, they have not only went along with the censoring of words like 'human rights' but Yahoo also is very willing to turn over people that break the law in China, of which a person was recently disclosed to the Chinese Govt., and arrested for trying to publish documents on democracy.
Shame on Yahoo and EBay, especailly Yahoo, they not only circumvented personal privacy, but cost someone in China their life. And to me, that is a bit more scary than another round of rumors about Microsoft trying to control the Internet, which we know is NOT possible.
Even with the dominance IE saw over the past 8 years, it is still quite rare to find a site that only works in IE, and even Windows Update is moving from IE requirements.
If NTFS is so wonderful, so perfect, so infalible,why are the Windows restore partitions on many new PCs fat-32?
/smile
This is an easy answer, just surprised people think has to do with a problem with NTFS.
Many manufacturers use a DOS based restore utility, DOS cannot read NTFS. Why they use a DOS based utility is because it is old and easy technology.
That is it all there is to it.
BTW There are also lots of companies that don't use a FAT partition for restore files, this was an old technique that carries over from the Win9x days in the 90s. I also think it is a BAD thing when I encounter companies that use this method, like Dell does on some of their units.
Here is where it becomes a problem, the FAT partition can get corrupted if repair utilities are used on the drive. (Because of how Dell attempts to hide the partition). And sometimes third party tools will try to see the FAT parition as the main partition and mangle the partition data for both portions of the Drive.
The second reason this is a BAD idea, if your Drive fails and you need to reinstall the OS, what good is having a restore copy on the same damaged drive?
Just so people know, using FAT partitions like this are NOT something Microsoft recommends, for the same reasons I outlined above. MS has been trying to move people over to NTFS for years now because of the extra reliability. If you are running WindowsXP on a FAT32 partition you are 10 time more likely to have data loss and corruption resulting in errors and crashes. That is quite significant. FAT is just a quick and dirty FS, NTFS is a protected FS, both in integrity but also inherently has security surpassing most *nix File System formats.
Also if you are using a backup drive, like an external drive, and your OS can understand NTFS, you are better off formatting the backup Drive with NTFS, turning compression on for the drive (using NTFS Compression), and then you get more backup room and your data is safer than on a FAT partition. Just the journalling alone saves the File structure over and over when you power down the drive or lose power in a portable settings. FAT is far more easier to corrupt.
Oh, also why you see FAT on portable media, more OSes can read FAT32 than NTFS, so it is safer choice for USB Drives, etc. But you can always format them with NTFS, encrypt them, and nobody can ever read their contents unless they are you. (And again you can use the NTFS compression on them as well.)
Take Care, and I hope you give NTFS a second look if you are still in the Windows world. FAT is old and Bad, very bad...
I was curious about this Microsoft Max thing so I clicked on it too see what this fire/rocket business is. So yeah, umm Microsoft Max is just iPhoto for Windows to those of you who aren't going to bother with going to the site.
Actually the iPhoto equivalent is another feature in Vista. But your comments are actually quite a compliment.
Max is a Album concept application that is written in WPF, mainly to showcase how little code it takes to create an application that does features like this.
There are other proof of concept applications starting to appear on the web.
The point was not that this application was so magical, what is magical, is that you compare it to iPhoto, yet it took a few hours for the people to write Max using the new WPF and Vista XAML development technologies.
How many weeks/months do you think it took to write iPhoto?
OK, I'll give you that. Apple brought decent search to Mac OS X in 2005 after Microsoft announced it would implement it in Vista, then Longhorn. Alas, Windows users will get their hands on it in...2007. Hmmmm...
Well lets start here, because a person responded trying to say Apple was working on this first.
Microsoft was to add a Database FS Search system back in 1996 to NT 4.0, it was pulled then due to bandwidth and performance constraints of the current hardware for personal computers. WinFS is the extention of this technology. Oh, and if you want to question this too, I suggest you GO LOOK IT UP instead of trolling about crap you don't understand.
This is such bollocks it's hard to know where to start. As Thurrott laments, one of the most fundamental features of a windowing system - the idea of depth in a 2D space and so marking out the active window - has been thoroughly fucked up by a team whose sole goal seems to have been to chase the teh pretty crowd. Those screenshots were damning. Usability has gone to shreds.
Actually the screenshots that Paul Posted are already outdated, this is why it is called a BETA.. Things change... Now if you love Paul and believe he is always correct, I can't prove ya wrong, my NDA will not allow me.
Do you actually have any evidence of this? Judging by the icons in some of the dialogue boxes (try here), some of the stuff hasn't seen an update since Windows 95. There's a reason it "'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users".
Well I started out working within the XWindows group, and later moved on to a consulting company that partnered with Microsoft in the early 90s, we were one of the companies that worked with the Alpha NT releases and gave feedback.
I'm not sure if this qualifies me, but I can pretty much diagram any portion of NT or the Windows OS, which is also why I am successful in bridging concepts back to the open source and *nix world, as I have fairly vast backgrounds in both.
It doesn't matter if you are using Linux, OpenBSD, or even WindowsXP, you are using technology I personally worked on at some point in my career.
As for the rewrite, maybe a broad term like rewrite is a little too broad. However, most of the OS has been changed, and the parts that haven't are compiled using the new development tools from MS.
This is the first time there is a complete new graphics model for Windows, new bridged graphics virtualization concepts, that do not exist in any OS.
The entire NT kernel has also been gone through, the way memory is handled, support for new tricks in the kernel, and expanding on some of the original NT concepts that are now possible with current hardware performance levels.
Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0.
You're a fucking idiot. A first class fucking nutcase.
Yep, I think you should go with that view. It is easier to believe I am nuts and stick your head in the sand. Then when Vista and MS technology once again dominate the computer industry for another 15years, you can look back and go, wow, it was a lot easier to be F***ing ignorant than to have looked at the technology and worked on comperable technologies on other OSes to have a chance at keeping up with MS...
Enjoy your bliss...
Good Day...
HIGHLY doubt that. Do you really think they want to be accused of enabling terrorists?
c kdoor/2100-1016_3-6046016.html?tag=nefd.top
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+wont+get+a+ba
BTW there are tons of articles on this topic, this is just the URL I had on my desktop from the last article on this subject I read. Do a Google with Microsoft FBI BackDoor...
And actually Microsoft has been selling the NO BACKDOOR feature to the security agencies, so THEY don't have to worry about their data falling into the wrong hands, and can use the new technology to ensure the data doesn't get in ANYONE'S hands, especially terrorists...
Wow, and if you actully found an article not from 1999, maybe one like...
c kdoor/2100-1016_3-6046016.html?tag=nefd.top
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+wont+get+a+ba
You would see that NO ONE gets a backdoor, not even the FBI or NSA...
I lost all interest in Vista the second they dropped the idea of WinFS. You see they were finally going to catch up with everyone else in the world of the file system and instead have proven they couldn't handle it.
Caught up? What consumer level OS has a Database engine for a File System?
NTFS is the bar of which Linux and other *nix FS concepts have measured themselves against for a longtime. From the security, extensibility, inherent compression, journalling, inherent encryption, etc etc...
Heck Vista even uses the NTFS encryption layer to allow you to LOCK your Hard Drive to the point MS itself or the FBI couldn't even view the files on it.
Wait nevermind, I don't even want to argue this, go read what NTFS is on Wikipedia. Of all the thing people poke at Microsoft the features, functions, and realiability of NTFS are NOT ONE OF THEM.
Then read about WinFS as well. WinFS is something no other OS in the consumer market is even close to...
And if this is the reason you lost interest in Vista, guess what, just download WinFS. It is even available NOW...
As for Paul's reflections on Vista, I'm sure he is diappointed, there are a lot of people disappointed that development of Windows 2003 Server and the NT fork for Vista didn't get split off early so a lot of the core development for Vista could have actually been in the box sooner than late 2004. (Yes 2004)
Also take Paul's comments from his viewpoint, he gets inside information from Microsoft from his friends and that is how he made a name for himself. He is NOT a technical person or has ever been known for it. He also doesn't see things from a developer's perspective.
Vista doesn't look vastly different, even though most of the OS has been rewritten and has tons of new protections and features that just work. It does things in new ways, even though it 'appears' to not be different to push away current Windows Users.
From a developer's perspective, Vista is a new OS with the first radical change in Windows since Windows 3.0. I know this is hard for the average user to see, espeically when most people don't have access to it. However, not only when Vista releases, but when people see the new level of functionality that can easily be developed and the new applications, it will become more clear what Vista really is. Vista is a new base for technology.
As one MS developer said, (paraphrased) - Vista is not apparently radical, we are giving people the tools to create fire, and that is what you will see at first, just fire. But just like fire has evolved from the caveman days, as developers see what Vista can really do, you will see applications that go beyond fire, and use the fire we are providing to propel a rocket into outspace using this fire.
Kind of a strange analogy, but Vista is giving the development world a new form of fire, and even though Vista just demonstrates fire with some sparkles at first, MS and other developers will harness the new APIs in Vista to do some really amazing things. If you look at some of the demonstrations or products like www.microsoft.com/max and realize how little programming is done by the development team to achieve some really impressive applications, you will begin to see the whole programming paradigm change with Vista technologies.
I'm not trying to trumpet Vista so everyone here will love it or use or buy. I am telling everyone here what I know about Vista and development on Vista is that if you are NOT a Microsoft Fan and use alternative technologies, you need to prepare, learn and even USE some of the ideas Microsoft has recreated in development, and bring these to other OSes.
If not, Microsoft will leapfrog the rest of the industry by everyone saying, "Aw Vista sucks," and under-estimating Microsoft once again...
Why did Microsoft make the surprise announcement that it would support business customers who also use Linux
A surprise? Ok, if I knew they were going to do this over two years ago, how did Virtual Server's support of Linux become a surprise?
The *nix subsystem is a BSD variant in Windows as well now, and if Linux gains more popularity, look for a Linux subsystem running on the NT core.
However with Virtual Server support, it is simple economics... Support Linux Images running in Windows 2003, so people that are relunctant to move to Windows, can move to Windows 2003 Server, and slowly migrate or not migrate the Linux applications that are running in Virtual Server.
Microsoft has a win win situation... The strange part is I find people in the Linux world think this is a 'good' thing for Linux. It is how Microsoft will ensure even heavy Linux Server companies can always choose Microsoft...
Of course - even if you do find an example (I doubt it), it doesn't change the fact that its just the distribution - the upstream developers will have released patch information, etc. There is no parallel for this sort of openess in the windows world.
Ok, so you think flaws in Linux have never been corrected without a full published disclosure? Really... I have this bridge I would like to sell...
As for distributions, I have seen everyone from Redhat to SuSE push through patches that were 'previously' undisclosed.
Even OpenBSD has done this, they do not always Announce the flaw before a patch is made available.
Yes, you are right it WOULD happen less in Open Source OSes due the process and nature of open source, but that does not mean it doesn't happen.
This really isn't big news.. Sorry you think it is...
PS. I have heard people from MS say many times that flaws are not disclosed if possible to give them time to create a patch. Heck even do a Google search on this. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME MICROSOFT HAS ADMITTED IT. Ok?
You may not have, but a lot of people did. The numbers of young people or starving students who bought a PS2 for gaming AND DVD
True, but the past does not ALWAYS predict the future.
This is several years later, and MOST University require Laptops, and most laptops have DVDs.
Just as they will have HD DVD before long as well. You will have better luck as a student getting mommy and daddy to get the laptop with the HD DVD player built in rather than spend another 400 bucks for a PS3.
It would also let you save your PS3 money for pizza, and just play PC games on the laptop or desktop PC, which by the time the PS3 hits, the PC capabilities will surpass the PS3 specs. We are already seeing on the market NOTEBOOKS that should surpass the capabilities of an XBox 360.
PS3 will be sold on its titles. Also the copy restrictions that come with Blu-Ray that both Microsoft and HP didn't like will keep Blu-Ray from ever taking back the lost market share. (If anyone does know about the copy restrictions, HD-DVD will let even protect movies be archived to a storage server, Blu-Ray requires the Content/Movies to STAY on the Disc. Microsoft sees a future where we rip our DVDs to are drives like we do music now, Blu-Ray will NOT let that happen, HD-DVD does, even if the protection tags along.)
Well I trust Sony so much, I know they will do the right thing and be the winner, just like they have in the past with so many products.
Just like my BetaMax, my Sony Memory Stick, and my Star Wars Galaxies Jedi they destroyed to turn the game over to a 10yr old audience....
Of course I also enjoy the rootkits they make, that is always nice and consumer confidence building.
Sony will do well in Japan, but don't look for it to happen in the US, and the PS3 is not the media transition for Blu-Ray adoption.
I have a PS2, Xbox with DVD remote, and I still watch movies on my Media center PC or my stand alone DVD players, I didn't start buying DVDs because of my PS2 or Xbox... Actually my laptop was the reason I started buying them...
Anyone remember the (deeply flawed) Cert statistics [tectonic.co.za] where Microsoft had 812 vulnerabilities compared to Unix + Linux's 2328?
Well, here's another reason why that report was flawed - it turns out that Microsoft are fixing multiple vulns in one advisory - from the article:
Manzuik said Microsoft has been silently fixing bugs as far back as 2004. He referred to the company's MS04-007 [microsoft.com] bulletin as a classic example of Microsoft announcing a fix for a single vulnerability when in fact a total of seven flaws were quietly fixed.
A) Who in the tech world didn't aleady know this?
B) Do you realize even *nix vendors do this, including Linux distributions?
C) Do you also realize that Apple patches more items in a single Patch on average compared to MS by a factor of 10 or more?
If you search back through my posts, I responded and talked about this several months ago in a request that we need better exploit and bug tracking that what is currently available for industry standards.
For example, if my third party program creates a vulnerability in Windows, do you REALIZE that Windows gets the mark for the exploit, not my company or software, when Windows HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT?
This is the same with Apps on Linux, OSX, etc. You can't brand exploits to an OS based on third party applications, there needs to be higher levels of granularity.
For example, an Apache flaw get marked for almost every OS it runs on that exposes the exploit.
However I do believe that the granularity should list the difference between OS and Applcation level exploits but ALSO track the applications that are installed by the OS by default or in a standard configuration.
For example a Windows Media Player flaw should show up a mark for Microsoft for Windows Media Player, but also be a mark against Windows since it is part of the standard installation.
However a Microsoft Word Flaw should show a Mark for Microsoft, but not show up as an OS flaw or exploit.
This should also hold true for all *nix distributions. If the distribution in the standard install throws Application XXXX on the system, then the OS gets a mark. However if Application XXXX is only RAN on the OS, the Company's name should get the flaw, and not the OS itself.
And even with that said, the exploits list should also maintain a collection of 3rd party application exploits that could 'possibly' affect the OS.
This is just the like the JAVA exploits over the past year. They are Sun's responsibility. However I read several recent articles about it being an exploit in OSX because Apple includes the fix in their patch.
This needs to be clear so that we know it who the flaw belongs to, who is to fix it, who fixed it, and when they fixed it. We can't have stuff lumped into just an OS level.
So the articles I have seen on the latest JAVA flaw stating it is a flaw in OSX are just wrong and misleading.
As for the original article, I don't think anything was stated anybody didn't already know, except that it is somehow making 'press'. All OS vendors do not release every found exploit before they patch them, especially when the OS vendor has the SOLE responsibility to fix the exploit. Apple does this, Sun does this, even Linux distributions do this with exploits specific to their builds.
Now it can be debated if this is safer for the consumer or not. I tend to lean towards 'less press' on an exploit, as being safer for the consumer.
Simply here is why I lean this direction. Hackers and nerds and people that are 'capable' of using the exploit are 10-100 times more likely to read the 'tech industry' news and these advisories than the average person that is not into the technology news nor could care about it.
The second aspect to this, is the question, "Who can do more with this information?"
A typical user, depending on the exploit, can do nothing until one is issued, even in the *nix world, as Linux and others move to the desktop
Did MS pay the programmers for IM/WMP/IE out of their profits, reducing this? No? Well, then, *I* paid for this development in the increasing cost of Windows.
Ok, you had me until the end of the line. Windows cost the same as it did back in 1990... What increasing costs?
Also in terms of OS releases (Upgrade Tax) Windows is a lot lower than other OSes like Solaris and especially OSX with the $99 a year bug fix tax...
Complain because it takes 5 years for MS to create a new Windows version, but in that five year, all the new features, updates, and fixes are free. Apple hasn't been so good about this, and they are other companies in the industry that literally make their MONEY off of Maintenance and support fees. (Like IBM for example, if you ever managed an AS/400 you would see the inital cost of the OS is pennies compared to the updates and fixes.)
Windows Media Player development was also distributed for Macs and Solaris years ago for free, so again your argument is a little lost when you look at this.
The development costs os Windows Media technologies goes back to the AVI development of the early 90s, and then the mid 90s when the encoder and streaming tools were added to NT Server. So the Server absorbed the costs more than the $99 desktop version of Windows you would be using.
But since we were actually talking about the Media Player interface, do you realize that a moderate programmer can turn out a comperable interface in about a week? It is the codecs and other things that are not directly Windows related that would have been the 'development' costs.
Just like IE. The development costs is in the HTML rendering technologies that OTHER programmers use on the Windows Platform, the cute interface can be recreate with very little coding. And if you don't belive this, go search for the tons of IE knock offs over the years that used the IE HTML rendering technologies.
You know, I actually considered making a comment on how you'd have to go with a heavy dual drive laptop to get any more storage (or a slower 5400 RPM drive). But it is a state of the art laptop drive.
True, but there are also some 10,000 rpm drives hitting the markets, as well as some lower power 7200rpm and larger capacity units.
The strange thing is the 7200rpm 60gb drives that are STILL the fastest first debuted back in 2004, which is a long time ago in the computing world.
As desktop capacities and even RAID become more the mainstream, even lighter laptops will start incorporating them. Weight and space isn't so much the consideration of adding a second hard drive, but power consumption. However to meet the 500gb levels of desktops, notebooks will have to look to RAID for a while before the higher capacity small form factor drives are cost effective alternatives.
Thanks for the post...
Well considering the 'in use' portion of any game, YA you can easily...
Even the high end games we have tested, the top REAL-TIME memory use registered is just a bit over 1Gb, and that was for CoV...
Hey, at least its a 7200 RPM 60GB hard drive, with the option of going up to 100GB. That's state of the art in laptops.
Well it may be enough, but it isn't the state of the art in laptops...
I have a twin 60gb 7200rpm RAID configuration in this laptop, giving me 120gb of storage with almost twice the speed, and this laptop is almost a year old.
Drives are pretty small and efficient anymore, so RAID configurations in laptops will become even more common, just as dual-core processors have, and even the newer laptops with Dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX Go Video in them.
The new Dell is not the top of the line, but the upper end of the line for a mid weight laptop.
and even this hype has no ground under it.
3d games jam up the whole system (disk i/o, memory i/o, cpu bandwidth, graphics bandwidth that there's no damn difference how many cores you got on the cpu.
Actually, you would be surprised how little HD access there is high end games, also with faster drive. And with 2GB of RAM, there is more than plenty of room for ANY game and other processes.
As for the CPU, the Dual cores are designed to handle the bus bandwidths, or in effect Dual-Core CPUS would be worthless.
Also GPU operations that are offset to Video today are quite amazing. For example, running a high end game that stresses a high end video card, and does CPU based backends like physics and post processing, etc will consume about 60% of a normal CPU even at peaks, and with a second CPU core, this leaves a lot of room.
I agree Dell's marketing is a little strange, but they are right, with a dual-core processor, you can be encoding a Video stream or running virus scan in the background while getting your 60fps in your favorite Video game.
Even hyperthreaded CPUs, like the one I am typing on, I can be running Doom3, FS2004, Quake, WoW, CoH, HalfLife, and not NOTICE any frame or performance drops when letting my system even do a defrag or rip DVDs or anything that I would normally run in the background.
And this laptop was the top of the line last year, and is no where close to what the Dell offering has.
Also as for this being the 'fastest' gaming laptop, I am not so sure about that. There are models from companies like Sager, Pro-Star, etc that have dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX, and Dual-Core AMD 64bit processors. I'm sure they are bit heavier, but performance wise, I would be surprised that a single GPU laptop could keep up with a SLI notebook running the same Video chipset.
I actually apologize... My point was so lost in trying to defend my statement that Apple Dashboard is a copy of Konfabulator.
If you don't want to beleive it is a copy, don't... It isn't important.
I didn't intend on this getting into a freaking argument about Desk Applets, which has nothing to do with my origianl point that I think Burst vs Apple is crap and why we need patent reform.
Thanks for the post, the topic did sheer off the tracks at some point, starting where I made the mistake of mentioning the Dashboard Konfabulator comparision.
Considering how much press there was over the financial slap in the face Dashboard was to the Konfabulator people, I guess I was more shocked that Mac users didn't realize that Apple didn't dream up Dashboard, but mainly copied it.
All of these ideas go back to various underlying technologies and concepts, like I said even Win98 had desktop 'widgets/controls', but I didn't even try to seriously argue that Apple had ripped them off, or Konfabultor had ripped of MS. It was a natural advancement of the technology, like my origial post was trying to point out.
Apple didn't do anything 'technically' wrong, but in the consumer view 'at least the ones that read the press on it' saw it as a bad thing. Apple could have easily bought out Konfabulator or at least paid them for their work, as Apple themselves had used and promoted Konfabulator to make OSX seem richer before Dashboard ever existed. You don't use little companies and then steal their candy and still expect the world to see you as the 'kind' 'wonderful' Apple...
But as for the Burst vs Apple stuff, I think it is pure crap and why I am for patent reform.
I love XML, but to call it an 'advanced' version of SGML is just all the way wrong.
You are right on many things...
I meant XML was more advanced in syntax from GML, not that is a type of SGML.
Yeah, but unlike Windows, every other OS is not a monopoly! The rules about bundling are different for monopolies and non-monopolies, which is why it's illegal for Microsoft but legal for everyone else
No, and hmm, no...
This would be the opposite of what laws preventing monopolies are all about.
Also Microsoft NOR Windows were deemed a monopoly, MS was convicted of 'trying' to use monolopistic practices to make their OS a monopoly. They never said they succeeded.
Hence why I would bet you don't HAVE TO use Windows on your computer... Meaning they ARE NOT A MONOPOLY.
This is why secondary rules shouldn't be applied to Microsoft on this.
The EU is really messed up on this whole case, even people that work in the EU, have resigned over this, stating the EU was out of line. That is big news in the EU, and I have several friends that work in Brussels that state there is political motivation for 'trying to find a way' to hinder Microsoft.
Some countries have their pet OSes and projects, and these people would like to screw MS for the sake of the their country's software companies' success.
Look at the case, and look closely, the only thing they could actually get through was the bundling of Media Player? Wow, that is REALLY going to protect consumers, hence why consumers are NOT buying the N version of Windows.
There is a difference between limiting monopolistic type contracts (exclusive bundling, etc) and telling Microsoft to remove Media Player.
Even you, if you had to buy a copy of Windows, would you pay the same amount of money and not get Media Player? Sure it takes up 3mb on the Hard Drive, but seriously...
What will be next? Apple iTunes will become so popular that it will be the online music monopoly? It very well could happen, then every copy of OSX would have to ship without iTunes, and does that sound like consumer driven business or the competition, getting the govts to curtail the company doing the best?
Ok, I'll keep it simple for you...
Applets were driver based applications, designed because of the Mac's inability to multi-task applications. PERIOD. (Multi-tasking OSes made this concept dated)
There is a difference between an application an a widget that co-exists on desktop space.
There is a difference between a static application like HyperCard and applications that pull information from a live network.
If Hypercard was what you suggest it was, there would NEVER have been HTML or a NEED FOR IT or HTTP.
But since I am posting this to an HTTP Server and viewing it in HTML, I would bet that you are probably wrong.
What is it with people thinking Apple created everything, I really want to know how people get such a skewed view of reality. What is it? Maybe the kool-aid from the marketing department at Apple tastes really good?
Try reality for a minute, pretend Apple isn't wonderful all the time, and they didn't create everything in the computer world. (Just for a Minute, you can hold your breath that long if you need to, heck even leave your tinfoil hat on.)
And then Mac users wonder why engineers, developers, and technically minded people, even the ones like myself that use Macs, hate the average Mac user as the average Mac zealot knows so little about the technology they use, and are so smug about what they think they know.
Instead of reading Apple's marketing, try a book on computer science or even take a class on CIS...
I'm sorry for being so blunt, but my patience for arrogance with ignorance has ran thin this morning...
LOL. By your own argument you admit that Dashboard ("HTML based Widget technology") is NOT a ripoff of Konfabulator ("XML based Widget technology"). So, which one is it?
.ASP or .PHP to define the 'widgets' that would mean it was a whole other 'idea' and had no similarity to the XML or the HTML versions of the SAME FREAKING APPLICATION IDEA.
Do you even understand the difference between HTML and XML? Better yet, do you understand the similarities?
I can display a web page using either, and use the same FREAKING text in the page...
XML is a more advanced form of GML, which HTML is also based on. They also both WORK OVER THE INTERNET TO PULL LIVE DATA, AND CAN ENCAPSULATE DATA.
I suppose if the Apple Dashboard used
Are you going to argue that because people also used DHTML or XHTML in widgets that they are 'different' from HTML widgets?
On my WindowsXP machine, USING ACTIVE DESKTOP built in from Win98 DAYS, I can display an XML based item on my desktop, so does that mean Apple is actually copying Windows more than Konfabulator because Konfabulator didn't use an XML format for the widgets?
So even with your messed up understanding, Apple is ripping of MS more than Konfabulator then...
They ripped off Konfabulator, pure and simple...
Does anyone on this site even know WTF they are talking about anymore? Geesh.
Wow you sure know your history better than I do. I had NO idea that Apple System 6 had a HTML based Widget technology on the desktop... Especially since HTML didn't exist for 4 years after System 6 was released. So tell me, when did Apple start predicting the future and innovating based on things that didn't exist yet?
I rather think he does know his history better than you do. Hypertext (the 'H' in HTML) was inspired by Apple's Hypercard software. Tim Berners Lee's innovation, of course, was to place everything out on the Internet. So, yes, System 6 had the equivalent of HTML-based widgets on the desktop. I was using Hypercard in 1987 to animate Excel charts.
Ok, so you totally miss the point...
There WERE NO DESKTOP APPLETS that RAN ON THE DESKTOP linked to LIVE data on the INTENET using HTML.PERIOD.
DeskMate, as referenced was NOTHING more than Driver level Applications that ran along side normal applications, but didn't require you to close the main application, or also know as APPLETS. Multi-Tasking OSes have replace the need for APPLETS, as Windows and *nix users have enjoyed since the mid 1980s, even though Macs didn't get Multi-Tasking until later, and Pre-emptive multi-tasking until OSX...
Now back to your insane claim. The H in Hypertext NEVER CAME FROM Hypercard, that is the most insane freaking thing I have read all day.
Hypertext is a term that goes back to like 1965, and was later used more commonly to refer to a UI paradigm for displaying documents in the 1970s, meaning branch or perform a request...
Hypercard was INFLUENCED by HYPERTEXT UI constructs from the 1970 before STEVE FREAKING JOBS even thought about making a computer.
So now you are saying the whole HTML movement is from Apple's Hypercard? That is such an insult to HTML community and designers.
BTW Go back and read your link, it even says Hypercard was a result of HyperText work from the 60s and 70s.
HTML owes the UI heritage to Hypertext UI designs from the 60s and 70s and the format to the GML from the 60s. However this DOES NOT MEAN HTML or HTTP existed prior to 1990.
Pixels also existed back in the 1960s, but that doesn't mean Adobe Photoshop existed back then, and because Apple had MacPaint does not mean that Corel Fractal Painter was inspired by MacPaint either.
Is this clear enough that you get it, yet?