I really don't think Apple copied konfabulator. I know they copy stuff, but please don't use that as an argument.
But sadly they did, and both Konfabulator and Apple are copies of ideas that started on Win98.
Here is what was different, Win98 introduced something called Active Desktop (not a wonderful idea, but it worked.) What this did was allow you to take any web page or design any type of Web page or 'gadget' that was LIVE to the internet, and would update the weather or time or news and display them on your desktop.
The two key things here are: Any type of Web Page technology (HTML, DHTML, JAVA, whatever) that is easy to use to create 'gadgets' that displayed on the desktop. Live Gadgets that were fully internet aware, and could even run from the internet.
The Konfabulator widgets also use this simple concept, with the except they add in blended backgrounds to the gadgets, which wasn't easily possible in Win98.
And sadly, Apple copied Konfabulator, in fact too close of a copy even, instead of buying them out, which would have been more ethical.
heck Win98 Active Desktop/Konfabulator anyone which was ripped off of Apple System 6, Konfabulator even willingly admitted they based their idea off the older System 6 apps program. Microsoft of course rips everything off of Apple (cough Vista Cough)
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?
The System Applets are NOT desktop components that pull live information from the Internet and can be constructed with an image and a few likes of DHTML. Do you know ANYTHING about what you even take time to post on?
Microsoft of course rips everything off of Apple (cough Vista Cough)
Wow, once again you are right. The vector based composer, and the new 2D/3D object model API that even includes programmable collision detection for UI controls is an EXACT rip off of OSX. Oh wait, these are things OSX will NOT do... Hmm...
Maybe you are confused, maybe you meant Win2k or WindowsXP, oh but wait, the OSX Display Composer didn't get the same features until 10.2 of OSX.
Let me make this really clear for people that don't want to spend TWO minutes reading the articles at wikipedia.com.
Vista's display system and OSX are as different as OSX and Windows 3.1.
Here lets try to show the equal technologies.
GDI/GDI32 in Windows = Display Postscript/Quartz circa OSX 10.0 and 10.1.
GDI+ in Windows 2000 and WindowsXP = Quartz Extreme (with the exception of using GPU textures for the display composition.) Basically meaning OSX just uses the extra RAM through the AGP bus of the Video card for drawing the display. What they both do is use the Video Card's 2D functions for vector processing, and BOTH require the applications to manage the Vector rendering and Paint messages and redrawing of surfaces.
GDI+ in Windows 2000 is feature EQUAL to the Quartz Display system in OSX, and I know Mac users hate to hear this, but go look it up.
Quartz Extreme's only edge over the current GDI+ in Windows (Since 1999) is that it speeds up some of the display operations by using the GPU RAM, but this is only for the final end of the composer, which is just for holding a Bitmap, no 3D UI acceleration, no Vector acceleration from the 3D portion of the GPU, nothing else.
The next in carnation from Apple is Quartz 2D Extreme, but even though Apple tries to bill this as using the GPU for accelerating 2D vector drawing, it doesn't like people would expect. Compare it to Windows2000 or WindowsXP using the NON-3D acceleration features built into video cards that increase display speed. These acceleration features have been in Windows and Video cards used on the PC since the IBM 8514 and ATI Vantage days back in the early 1990s, they are NOT 3D acceleration features.
Now why this history lesson is important.
Vista uses a new Display Composer, and what makes it UNIQUE to ANY Composer for ANY OS made to date is that it is a round trip full Vector level Composer. I.E. The Composer handles 2D and 3D display, redraws, and painting without having to go back to the application, as the new Windows Composer actually store the display information from the applications in both Vector and Bitmap formats, just as the Application had drawn them, instead of just converting the display data all to Bitmaps like OSX and Windows2K/WinXP both do.
This gives the OS the ability to FULLY offset 2D and 3D drawing functions to the 3D portion of the GPU if the Video card supports it, and for Video cards that don't, it software renders them.
So the OS in Vista can actually round trip understand and manage a true XPS/XAML/WPF interface from an application without having to have the application 'compose' the interface to a bitmap.
This is why in OSX, when you do the Genie effect, it is a
And for people without the need for tinfoil hats, Microsoft has the kind of money it is easier to just pay off the trolls and not have to worry about any legality or further troll attempts...
Apple should have done the same...
If you look at MS's patent practices, they didn't started pushing through a ton of their work for patents until the last few years, after they started getting sued for crap that they had been using or even created years ago.
Hell, they left FAT wide open for 20 years, and FAT32 wide open for 10 years. So the little guys start sticking to the big companies and MS says, wait, we aren't going to just let our technology sit out there and let some other company try to use a patent to take it from us.
Funny though, you see Apple suing companies more than Microsoft over stupid little crap all the time, and Apple has ripped off a lot of companies along the way, heck Win98 Active Desktop/Konfabulator anyone?
Any of these companes that litigate over CRAP for small CRAP gains needs to be boycotted.
MS's patents so far have been defensive, Apple's patents so far have been used for both defense and offense, making them part of the slime corporations.
If MS starts suing over their patents instead only using them to defend themselves, they will also go on my list of scum sucking corporations.
I think there is a place for patents, but in the US we have a patent system that is outdated and ran by NON technical people, so just wording a technology with clever words gets a new patent, even though it has been in use for 20 years. This is so wrong.
There needs to be a larger threshold for patents and software technology, like specific code. There also needs to be reform about in use technologies that 'bleed' into to or existing patents.
Look at GIF 10 years ago, not only was it a bit silly, but the market impact could have been devastating. If you have a patent and allow the market to use it for a certain amount of time without ONCE protecting it before it because a standard, then you should lose your freaking patent. PERIOD.
Ok, as I said there is a place for patents, but the bar for truly innovation needs to be higher. Inventing a way to do something that truly was never done before is worthy, inventing a variation of something that is obvious to the technical minded and has been used by others for years in various ways is not.
People were downloading, and resuming downloads 30 years ago, yet we see another patent saying this company invented it. WTF.
But I still don't blame MS for just paying off the little trolls, when it could not only be more money to litigate, but with the bad press they are already battling, somethings are just easier to go away and not have to worry about...
Besides this type of Money to Microsoft is like me spending $45 to get my oil is changed. It isn't that I can't change it myself, just not worth my time...
McAfee places the blame for increased numbers of rootkits squarely on the shoulders of the open source community
That's like saying Edison and Tesla are to blame every time someone gets electocuted.
Ok, I think they are stretching things quite a bit as well, they would have been better served by making a lower bar point.
Sharing of programming and technology is condusive to the sharing of hacking technology. Now this isn't necessary what 'Open Source' is actually, but hey if they don't know any better.
My other question would be, do they think if the open source movement didn't exist that hackers would not share this information and technology on their own anyway? Why is this nested on the Open Source community, hackers traded ideas and code before most people even knew what Open Source was....
That's like saying Edison and Tesla are to blame every time someone gets electocuted.
Well not Edison, he championed DC, it was Westinghouse that was the 'father' of AC, which is actually the deadly one and was used to kill people in executions.
If you have an OS that doesn't protect itself from rogue applications,
Yes, but be fair for a moment and think this out...
Win 3.1 - Networking was NOT the norm, it was the exception for these system to even be hooked up to each other.
Win95 was built from this closed system concept, and even though it added winsock and native TCP/IP, it was developed in 1993-1995 when security was keeping people from logging in, and VERY LITTLE NETWORKING. So much, that NT 4.0 Professional was installed in Office environments more than Win95 was.
These Win9X and DOS/Win3.x OSes and OS/Environments were designed around a closed system model of the time. In 1995 when Win95 shipped, even MSN was not a WEB SITE, it was a group of folders inside Win95. And that was a closed system, much like AOL and Compuserve of the time was, so there was little way for it to even be a target from the 'internet'.
Even Win98 was not 'redesigned' with a security layer, heck one truly didn't even exist in Win98 at the time, if you wanted Security you bought WinNT, PERIOD.
These OSes were never designed be used heavily in environments that were not 'closed' networks or standalone.
So it is easy to go back and pick on these OSes, almost 10 years old for not having a proper kernel technology or a security layer, etc etc.... But for the TIMEPERIOD they did what they were designed to, even if wasn't perfectly.
Security was something MS was aware of, it was the design foundation of WinNT (irony uh?), but the Internet was a pretty loose variable during these years, especially when you facter in the TCP/IP exploitable problems that came along with it, and the emerging HOME full time broadband access.
I really didn't want to be the champion of Win98, but I should have been a bit more clear. For the time it was a fairly solid OS, much better than Win95 but nothing on the scale of advanced OS technologies like NT or Linux. It just wasn't designed to be much more than a slight evolution to a closed OS model.
Also if you look at other OSes from the time OS/2, to System 8/7, they were also very 'closed' system designed. They also were prone to crashes, especially with the poor memory management fights on System 7/8 or the locked queue on the OS/2 that would let one application's input queue suspend the entire OS.
But these companies learned and either evolved or took another route, OSX is a pretty good example of a migration of a 'closed' OS technology to a one that is robust enought to offer stability and security. Try to paint the Win98 to WinXp move in the same regard, both are as drastic of a change.
Even look at Linux from the 1994-1998 time period, it wasn't exactly as stable as it is now, nor as secure as it is now. 10 years is a LONG time.
Sorry you ran Win95 for so long, you probably would have saved yourself some headaches by moving to NT or even Win2k if you were locked into Windows. I had the luxury of being in the Win2k beta, so I was actually running it before Win98 was even out of beta.
For what they were Win9X, especially Win98 being the most diverse and stable from the Win9x pack, they were ok, just NOT great OSes...
Since when was their a patch for Win98 that stopped it from crashing?
Not to nit pick or to even suggest a defense of Win98, but it was fairly stable for the OS it was, not having a kernel like NT.
Win98 and mainstream applications is pretty crash free. The problem with Win98 is that it, even more than Win2k or WinXP lets third party software screw with the system, and due to the nature of the Win9X kernel technology, there is no protect from bad applications, from protecting system files to not fully controlling errant memory allocation in the driver mechanism.
If you have a Win98 machine and it is crashing, you have crap third party apps, or a crap driver.
Now for WinME, it was just bad software and is one of the few mainstream OSes our labs ever worked with that could drop to a crawl and crash from a base installation using MS controlled drivers and MS applications. (WinME tried to jam in some new stuff and didn't take time to work it out, nor did MS have the foresight to rip some of these features when they realized the Win9X kernel could not efficiently handle the new features. - A feature like system restore just did not work well when it wasn't sitting on a solid NT kernel, and in WinXP is an elegant feature in comparison.)
Now in regard to the article, people shouldn't take it either way, it is not a bash of Linux nor a bash of portable PCs. Believe it or not Linux is not perfect, and on a non well tested port, there are going to be bugs, it happens. Just like WinCE was a variant of the NT kernel, yet the early versions crashed.
Consider this growing pains for Linux, and see it as a good thing. Also consider this as growing pains for the small PC format. Even the new WindowsXP based systems will show the same complaints and even if it was 100% crash free, apps are going to crash, there will be hardware failures, it will be too warm for some people, the screen will be too tiny for a lot of people.
You can't please everyone with products like this, it is just Linux is the name on it taking part of the wrap.
I noticed posts above that talked about the need for keyboards and how they won't ever work in these formats, etc etc... There are a LOT of portable technologies that are still not cost effective, but out there and being refinded. From a projected keyboard with motion and video sensors to see what the person is typing, to gloves, etc.
Display technologies are also getting there, and the screen on these unit will come to a point they disappear. Look for low power projectors to display the device on a wall or seat, and we all know about LCD glasses, and even Retinal Laser Displays that will let use use glasses or a peep hole into super tiny devices.
The current units DO fit the CURRENT needs, and as the technology continues to mature, will disappear into wearable full blown computing. PDAs with lower powered OSes are over, and we will continue to see some growing pains, but we have pretty much made the jump as this product and others are demonstrating.
Actually, the original ruling was thrown out, and they were NOT deemed a MONOPOLY, but a company that used Monopoly business tatics to try to create a monopoly. (They never said MS or Windows WAS a monopoly, and since Other OSes existed and still do, Windows nor Microsoft is a Monopoly.)
The original ruling tried to say they were, but that was thrown out with not only an overrulling, in appeal, but with VERY harsh words for how the Judge handled the original case. (You know, taking favors from other companies testifying, etc.)
Them BEING a monopoly and being convicted of TRYING to be a Monopoly IS NOT THE SAME THING. If they were a Monopoly, then you have to use Windows, and in this day YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE TO USE ANY MS Technology. Hence NOT A MONOPOLY.
This gets repeated so much here and on the internet, everyone just accepts it as fact. Talk about 'unknowingly' spreading FUD.
Don't trust my words, actually read the rulings yourself, and not from some news source.
And trulying I wasn't trying to troll, but why is it ANYTHING MS does gets slammed, often when it is the same stuff or a level of protection/. would normall be happy about if it were NOT MS.
I was trying to drop a reality check, that is all...
A court of law has determined that Microsoft is a monopoly
Well, kind of... Monopolistic business behavior to protect their OS at least...
So now that we all agree they are a monopoly, NOW we get to debate whether they can protect an OS they made to ensure it can get the correct updates. Is everyone here nuts or high? Remember the WindowsUpdate Worm just a few years ago, and how awful it was and how everyone here was so angry at MS? Now they are taking another step to prevent this type of crap, and you are pissed at them for that too.
Tell me, what should they do to ensure updates are not sent to some website on a offshore island? Just ignore any issues?
Any yet people here are running OSes that have UPDATE mechanisms that work MUCH like the Windows Update by contacting the source/vendor of the OS, and if your OS distributor released an update to ensure malware couldn't screw with your updates, you would applaud them...
How big does the double standard have to get for people here to go, wow, we are not freaking stupid/. nerds, we can think for ourselves?
Oh, and back to the monopoly... Ya, big monopoly, so anyone here posting on OSX or Linux or OpenBSD, you better check your reality, because if they were a 'real' monopoly like Ma Bell, then you are using a non-existent OS...
I don't care if you hate MS or Sun or Apple or love them all, at least think for yourselves and quit following in line like lemmings so you can 'be different'... Geesh...
I'd prefer to stay ignorant and not waste my time learning about it.
I understand how you feel. Even ignore Vista itself. However it would help everyone that is in development to take a look at the WPF/XPS/XAML development constructs and the new WinFX API that Vista runs on.
This is one of the biggest things to change development in the computing industry in a while, and a large portion of the WinFX technologies are downward available on WindowsXP.
So you will see new application development appear for both Vista and WindowsXP based on this new API, basically the new API replacing Win32API.
This is probably the main reason behind the Vista delays, due to the complexity of a whole new OS API, the first time in Windows history.
The reason I try to stress this to developers, even if they aren't developing on Windows, is all developers need to understand some of these new ideas and foresee a future of incorporating them into other OS technologies, if not Microsoft will pull a lot of development to the Windows World, just as easy drag and drop IDE development did with VB back in the early 90s.
WinFX, specifically the XAML development model is quite unique not only in replacing the GDI32/GDI+ but HOW developers will write new applications based on these technologies.
One thing Apple did RIGHT was to put more emphasis on GREAT graphic designers for OSX, even if the Display Technology itself was not revolutionary. This made OSX look great and ALSO changed the user experience.
And this is where there has been a big divide in software development for many years. One I have witnessed myself being a Graphic Designer in the 1980s. Making things work easily and look better than text boxes required a lot of coding.
With Avalon(WPF)/XAML, this is the new silver bullet solution. Graphic designers can not only become partial developers, and create a great looking easy to use UI, without coding and without someone that is great in coding try to recreate these items.
If you look at MOST applications on ANY OS, there is a big divide between 'functionality', Ease of use, and the presentation of the information.
Face it, there are many brilliant programmers in many companies that don't have a graphic eye or graphic background. The Web has proven this to us more than anything, great sites, but poor UIs or really sad visual quality. Some geeks are not graphic designers but can write some amazing functionality.
There is more to it than just sparking the graphic design aspect into Application design, but alone is big thing to pay attention to.
As I have personally took the time to look over the ideas and development changes coming with new application development from Microsoft, there is stuff that impresses me, and I have been in the development world for longer than I would like to admit.
Some of the other things, like getting rid of the rigid C++ Win32API concepts and moving the WHOLE NEW OS API set to something that is as easy as C# or VB or any.NET language like Delphi or Python even. And using these programming backend languages to tap into a robust display and communication foundation is a big step to what will be some of most advanced application concepts and development in the next 5 years.
Think of it like an advanced version of Postscript/PDF, but to a full 3D vector level that can be programmed by someone that is proficient in Flash, but instead of making a cool menu on a web page, they are making quite amazing application interfaces for both distributed applications and Windows applications.
This is also how Vista, even WPF on WindowsXP differs from the OSX graphics model. Not only are things done off-screen using GPU RAM like on OSX, but the Vector round trip and 3D display concepts that OSX simply doesn't have are impressive. There are more advantages to it on Vista, with the shared and multi-tasking WDDM introduced, but all of this stuff can be seen on WindowsXP using the new framework as well.
The first is the fact that if you're liberal you must be poor and have no faith. The second is if your conservative you must be rich and have faith. That is horse shit and silly argument.
Totally agree...
Everyone likes to 'group' people too easily. And the problem comes when people show hate, anger, or intolerance after labeling people.
Just as you demonstrate, I know poor conservatives, rich liberals, and a lot of people inbetween.
I was trying to point out that if people do hold their Christian values high, they probably should take a moment and realize they should regard 'everything' Jesus said, and not focus on something like Gay people that he said 'Nothing' about.
Spending time on Gays or even one small detail of what anyone in the Bible said to the exclusion of all the other things said is borderline insane and also discounts all the other teachings from the Bible.
Helping the poor was mentioned over 3000 times in the Christian Bible, yet I see good religious people focus the majority of their life or religious activisim on a few things from the bible, and completely ignore a topic like this from the Bible and even discount helping the poor for their own greed.
I didn't think my post would be taken with much regard, because I was purposely baiting the rabid post I responded to, so thanks for the thoughtful response.
but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up. I mean seriously - when has dual booting with Windows "ever" worked out of the box? It seeks always to dominate and does not ever like to share.
Are you mental? Windows was dual booting back as far as 1992, INHERENTLY. This was an initial design feature of Windows NT Developed in 1990-1993, as the boot loader was designed into the OS for mutibooting mulitple OSes, not just Windows OSes.
Using the BUILT IN Windows Boot Manager we used to boot between DOS and NT as well as other products like DeskView and OS/2...
If you don't know anything about the subject, why even waste your time posting?
This is due to a flaw in the boot camp utility messing up the OSX boot partition. PERIOD.
Windows can be blamed for a lot of things, but when it is Apple's software messing things up, you can't blame Windows for something Apple screwed up.
Point the finger the right way if THIS IS SO IMPORTANT that you NEED TO POINT A FINGER....
Pissing off the religious right at every opportunity and proud of it Really? How? I am guessing that you suck poopie covered dicks (Not that gross because it is your own poop, because the dick has just been pulled out of your ass- so it is almost like a closed system!!!) But anyway, that is what pisses off the religious right, so are you saying you are gay?
Ok, assuming this is refering to the religious right in the US that is of the Christian Faith...
So with that assumption, I would go back to the stories of the bible and notice that Jesus never said a single thing about Gay people, but talked about money changers in the temple and made many references to helping the least among us, helping the poor, etc...
So I would assume the best way to piss off religious people would be to screw over the poor, give money to rich people, and have corruption in churches and government.
So to really get them and attack their values the best way would be to vote for people like President Bush and support the rest of the conservative policies that defraud people, give money to the rich, and reduce funding for the poor.
But I'm still not sure how this would relate to gay people.../smile
1) Is Aero relevant to Vista's inner workings, i.e. is it a real limitation to its functionality if missing? If yes, how severe a limitation?
No, and disregard the posts stating otherwise.
Aero is simply this... The THEME, and because of the Vista capabilities the THEME adds 'glass' Frames to Windows, and also adds a few cute effects to explorer, like the Flip3D.
As for any loss of functionality, there is none, even if you are running on a 1990 VGA Video card with AERO turned off or disabled. The whole new graphics subsystem in Vista is NOT dependant on hardware and it is NOT AERO.
Aero is just a new graphics engine for Windows Vista. Removing it makes Windows fall back on the current graphics engine used in Windows XP.
Ok, NO...
AERO is the UI Effects of Window Borders and the 'glass' Theme, it is also a part of a few effect in Explorer like Flip3D.
The Graphic Engine in Windows is WPF/Avalon, and it fully functions even if you have a VGA Card, and it HAS NOTHING to do with the AERO 'THEME'.
Even with AERO turned off, applicaitons will still use the NEW API that replaces the GDI+ graphics subsystem in WindowsXP, and is NOT dependant on hardware, what so ever.
If Microsoft disabled the whole new graphics API because of turning off Aero would break the entire OS, not just turn off the shinny window frames.
Check out www.microsoft.com or msdn.microsoft.com or even freaking wikipedia.com
Even Google.com, there are some cool articles that explain this in detail and even go as far to explain the Vector Composer that sets the new Graphics subsystem of Vista apart from anything else.
One of the BFD's about Aero is that apps can be rescaled etc
Ok, might as well post this here, even though I have seen tons of people not know anything about it...
Aero is the 'glass' UI of Explorer and Window Frames, you also get a few functions that are also part of Explorer, like Flip 3D.
However, the scaleable UI of applications and Windows Vista itself have NOTHING to do with AERO.
The scaleable UI and the new graphics subsystem and API in Vista is based on WPF (Avalon) and this NEVER turns off, even if your Video card is VGA Only from 1990.
So everyone please STOP assuming this has anything to do with the Vector composer, the new API replacing GDI+ or any other cool rumor people that know little about Vista want to dig out of the closet.
Here, check out this great site calle Wikipedia.com, it even will explain this to you. Or people could go to www.microsoft.com and actually read this for themselves.
(This post is for all the people in this thread, not just the one I am responding too. If you don't know enough about Vista's Graphics and think it is like OSX's, or think the Aero 'Theme' is Avalon or any other confusing thing, either don't worry about it cause you aren't ever planning on using Vista, or if you might or have customers that might, go check it out so you aren't making silly statements.)
Does Windows have multiple desktops out of the box yet? That's something I couldn't do without
This is something provided by almost all Video cards as a utility, there are also 10 to 100s of utilities that provide this functionality. I believe there is even a couple of Microsoft PowerToy type utilities that have been available since 1995 to do this, before it became a standard staple of other OSes.
Windows also supports many multi-monitor configurations, even splitting the video RAM to utilize multiple outputs on video cards and especailly notebooks, even if the drivers don't inherently provide this functionality.
RISC OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS) certainly had an active task bar long before Windows. It worked a bit differently (better actually) from the one in Windows. Each running program had an icon in the taskbar. Open windows from the applications could be accessed from a menu invoked from these icons. There were also a lot of toys/tools that could be run on the taskbar such as clocks, menus, etc.
I thought maybe this would be brought up...
However it was something I had used, and even though it did meet some of the concepts of a taskbar, it was not inherently any more functional than the NextStep Bar, which predated the RiscOS UI bar.
The RiscOS UI bar was also very 'minimal' in function compared to the later versions that appearred in 1996, after Windows 95 was on the market. Then adding things like running applicaion lists and other thing that were first presented in Win95.
If you look at the Bar prior to Win95, it was basically a Next Bar type of functionality, and if you use any of the current versions, you will notice that the bar has evolved to mimic some of the Win95 features that are also found in other OSes like KDE.
Go back to the Wikipedia article you reference, the timeline of what features where in the bar are what you need to pay attention to.
It provided a launcher, some applet display like NextStep (clock for example) and Drive Icons or Control Panel funcitons on the bar, it wasn't a taskbar to quickly flip/tab between running applications.
I'm sure there was some influence from both Next and the RiscOS UI bar, but for providing the funcitonality added in Win95, neither did what the main function of the taskbar did.
Why can so many 'tech' writers miss the simple...
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The Future of the PDA
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Why can so many 'tech' writers miss the simple stuff?
PDAs were always basic 'PC' functionality that fits in the pocket.
The older PDA market was based on a simple fact. Portable processing power and storage managed with battery life.
If you play out battery life at the important item, phones are surpassing PDA technology of a couple years ago, and giving you 100% of the functionality. Look at the smartphone from MS even, it is a low overhead OS but you can browse the net with standard browser specifications and even do Remote desktop from your phone into your office PC. One other note on battery life, is the new portable small form factor PC technologies run 3-5hrs, and this is more than most cell phones do now, especially if you are in a call, which sucks the battery 10 times faster than basic PDA operations. It also wasn't that long ago Cell phones had 45min talk times and had to be rechared every 6-8hrs.
As for storage and media storage, Media Players like iPods and from other companies again surpass the PDA capabilities. Even some Phones, like my older Motolora V710 has 8gb storage, more than enough for most basic music libraries and a few movies, video clips and photos.
Processing power is being dominated by the small form factor PCs, like Microsoft and other companies are pushing, that offer desktop OSes on a device that fits in your pocket and again have large storage, but not quite the PDA or Phone Batter life, yet...
The latter of these are the most important. When you can carry your computer in a small form factor, and still have access to a reasonable display and run all your basic computing tools and even new computing tools like VoIP and Cell capabilties on it with a comperable battery life, then THESE devices will be the next PDAs.
Sure PDA technology as we know is over to a degree, but will continue to exist in SmartPhone and other phone technologies and Media Players until the portable PCs can hit the battery life and size needs of basic cell phones and media players.
However when they do hit the battery life and sizes needed for an all day usage in and out of the pocket, PDAs and even PocketPC/Smartphone and other Phone OS technologies will no longer be needed. So that will be the death of PDA OSes...
Microsoft has even realized that the PocketPC/WindowsCE OS is not a long term OS solution, even WindowsXP embedded is already replacing WindowsCE technologies in smart clients and routers and fits on small flash memory.
The PDA is dead, but only if you continue to see a PDA in the OLD model. A tiny computer trying to do the best it can with the hardware available in a small format was what PDAs were.
As both the open source solutions and MS solutions for example can run full OSes on devices that are as small as phone, then that will be the new PDA, but not just a freaking organizer.
People could argure the success of some of the early PDAs were due to the simplistic non-full OS style format and applications, but these same types of applications can run on full OSes as well, and you could use the 'simplified' interface, or switch to your normal apps if you are not on the go. Take the Media Center Interface for an example of a dual 'UI/Interface' model for a single OS.
Both OSX and Windows have good Speech and Handwriting technologies, and Vista will be bringing even a new level of them to the market so they are more common occasional use.
So there is NOTHING a full OS can't do that a PDA can...
You'd have a great point, that is if MS actually *was* the first one with a taskbar like this...
Ok, I'll bite, cause I would truly like to know what I missed. I have been around longer than I would like to admit, and I know of menu launchers, and even the Next Button Launcher, but I do know know of any other 'active' taskbar concept that existed prior to Win95(Chicago).
If you have a reference to one, I would love to see it, and will admit I was mistaken. I did a quick reference search after seeing your post, and even digging through Wikipedia and older OS and Window Manager references I could locate, yet nothing I could find had an active taskbar concept prior to Windows even though I could find several latter implementations.
Except when you have lots of apps open. On both XP(work) and whatever KDE version I use now 3.2..I think(home), the default behaviour is to group taskbar entries per application once the taskbar is filled
That is why - being offbeat from the norm - I always run with the bar on the right hand of the screen when the OS supports it.
That way I can have 20-30 application windows open and each one is a unique button/tab. The multi-grouping is ok for along the bottom of the screen but I like individual quick clicks to get to everything, plus being able to see everything with a glance. The other suck part of running with the bar along the bottom or top is even with a 1920 display you get like 10 applications at most before they start grouping.
I hope you don't mean you NEVER use Windows or a newer version than 3.1...
You owe it to yourself to fully understand what is out there, and the development division of Microsoft has done some really cool things in the past 10 years. Not always perfect, but different and worth knowing to at least get ideas or very least know your competition.
Even looking at the *nix market we see the classic 'taskbar' in everything from KDE to GNOME and other variants. It is kind of sad that MS was the first one with a taskbar like this, but it isn't such a bad idea, so I don't mind see others parrot it.
I find too many experienced IT people that I interview and they are non-Windows people which is fine, but when asked what they are working on or why they like one OS, etc.
I find that many times they have NO idea how much the industry has passed them by. I get answers like, I use XXXX because I want a real 32bit OS, or real Multi-Tasking, or I am developing this cool application idea (an idea that has been built into Window or other OSes for YEARS) and they think they are being innovative.
Basically you can't be innovative, unless you know what else is out there.
Getting off of Windows is great, but don't close your mind to the stuff from Redmond, they surprise many great developers sometimes, by statistics alone, it has to happen. For example at the PDC in September they shook up the way a lot of us developers view software, and even some of us are developing on other platforms, their ideas were something good to build from.
I assume you don't mean you haven't used Windows to at least explore the competition, but in case you haven't or others in here haven't, it is worth your time...
Nice VMWare or other tool and at least run a test version somewhere. (Hint, if you are using VMWare or another comperable tool, you can use the 180day Free version of WindowsXP and just reinstall it.)
Don't get me wrong there are a few instances where Oracle still fits the model.
However these are disappearing because of Oracles relunctance over the years to adapt.
Oracle was more than a Database in the early years, Oracle, like dBase and other low end tools all had a 'user interface' model that locked all applicaitons using the products to be produced 'inside' the Oracle technologies.
Sure this exists less today, but Oracle's business model hasn't really 'got' the UI migration move of the industry.
Even old MS Access and early MS SQL both had development interfaces, but where the products shined is that you could use ANY tool to create an interface to these database technologies. (Using MS examples here because of the timeline and people's familiarity)
Oracle didn't 'get this', instead to use Oracle, you had to NOT ONLY develop your application in the Oracle interface, but were locked to the Oracle keystrokes for operations, doing searches, etc. Which was VERY non user friendly.
Oracle didn't really care, as Oracle did (and still does) made good money on companies not only buying the product, getting developers trained to build a solution in Oracle, and then sending all the employees to learn how to use the applicaiton in Oracle with the standard Oracle keystrokes, and modes of search the data.
This is why you found low end products filling needs that once Oracle and dBase were the answers for (having a similar UI model and development environment), and people were moving to Access and VB to Access development projects.
As you were purely working with data via the interface and SQL, and could create ANY interface construct possible.
This is what bothers me with Oracle, even 10 years later, they STILL don't full get that we don't want to WORK in their database, we want it to do its job and we will create custom interfaces in C++ to PHP Web interfaces.
(Yes you can NOW do this with Oracle, but this is not their bread and butter, and they would rather lock you into their interface and development.)
Also the costs of Oracle are incredible, it makes MS-SQL look cheap, and yet performance wise DB2, and MS-SQL outperform Oracle on almost server/client configuration. So why pay big bucks to Oracle, when you can ge a solution that has more options of usage, and runs faster, and is cheaper. (Especially when you look at their processor licensing, etc.)
Even MYSQL fills the needs of places I see companies use Oracle just becuase it is what they have 'always' used, not because it is the best solution.
We work with companies that are still in the Oracle model, and don't plan on changing because of technical legacy reasons or old IT Oracle admins that don't want to learn how to manage other solutions.
And this is really sad. I see these companies have to schedule long down times for backups, and other Database maintenance routines that are just NOT something you find with DB2, MSSQL, or even MYSQL. The next time you visit a major companies site, and they have a daily downtime policy (like a bank, or even Sony's Online servers), it is because they are using Oracle. Sad...
It's quite obviously the opposite, as the drivers that Apple is providing are the ones that the 'coder community' couldn't get working on their own. Therefore the driver availability for new hardware is not where you say it is.
What does this have to do with CODERS? It is NEW Hardware, APPLE Hardware, Intel/Apple Mainboards. Of course either Apple or Intel would have to provide drivers.
Do you even have a freaking clue or just like to post?
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I really don't think Apple copied konfabulator. I know they copy stuff, but please don't use that as an argument.
But sadly they did, and both Konfabulator and Apple are copies of ideas that started on Win98.
Here is what was different, Win98 introduced something called Active Desktop (not a wonderful idea, but it worked.) What this did was allow you to take any web page or design any type of Web page or 'gadget' that was LIVE to the internet, and would update the weather or time or news and display them on your desktop.
The two key things here are:
Any type of Web Page technology (HTML, DHTML, JAVA, whatever) that is easy to use to create 'gadgets' that displayed on the desktop.
Live Gadgets that were fully internet aware, and could even run from the internet.
The Konfabulator widgets also use this simple concept, with the except they add in blended backgrounds to the gadgets, which wasn't easily possible in Win98.
And sadly, Apple copied Konfabulator, in fact too close of a copy even, instead of buying them out, which would have been more ethical.
heck Win98 Active Desktop/Konfabulator anyone
which was ripped off of Apple System 6, Konfabulator even willingly admitted they based their idea off the older System 6 apps program. Microsoft of course rips everything off of Apple (cough Vista Cough)
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?
The System Applets are NOT desktop components that pull live information from the Internet and can be constructed with an image and a few likes of DHTML. Do you know ANYTHING about what you even take time to post on?
Microsoft of course rips everything off of Apple (cough Vista Cough)
Wow, once again you are right. The vector based composer, and the new 2D/3D object model API that even includes programmable collision detection for UI controls is an EXACT rip off of OSX. Oh wait, these are things OSX will NOT do... Hmm...
Maybe you are confused, maybe you meant Win2k or WindowsXP, oh but wait, the OSX Display Composer didn't get the same features until 10.2 of OSX.
Let me make this really clear for people that don't want to spend TWO minutes reading the articles at wikipedia.com.
Vista's display system and OSX are as different as OSX and Windows 3.1.
Here lets try to show the equal technologies.
GDI/GDI32 in Windows = Display Postscript/Quartz circa OSX 10.0 and 10.1.
GDI+ in Windows 2000 and WindowsXP = Quartz Extreme (with the exception of using GPU textures for the display composition.) Basically meaning OSX just uses the extra RAM through the AGP bus of the Video card for drawing the display. What they both do is use the Video Card's 2D functions for vector processing, and BOTH require the applications to manage the Vector rendering and Paint messages and redrawing of surfaces.
GDI+ in Windows 2000 is feature EQUAL to the Quartz Display system in OSX, and I know Mac users hate to hear this, but go look it up.
Quartz Extreme's only edge over the current GDI+ in Windows (Since 1999) is that it speeds up some of the display operations by using the GPU RAM, but this is only for the final end of the composer, which is just for holding a Bitmap, no 3D UI acceleration, no Vector acceleration from the 3D portion of the GPU, nothing else.
The next in carnation from Apple is Quartz 2D Extreme, but even though Apple tries to bill this as using the GPU for accelerating 2D vector drawing, it doesn't like people would expect. Compare it to Windows2000 or WindowsXP using the NON-3D acceleration features built into video cards that increase display speed. These acceleration features have been in Windows and Video cards used on the PC since the IBM 8514 and ATI Vantage days back in the early 1990s, they are NOT 3D acceleration features.
Now why this history lesson is important.
Vista uses a new Display Composer, and what makes it UNIQUE to ANY Composer for ANY OS made to date is that it is a round trip full Vector level Composer. I.E. The Composer handles 2D and 3D display, redraws, and painting without having to go back to the application, as the new Windows Composer actually store the display information from the applications in both Vector and Bitmap formats, just as the Application had drawn them, instead of just converting the display data all to Bitmaps like OSX and Windows2K/WinXP both do.
This gives the OS the ability to FULLY offset 2D and 3D drawing functions to the 3D portion of the GPU if the Video card supports it, and for Video cards that don't, it software renders them.
So the OS in Vista can actually round trip understand and manage a true XPS/XAML/WPF interface from an application without having to have the application 'compose' the interface to a bitmap.
This is why in OSX, when you do the Genie effect, it is a
And for people without the need for tinfoil hats, Microsoft has the kind of money it is easier to just pay off the trolls and not have to worry about any legality or further troll attempts...
Apple should have done the same...
If you look at MS's patent practices, they didn't started pushing through a ton of their work for patents until the last few years, after they started getting sued for crap that they had been using or even created years ago.
Hell, they left FAT wide open for 20 years, and FAT32 wide open for 10 years. So the little guys start sticking to the big companies and MS says, wait, we aren't going to just let our technology sit out there and let some other company try to use a patent to take it from us.
Funny though, you see Apple suing companies more than Microsoft over stupid little crap all the time, and Apple has ripped off a lot of companies along the way, heck Win98 Active Desktop/Konfabulator anyone?
Any of these companes that litigate over CRAP for small CRAP gains needs to be boycotted.
MS's patents so far have been defensive, Apple's patents so far have been used for both defense and offense, making them part of the slime corporations.
If MS starts suing over their patents instead only using them to defend themselves, they will also go on my list of scum sucking corporations.
I think there is a place for patents, but in the US we have a patent system that is outdated and ran by NON technical people, so just wording a technology with clever words gets a new patent, even though it has been in use for 20 years. This is so wrong.
There needs to be a larger threshold for patents and software technology, like specific code. There also needs to be reform about in use technologies that 'bleed' into to or existing patents.
Look at GIF 10 years ago, not only was it a bit silly, but the market impact could have been devastating. If you have a patent and allow the market to use it for a certain amount of time without ONCE protecting it before it because a standard, then you should lose your freaking patent. PERIOD.
Ok, as I said there is a place for patents, but the bar for truly innovation needs to be higher. Inventing a way to do something that truly was never done before is worthy, inventing a variation of something that is obvious to the technical minded and has been used by others for years in various ways is not.
People were downloading, and resuming downloads 30 years ago, yet we see another patent saying this company invented it. WTF.
But I still don't blame MS for just paying off the little trolls, when it could not only be more money to litigate, but with the bad press they are already battling, somethings are just easier to go away and not have to worry about...
Besides this type of Money to Microsoft is like me spending $45 to get my oil is changed. It isn't that I can't change it myself, just not worth my time...
McAfee places the blame for increased numbers of rootkits squarely on the shoulders of the open source community
That's like saying Edison and Tesla are to blame every time someone gets electocuted.
Ok, I think they are stretching things quite a bit as well, they would have been better served by making a lower bar point.
Sharing of programming and technology is condusive to the sharing of hacking technology. Now this isn't necessary what 'Open Source' is actually, but hey if they don't know any better.
My other question would be, do they think if the open source movement didn't exist that hackers would not share this information and technology on their own anyway? Why is this nested on the Open Source community, hackers traded ideas and code before most people even knew what Open Source was....
That's like saying Edison and Tesla are to blame every time someone gets electocuted.
Well not Edison, he championed DC, it was Westinghouse that was the 'father' of AC, which is actually the deadly one and was used to kill people in executions.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
If you have an OS that doesn't protect itself from rogue applications,
Yes, but be fair for a moment and think this out...
Win 3.1 - Networking was NOT the norm, it was the exception for these system to even be hooked up to each other.
Win95 was built from this closed system concept, and even though it added winsock and native TCP/IP, it was developed in 1993-1995 when security was keeping people from logging in, and VERY LITTLE NETWORKING. So much, that NT 4.0 Professional was installed in Office environments more than Win95 was.
These Win9X and DOS/Win3.x OSes and OS/Environments were designed around a closed system model of the time. In 1995 when Win95 shipped, even MSN was not a WEB SITE, it was a group of folders inside Win95. And that was a closed system, much like AOL and Compuserve of the time was, so there was little way for it to even be a target from the 'internet'.
Even Win98 was not 'redesigned' with a security layer, heck one truly didn't even exist in Win98 at the time, if you wanted Security you bought WinNT, PERIOD.
These OSes were never designed be used heavily in environments that were not 'closed' networks or standalone.
So it is easy to go back and pick on these OSes, almost 10 years old for not having a proper kernel technology or a security layer, etc etc.... But for the TIMEPERIOD they did what they were designed to, even if wasn't perfectly.
Security was something MS was aware of, it was the design foundation of WinNT (irony uh?), but the Internet was a pretty loose variable during these years, especially when you facter in the TCP/IP exploitable problems that came along with it, and the emerging HOME full time broadband access.
I really didn't want to be the champion of Win98, but I should have been a bit more clear. For the time it was a fairly solid OS, much better than Win95 but nothing on the scale of advanced OS technologies like NT or Linux. It just wasn't designed to be much more than a slight evolution to a closed OS model.
Also if you look at other OSes from the time OS/2, to System 8/7, they were also very 'closed' system designed. They also were prone to crashes, especially with the poor memory management fights on System 7/8 or the locked queue on the OS/2 that would let one application's input queue suspend the entire OS.
But these companies learned and either evolved or took another route, OSX is a pretty good example of a migration of a 'closed' OS technology to a one that is robust enought to offer stability and security. Try to paint the Win98 to WinXp move in the same regard, both are as drastic of a change.
Even look at Linux from the 1994-1998 time period, it wasn't exactly as stable as it is now, nor as secure as it is now. 10 years is a LONG time.
Sorry you ran Win95 for so long, you probably would have saved yourself some headaches by moving to NT or even Win2k if you were locked into Windows. I had the luxury of being in the Win2k beta, so I was actually running it before Win98 was even out of beta.
For what they were Win9X, especially Win98 being the most diverse and stable from the Win9x pack, they were ok, just NOT great OSes...
Thanks for your post, take care...
Since when was their a patch for Win98 that stopped it from crashing?
Not to nit pick or to even suggest a defense of Win98, but it was fairly stable for the OS it was, not having a kernel like NT.
Win98 and mainstream applications is pretty crash free. The problem with Win98 is that it, even more than Win2k or WinXP lets third party software screw with the system, and due to the nature of the Win9X kernel technology, there is no protect from bad applications, from protecting system files to not fully controlling errant memory allocation in the driver mechanism.
If you have a Win98 machine and it is crashing, you have crap third party apps, or a crap driver.
Now for WinME, it was just bad software and is one of the few mainstream OSes our labs ever worked with that could drop to a crawl and crash from a base installation using MS controlled drivers and MS applications. (WinME tried to jam in some new stuff and didn't take time to work it out, nor did MS have the foresight to rip some of these features when they realized the Win9X kernel could not efficiently handle the new features. - A feature like system restore just did not work well when it wasn't sitting on a solid NT kernel, and in WinXP is an elegant feature in comparison.)
Now in regard to the article, people shouldn't take it either way, it is not a bash of Linux nor a bash of portable PCs. Believe it or not Linux is not perfect, and on a non well tested port, there are going to be bugs, it happens. Just like WinCE was a variant of the NT kernel, yet the early versions crashed.
Consider this growing pains for Linux, and see it as a good thing. Also consider this as growing pains for the small PC format. Even the new WindowsXP based systems will show the same complaints and even if it was 100% crash free, apps are going to crash, there will be hardware failures, it will be too warm for some people, the screen will be too tiny for a lot of people.
You can't please everyone with products like this, it is just Linux is the name on it taking part of the wrap.
I noticed posts above that talked about the need for keyboards and how they won't ever work in these formats, etc etc... There are a LOT of portable technologies that are still not cost effective, but out there and being refinded. From a projected keyboard with motion and video sensors to see what the person is typing, to gloves, etc.
Display technologies are also getting there, and the screen on these unit will come to a point they disappear. Look for low power projectors to display the device on a wall or seat, and we all know about LCD glasses, and even Retinal Laser Displays that will let use use glasses or a peep hole into super tiny devices.
The current units DO fit the CURRENT needs, and as the technology continues to mature, will disappear into wearable full blown computing. PDAs with lower powered OSes are over, and we will continue to see some growing pains, but we have pretty much made the jump as this product and others are demonstrating.
They were found to be a Monopoly by a court..
/. would normall be happy about if it were NOT MS.
Actually, the original ruling was thrown out, and they were NOT deemed a MONOPOLY, but a company that used Monopoly business tatics to try to create a monopoly. (They never said MS or Windows WAS a monopoly, and since Other OSes existed and still do, Windows nor Microsoft is a Monopoly.)
The original ruling tried to say they were, but that was thrown out with not only an overrulling, in appeal, but with VERY harsh words for how the Judge handled the original case. (You know, taking favors from other companies testifying, etc.)
Them BEING a monopoly and being convicted of TRYING to be a Monopoly IS NOT THE SAME THING. If they were a Monopoly, then you have to use Windows, and in this day YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE TO USE ANY MS Technology. Hence NOT A MONOPOLY.
This gets repeated so much here and on the internet, everyone just accepts it as fact. Talk about 'unknowingly' spreading FUD.
Don't trust my words, actually read the rulings yourself, and not from some news source.
And trulying I wasn't trying to troll, but why is it ANYTHING MS does gets slammed, often when it is the same stuff or a level of protection
I was trying to drop a reality check, that is all...
Thanks for the response, take care.
A court of law has determined that Microsoft is a monopoly
/. nerds, we can think for ourselves?
Well, kind of... Monopolistic business behavior to protect their OS at least...
So now that we all agree they are a monopoly, NOW we get to debate whether they can protect an OS they made to ensure it can get the correct updates. Is everyone here nuts or high? Remember the WindowsUpdate Worm just a few years ago, and how awful it was and how everyone here was so angry at MS? Now they are taking another step to prevent this type of crap, and you are pissed at them for that too.
Tell me, what should they do to ensure updates are not sent to some website on a offshore island? Just ignore any issues?
Any yet people here are running OSes that have UPDATE mechanisms that work MUCH like the Windows Update by contacting the source/vendor of the OS, and if your OS distributor released an update to ensure malware couldn't screw with your updates, you would applaud them...
How big does the double standard have to get for people here to go, wow, we are not freaking stupid
Oh, and back to the monopoly... Ya, big monopoly, so anyone here posting on OSX or Linux or OpenBSD, you better check your reality, because if they were a 'real' monopoly like Ma Bell, then you are using a non-existent OS...
I don't care if you hate MS or Sun or Apple or love them all, at least think for yourselves and quit following in line like lemmings so you can 'be different'... Geesh...
I'd prefer to stay ignorant and not waste my time learning about it.
.NET language like Delphi or Python even. And using these programming backend languages to tap into a robust display and communication foundation is a big step to what will be some of most advanced application concepts and development in the next 5 years.
I understand how you feel. Even ignore Vista itself. However it would help everyone that is in development to take a look at the WPF/XPS/XAML development constructs and the new WinFX API that Vista runs on.
This is one of the biggest things to change development in the computing industry in a while, and a large portion of the WinFX technologies are downward available on WindowsXP.
So you will see new application development appear for both Vista and WindowsXP based on this new API, basically the new API replacing Win32API.
This is probably the main reason behind the Vista delays, due to the complexity of a whole new OS API, the first time in Windows history.
The reason I try to stress this to developers, even if they aren't developing on Windows, is all developers need to understand some of these new ideas and foresee a future of incorporating them into other OS technologies, if not Microsoft will pull a lot of development to the Windows World, just as easy drag and drop IDE development did with VB back in the early 90s.
WinFX, specifically the XAML development model is quite unique not only in replacing the GDI32/GDI+ but HOW developers will write new applications based on these technologies.
One thing Apple did RIGHT was to put more emphasis on GREAT graphic designers for OSX, even if the Display Technology itself was not revolutionary. This made OSX look great and ALSO changed the user experience.
And this is where there has been a big divide in software development for many years. One I have witnessed myself being a Graphic Designer in the 1980s. Making things work easily and look better than text boxes required a lot of coding.
With Avalon(WPF)/XAML, this is the new silver bullet solution. Graphic designers can not only become partial developers, and create a great looking easy to use UI, without coding and without someone that is great in coding try to recreate these items.
If you look at MOST applications on ANY OS, there is a big divide between 'functionality', Ease of use, and the presentation of the information.
Face it, there are many brilliant programmers in many companies that don't have a graphic eye or graphic background. The Web has proven this to us more than anything, great sites, but poor UIs or really sad visual quality. Some geeks are not graphic designers but can write some amazing functionality.
There is more to it than just sparking the graphic design aspect into Application design, but alone is big thing to pay attention to.
As I have personally took the time to look over the ideas and development changes coming with new application development from Microsoft, there is stuff that impresses me, and I have been in the development world for longer than I would like to admit.
Some of the other things, like getting rid of the rigid C++ Win32API concepts and moving the WHOLE NEW OS API set to something that is as easy as C# or VB or any
Think of it like an advanced version of Postscript/PDF, but to a full 3D vector level that can be programmed by someone that is proficient in Flash, but instead of making a cool menu on a web page, they are making quite amazing application interfaces for both distributed applications and Windows applications.
This is also how Vista, even WPF on WindowsXP differs from the OSX graphics model. Not only are things done off-screen using GPU RAM like on OSX, but the Vector round trip and 3D display concepts that OSX simply doesn't have are impressive. There are more advantages to it on Vista, with the shared and multi-tasking WDDM introduced, but all of this stuff can be seen on WindowsXP using the new framework as well.
The first is the fact that if you're liberal you must be poor and have no faith. The second is if your conservative you must be rich and have faith. That is horse shit and silly argument.
Totally agree...
Everyone likes to 'group' people too easily. And the problem comes when people show hate, anger, or intolerance after labeling people.
Just as you demonstrate, I know poor conservatives, rich liberals, and a lot of people inbetween.
I was trying to point out that if people do hold their Christian values high, they probably should take a moment and realize they should regard 'everything' Jesus said, and not focus on something like Gay people that he said 'Nothing' about.
Spending time on Gays or even one small detail of what anyone in the Bible said to the exclusion of all the other things said is borderline insane and also discounts all the other teachings from the Bible.
Helping the poor was mentioned over 3000 times in the Christian Bible, yet I see good religious people focus the majority of their life or religious activisim on a few things from the bible, and completely ignore a topic like this from the Bible and even discount helping the poor for their own greed.
I didn't think my post would be taken with much regard, because I was purposely baiting the rabid post I responded to, so thanks for the thoughtful response.
but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up. I mean seriously - when has dual booting with Windows "ever" worked out of the box? It seeks always to dominate and does not ever like to share.
Are you mental? Windows was dual booting back as far as 1992, INHERENTLY. This was an initial design feature of Windows NT Developed in 1990-1993, as the boot loader was designed into the OS for mutibooting mulitple OSes, not just Windows OSes.
Using the BUILT IN Windows Boot Manager we used to boot between DOS and NT as well as other products like DeskView and OS/2...
If you don't know anything about the subject, why even waste your time posting?
This is due to a flaw in the boot camp utility messing up the OSX boot partition. PERIOD.
Windows can be blamed for a lot of things, but when it is Apple's software messing things up, you can't blame Windows for something Apple screwed up.
Point the finger the right way if THIS IS SO IMPORTANT that you NEED TO POINT A FINGER....
Pissing off the religious right at every opportunity and proud of it
/smile
Really? How?
I am guessing that you suck poopie covered dicks (Not that gross because it is your own poop, because the dick has just been pulled out of your ass- so it is almost like a closed system!!!)
But anyway, that is what pisses off the religious right, so are you saying you are gay?
Ok, assuming this is refering to the religious right in the US that is of the Christian Faith...
So with that assumption, I would go back to the stories of the bible and notice that Jesus never said a single thing about Gay people, but talked about money changers in the temple and made many references to helping the least among us, helping the poor, etc...
So I would assume the best way to piss off religious people would be to screw over the poor, give money to rich people, and have corruption in churches and government.
So to really get them and attack their values the best way would be to vote for people like President Bush and support the rest of the conservative policies that defraud people, give money to the rich, and reduce funding for the poor.
But I'm still not sure how this would relate to gay people...
1) Is Aero relevant to Vista's inner workings, i.e. is it a real limitation to its functionality if missing? If yes, how severe a limitation?
No, and disregard the posts stating otherwise.
Aero is simply this... The THEME, and because of the Vista capabilities the THEME adds 'glass' Frames to Windows, and also adds a few cute effects to explorer, like the Flip3D.
As for any loss of functionality, there is none, even if you are running on a 1990 VGA Video card with AERO turned off or disabled. The whole new graphics subsystem in Vista is NOT dependant on hardware and it is NOT AERO.
Aero is just a new graphics engine for Windows Vista. Removing it makes Windows fall back on the current graphics engine used in Windows XP.
Ok, NO...
AERO is the UI Effects of Window Borders and the 'glass' Theme, it is also a part of a few effect in Explorer like Flip3D.
The Graphic Engine in Windows is WPF/Avalon, and it fully functions even if you have a VGA Card, and it HAS NOTHING to do with the AERO 'THEME'.
Even with AERO turned off, applicaitons will still use the NEW API that replaces the GDI+ graphics subsystem in WindowsXP, and is NOT dependant on hardware, what so ever.
If Microsoft disabled the whole new graphics API because of turning off Aero would break the entire OS, not just turn off the shinny window frames.
Check out www.microsoft.com or msdn.microsoft.com or even freaking wikipedia.com
Even Google.com, there are some cool articles that explain this in detail and even go as far to explain the Vector Composer that sets the new Graphics subsystem of Vista apart from anything else.
One of the BFD's about Aero is that apps can be rescaled etc
Ok, might as well post this here, even though I have seen tons of people not know anything about it...
Aero is the 'glass' UI of Explorer and Window Frames, you also get a few functions that are also part of Explorer, like Flip 3D.
However, the scaleable UI of applications and Windows Vista itself have NOTHING to do with AERO.
The scaleable UI and the new graphics subsystem and API in Vista is based on WPF (Avalon) and this NEVER turns off, even if your Video card is VGA Only from 1990.
So everyone please STOP assuming this has anything to do with the Vector composer, the new API replacing GDI+ or any other cool rumor people that know little about Vista want to dig out of the closet.
Here, check out this great site calle Wikipedia.com, it even will explain this to you. Or people could go to www.microsoft.com and actually read this for themselves.
(This post is for all the people in this thread, not just the one I am responding too. If you don't know enough about Vista's Graphics and think it is like OSX's, or think the Aero 'Theme' is Avalon or any other confusing thing, either don't worry about it cause you aren't ever planning on using Vista, or if you might or have customers that might, go check it out so you aren't making silly statements.)
Does Windows have multiple desktops out of the box yet? That's something I couldn't do without
This is something provided by almost all Video cards as a utility, there are also 10 to 100s of utilities that provide this functionality. I believe there is even a couple of Microsoft PowerToy type utilities that have been available since 1995 to do this, before it became a standard staple of other OSes.
Windows also supports many multi-monitor configurations, even splitting the video RAM to utilize multiple outputs on video cards and especailly notebooks, even if the drivers don't inherently provide this functionality.
And yet no one went for the Enhance MetaFile format from the Windows GDI32/GDI+.
I thought people would be scared for Sun that MS might sue them or some flame at least.
LOL
RISC OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS) certainly had an active task bar long before Windows. It worked a bit differently (better actually) from the one in Windows. Each running program had an icon in the taskbar. Open windows from the applications could be accessed from a menu invoked from these icons. There were also a lot of toys/tools that could be run on the taskbar such as clocks, menus, etc.
I thought maybe this would be brought up...
However it was something I had used, and even though it did meet some of the concepts of a taskbar, it was not inherently any more functional than the NextStep Bar, which predated the RiscOS UI bar.
The RiscOS UI bar was also very 'minimal' in function compared to the later versions that appearred in 1996, after Windows 95 was on the market. Then adding things like running applicaion lists and other thing that were first presented in Win95.
If you look at the Bar prior to Win95, it was basically a Next Bar type of functionality, and if you use any of the current versions, you will notice that the bar has evolved to mimic some of the Win95 features that are also found in other OSes like KDE.
Go back to the Wikipedia article you reference, the timeline of what features where in the bar are what you need to pay attention to.
It provided a launcher, some applet display like NextStep (clock for example) and Drive Icons or Control Panel funcitons on the bar, it wasn't a taskbar to quickly flip/tab between running applications.
I'm sure there was some influence from both Next and the RiscOS UI bar, but for providing the funcitonality added in Win95, neither did what the main function of the taskbar did.
Why can so many 'tech' writers miss the simple stuff?
PDAs were always basic 'PC' functionality that fits in the pocket.
The older PDA market was based on a simple fact. Portable processing power and storage managed with battery life.
If you play out battery life at the important item, phones are surpassing PDA technology of a couple years ago, and giving you 100% of the functionality. Look at the smartphone from MS even, it is a low overhead OS but you can browse the net with standard browser specifications and even do Remote desktop from your phone into your office PC. One other note on battery life, is the new portable small form factor PC technologies run 3-5hrs, and this is more than most cell phones do now, especially if you are in a call, which sucks the battery 10 times faster than basic PDA operations. It also wasn't that long ago Cell phones had 45min talk times and had to be rechared every 6-8hrs.
As for storage and media storage, Media Players like iPods and from other companies again surpass the PDA capabilities. Even some Phones, like my older Motolora V710 has 8gb storage, more than enough for most basic music libraries and a few movies, video clips and photos.
Processing power is being dominated by the small form factor PCs, like Microsoft and other companies are pushing, that offer desktop OSes on a device that fits in your pocket and again have large storage, but not quite the PDA or Phone Batter life, yet...
The latter of these are the most important. When you can carry your computer in a small form factor, and still have access to a reasonable display and run all your basic computing tools and even new computing tools like VoIP and Cell capabilties on it with a comperable battery life, then THESE devices will be the next PDAs.
Sure PDA technology as we know is over to a degree, but will continue to exist in SmartPhone and other phone technologies and Media Players until the portable PCs can hit the battery life and size needs of basic cell phones and media players.
However when they do hit the battery life and sizes needed for an all day usage in and out of the pocket, PDAs and even PocketPC/Smartphone and other Phone OS technologies will no longer be needed. So that will be the death of PDA OSes...
Microsoft has even realized that the PocketPC/WindowsCE OS is not a long term OS solution, even WindowsXP embedded is already replacing WindowsCE technologies in smart clients and routers and fits on small flash memory.
The PDA is dead, but only if you continue to see a PDA in the OLD model. A tiny computer trying to do the best it can with the hardware available in a small format was what PDAs were.
As both the open source solutions and MS solutions for example can run full OSes on devices that are as small as phone, then that will be the new PDA, but not just a freaking organizer.
People could argure the success of some of the early PDAs were due to the simplistic non-full OS style format and applications, but these same types of applications can run on full OSes as well, and you could use the 'simplified' interface, or switch to your normal apps if you are not on the go. Take the Media Center Interface for an example of a dual 'UI/Interface' model for a single OS.
Both OSX and Windows have good Speech and Handwriting technologies, and Vista will be bringing even a new level of them to the market so they are more common occasional use.
So there is NOTHING a full OS can't do that a PDA can...
You'd have a great point, that is if MS actually *was* the first one with a taskbar like this...
Ok, I'll bite, cause I would truly like to know what I missed. I have been around longer than I would like to admit, and I know of menu launchers, and even the Next Button Launcher, but I do know know of any other 'active' taskbar concept that existed prior to Win95(Chicago).
If you have a reference to one, I would love to see it, and will admit I was mistaken. I did a quick reference search after seeing your post, and even digging through Wikipedia and older OS and Window Manager references I could locate, yet nothing I could find had an active taskbar concept prior to Windows even though I could find several latter implementations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taskbar
Curious to what you find, take care...
Except when you have lots of apps open. On both XP(work) and whatever KDE version I use now 3.2..I think(home), the default behaviour is to group taskbar entries per application once the taskbar is filled
That is why - being offbeat from the norm - I always run with the bar on the right hand of the screen when the OS supports it.
That way I can have 20-30 application windows open and each one is a unique button/tab. The multi-grouping is ok for along the bottom of the screen but I like individual quick clicks to get to everything, plus being able to see everything with a glance. The other suck part of running with the bar along the bottom or top is even with a 1920 display you get like 10 applications at most before they start grouping.
I'm a software developer
I hope you don't mean you NEVER use Windows or a newer version than 3.1...
You owe it to yourself to fully understand what is out there, and the development division of Microsoft has done some really cool things in the past 10 years. Not always perfect, but different and worth knowing to at least get ideas or very least know your competition.
Even looking at the *nix market we see the classic 'taskbar' in everything from KDE to GNOME and other variants. It is kind of sad that MS was the first one with a taskbar like this, but it isn't such a bad idea, so I don't mind see others parrot it.
I find too many experienced IT people that I interview and they are non-Windows people which is fine, but when asked what they are working on or why they like one OS, etc.
I find that many times they have NO idea how much the industry has passed them by. I get answers like, I use XXXX because I want a real 32bit OS, or real Multi-Tasking, or I am developing this cool application idea (an idea that has been built into Window or other OSes for YEARS) and they think they are being innovative.
Basically you can't be innovative, unless you know what else is out there.
Getting off of Windows is great, but don't close your mind to the stuff from Redmond, they surprise many great developers sometimes, by statistics alone, it has to happen. For example at the PDC in September they shook up the way a lot of us developers view software, and even some of us are developing on other platforms, their ideas were something good to build from.
I assume you don't mean you haven't used Windows to at least explore the competition, but in case you haven't or others in here haven't, it is worth your time...
Nice VMWare or other tool and at least run a test version somewhere. (Hint, if you are using VMWare or another comperable tool, you can use the 180day Free version of WindowsXP and just reinstall it.)
Don't get me wrong there are a few instances where Oracle still fits the model.
However these are disappearing because of Oracles relunctance over the years to adapt.
Oracle was more than a Database in the early years, Oracle, like dBase and other low end tools all had a 'user interface' model that locked all applicaitons using the products to be produced 'inside' the Oracle technologies.
Sure this exists less today, but Oracle's business model hasn't really 'got' the UI migration move of the industry.
Even old MS Access and early MS SQL both had development interfaces, but where the products shined is that you could use ANY tool to create an interface to these database technologies. (Using MS examples here because of the timeline and people's familiarity)
Oracle didn't 'get this', instead to use Oracle, you had to NOT ONLY develop your application in the Oracle interface, but were locked to the Oracle keystrokes for operations, doing searches, etc. Which was VERY non user friendly.
Oracle didn't really care, as Oracle did (and still does) made good money on companies not only buying the product, getting developers trained to build a solution in Oracle, and then sending all the employees to learn how to use the applicaiton in Oracle with the standard Oracle keystrokes, and modes of search the data.
This is why you found low end products filling needs that once Oracle and dBase were the answers for (having a similar UI model and development environment), and people were moving to Access and VB to Access development projects.
As you were purely working with data via the interface and SQL, and could create ANY interface construct possible.
This is what bothers me with Oracle, even 10 years later, they STILL don't full get that we don't want to WORK in their database, we want it to do its job and we will create custom interfaces in C++ to PHP Web interfaces.
(Yes you can NOW do this with Oracle, but this is not their bread and butter, and they would rather lock you into their interface and development.)
Also the costs of Oracle are incredible, it makes MS-SQL look cheap, and yet performance wise DB2, and MS-SQL outperform Oracle on almost server/client configuration. So why pay big bucks to Oracle, when you can ge a solution that has more options of usage, and runs faster, and is cheaper. (Especially when you look at their processor licensing, etc.)
Even MYSQL fills the needs of places I see companies use Oracle just becuase it is what they have 'always' used, not because it is the best solution.
We work with companies that are still in the Oracle model, and don't plan on changing because of technical legacy reasons or old IT Oracle admins that don't want to learn how to manage other solutions.
And this is really sad. I see these companies have to schedule long down times for backups, and other Database maintenance routines that are just NOT something you find with DB2, MSSQL, or even MYSQL. The next time you visit a major companies site, and they have a daily downtime policy (like a bank, or even Sony's Online servers), it is because they are using Oracle. Sad...
It's quite obviously the opposite, as the drivers that Apple is providing are the ones that the 'coder community' couldn't get working on their own. Therefore the driver availability for new hardware is not where you say it is.
What does this have to do with CODERS? It is NEW Hardware, APPLE Hardware, Intel/Apple Mainboards. Of course either Apple or Intel would have to provide drivers.
Do you even have a freaking clue or just like to post?