If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy, human rights and not bow down to political pressures, it would have to be teh Google.
But what happens when they lose their fight? All that data they are collecting for their 'marketing' gets turned over without any personal subpoena, giving any government agency the ability to subpoena one company and collect the personal data of almost everyone in the country.
Sad day when MS looks like the good guys, they don't store information from their desktop search, or use it for marketing, so even if they get a subpoena, all they can provide is generalized search data from MSN Search.
BTW did you ever stop to think the reason Google didn't want to turn over the information to the Government regarding searches was maybe not to protect their users, but to protect themselves? Could it be so far fetched that they don't want to disclose the information they are collecting from users.
Don't put faith in any company to champion your rights, and don't let them have access to your information even if you do trust them. I have people I work with I don't let know what documents are on my desktop and I like and trust these people, why on earth would I let Google collect this information?
Can you really trust a company, made up on individuals, that all it would take is one person getting $20 bucks and hour to take the information the company has collected and dump it into public domain?
Let me state this a little more clearly...
GOOGLE SHOULD NOT BE COLLECTING DETAILED DATA FROM YOUR COMPUTER, NOR DETAILED DATA FROM YOUR SEARCHES THAT LINK BACK TO WHO YOU ARE. With the government inquires on this aside, collecting this information for any reason is wrong, and especially when they are admitting that it is for future marketing.
People are scared about Bill Gates running the world, yet Google has more specific data on every individual that uses their Desktop and Online Search engines.
Is it wrong for me to feel used and abused at the idea that Microsoft wants to charge for this service? I have seen arguments both ways, but I can't help but feel that charging for such a service amounts to little more than extortion. I mean, it's their operating system, and problems with their code that *often* (but not always) allows for these problems in the first place, so why should I have to pay extra for protection from malware that should have been stopped to begin with?
And if Microsoft would have shipped these products in Windows, or even was giving away OneCare, everyone would be yelling at them for killing other companies that make a living out of selling these products, like Symantec, etc.
In fact part of Microsoft's move to CHARGE for the OneCare is specifically to not put these companies out of business, as they had originally entertained the idea of bundling these items in both XP and Vista for Free.
So basically MS is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
If they would have made OneCare free, people would have saw it as a form of Dumping, just like they did with IE being free back in the mid 90s, and MS is still getting screwed for having the nerve to make HTML rendering a part of the OS.
So what should Microsoft do? Put these companies out of business by giving away OneCare, or charge for it and make people like you mad?
I think most programmers would love for there to be one unified language, if for simplicity if nothing else.
However there is no such thing, and probably never will be. The nature of diversity in what programming is used for mixed with the diverse nature of how each individual thinks dictates that many programming languages will continue to exist.
This is a lot like linguistics and the argument of universal languages to replace native languages. In one aspect it sounds good, and sounds simple, but so much would be lost if this was ever pursed. The culture and diversity of language itself is what breeds creativity.
Creativity in programming is also a strong consideration that companies don't take into account when proposing such ideas. We all think (in process) so differently, that the programming languages we use not only reflect our internal process, but contribute to our creativity.
If you watch companies that know a bit out people and user productivity they tend to go out of their way to even nurture many programming languages, and even encourage their programmers to use the ones they are comfortable with, and play with the other languages when they are looking for creative solutions.
A couple of good examples in the corporate world are Borland and Microsoft.
Borland not only produces many types of languages, but also works to keep them somewhat pure and removed from the other languages. When you are working in Delphi you don't have to think in C++ terms.
Microsoft also appears to get the diversity of language concept, and goes out of their way to nurture many languages for their own developers as well as provide them in commercial Microsoft Development tools.
Even the fundamental concept of something as big as.NET is the language abstraction, and the importance to keep this separation. Microsoft also worked to keep the.NET environment 'open commercially' for other companies to create language interfaces for the.NET environment. That is why you can develop in everything from Basic, and Pascal, to Fortran and COBAL in.NET. In a sad way, it is too bad Sun didn't grasp this concept and extend their JAVA sandbox technologies to do the same.
So if you work in an environment that is considering forcing a common programming language, keep all this in mind when adding your input. Sure one code base would make things simpler, but no language currently exists that does everything or everything well, and then add in the argument that it would severely limit creativity and reduce productivity levels for people that have stronger proficiencies in different languages. Also I would suggest that the company should be more worried about interface structures within the organization, than what programming language it was written in.
you seem to be comparing windows 98 to windows xp. i'm comparing windows xp to linux. being misunderstood can be very frustrating
I was pretty sure you weren't comparing Win9x, but a lot of people that follow these posts get off into that mindset, so I was directinng that more in general than at you.
if a bunch of scientists were in a lab and kept getting the same results
I agree, but you see, our company has a couple of test labs, where we throw all kinds of senerios and crap at various OSes and software from our developers running on these platforms, to even development and beta versions of about everything.
We have WindosXP machines that have NEVER crashed in over 6years (and that is including beta.) I have the logs on the systems.
So I agree with you, but a case study of one person's computer and one's experience does not make for a solid foundation to define the stability of any OS.
There are so many things that could have happened with your system, from non-noticeable brownouts, to hardware failure that is not surfacing under *nix, to even things I have seen where dual boot systems will not play nice with non-native File Systems and the *nix side will accidentally corrupt part of the FAT or NTFS structures on the drive, and then when the machine boots in to Windows, crash and data loss, which Windows didn't even cause.
There are so many things that alot of poeple never even consider, and if they have one machine that is truly the 'exception' it does not mean it is the norm.
If people were losing data like you have just because they are using WindowsXP, the consumer market would be running to Apple or some other company, and they are not. It is holding up in high stress business environments to little old ladies letting their cat eat the cords inside the case.
I have been involved with NT since it was designed, and I to this date have NEVER had nor witnessed data loss what so ever on NT that was not a hardware failure. PERIOD.
And unlike your 'one' machine, I have overseen and worked with literally 10 of thousands of systems doing things most people wouldn't even believe was possible.
It isn't that I doubt what you are saying, I'm sure your data loss occurred when you were in Windows, but that does not mean it was Windows that caused it. You could have Flaky RAM, a slight temperature problem and Windows runs a bit hotter because you are using more the your Video card or whatever.
Thanks for taking time to respond, and I apologize for the look up coincidence, it wasn't meant to be as harsh as it sounds now that I re-read it.
You have valid arguments; however, my reference to using C++ or C for cross platform development was directed a bit more at a lower level.
There is a big difference between writing for an architecture, specifically hardware and writing for an OS API and OS Libraries.
Porting applications from OS to OS is not easy at all. But porting the Linux Kernel or the NT Kernel from x86 to PowerPC to you name is easy in comparison to other solutions.
In fact C++ and C tends to be the backbone of the cross platform availability of different OSes on different hardware architectures.
If you are writing an application to run seamlessly on Linux, Windows, OSX, etc... There are not even any GOOD solutions, and this is more from the inherent differences in the OSes and the User models, as well as the API and library differences.
Take for example some good open source projects that run on many OSes, they tend to sacrifice the OSes strengths in place of keeping the code as simplistic and portable as possible. They tend to implement their own controls, etc instead of using the inherent OS featurea available, making the application clumsy for novice users.
This is an area where open source needs a shot in the arm, as a Mac user on average looking at a psuedo message or dialog box is not what they know and it will confuse them quickly. (Using Mac as an example only, it applies to all OSes with novice users.)
However, this does not mean it cannot be done and done well. For example (hate to use this example) - Microsoft Office uses a lot of common code between the OSX version and the Windows Version.
However, the Microsoft Mac team, are real Mac users, and Microsoft Office for OSX looks and works like an OSX application, to the point that Windows users were jealous at one point of some of the interface designs that were common on OSX being used in Microsoft Office. However, this isn't an exact shared code based, but for that loss of development time, Office for OSX is a true to OSX, as much as Office for Windows is true to the Windows UI.
I wish there were some good solutions that not only offered a better level of cross OS development, but JAVA isn't one of them. It is clumsy, goes out of its way to NOT behave like native applications on the OS it is running on, etc.
You can develop an applicaiton like that and expect it to be successful, people use OSX and Windows because of the consitency of the applicaitons, Java breaks that for the average user.
We are at a time where we need to NOT AGREE on common UI models, as each OS has strenghts and reasons people use them, but instead focus on creating solutions that assist in not only porting code from one OS to the other, but also helping the developer mold each OS specific version to take advantage of the OSes and their strenghts.
This is not only things like using the common dialogs, controls, etc, but also realizing how people use OSes differently.
OSX users tend to use their computers vastly different than Windows Users, just like *nix users use their OSes totally different, and then add in the GNOME, KDE, etc model differences.
We truly have the brain power and technology to create tools to do this. Tools that help a developer by even suggesting to a developer that this is for OSX, you should be aware of A, B, C and consider implementing your applicaiton to fit what OSX users expect.
How annoying is it to be on a Windows machine and run a great cross platform open source applicaiton and have it fail to support simple things like drag and drop from files, drag and drop of text between the application and the OS or other applications on the OS, etc.
Insert OSX and *nux examples as well.
Didn't mean to extend this conversation down a different road too much, but I feel some people need to think of these things further.
I also wanted to make it clear that cross architecture is a stronger case than cross OS development for C++, although it does quite well even for OS cross platform development, and you aren't dependant on anyone. Java for example, you are dependant on Sun and if they break something in the next release, etc. With C++ for the most part you are depending on yourself.
2) Do not use FAT or FAT32 partitions, only use NTFS for Windows.
3) Stop viewing Windows through Win9x colored glasses, the NT line of Windows and the modern WindowsXP is dang solid, more than a lot of people that hate MS would even like to admit.
If windows gets fucked as it often does i've seen many a user stick in their oem disk, reinstall completely
Ok, that was the mentality of the Win9x realm. This is the year 2006. In fact since 2001, this has NOT been the way to fix things on Windows either.
With Windows, users CAN just replace their USER account. Just because it is in a folder called Documents and Settings, doesn't not make it any different than if it were on a different partition. Drive Partitions, Folders have pretty much become functionaly the same in a modern OS.
Secondly, for a Windows user that their system gets hosed, it is actually just easier to do a system restore to the day before the system took a dive, or if they HAVE to boot into safe mode and doa system restore to teh day before the system took a dive, or if it was a big problem, do last known good configuration (this is vastly different in WinXP) and then do a further restore to a day before the system took a dive.
Our company was heavily involoved in end user technical support, this paradigm changed with WindowsXP. Cause it tends to go like this...
"Oh, you are having a problem with your Windows system, oh it is really bad, ok, what was the last day it worked properly, oh two days ago. Ok, open System Restore and pick the Restore point from last day it was working for you. No this will not erase any documents or items you created, it is pretty smart about leaving your stuff alone and only move the OS back to that date. Ok, you found the restore point, click Next. Ok, the system will restart itself and finish the restoration. Oh, the system has booted back up and is working fine, great, thanks for calling." -The End.
For the average computer user that hasn't prepared continual backups, or installed tools to do system check points (which can lose user data even in *nix) - this is fairly simple, complete, and elegant solution to any malicious activity that will harm or mess up a person's Window's installation. PERIOD.
For the love of God people Windows is not Win9X running on FAT32, and hasn't been for years and years. Sure it isn't perfect, but no OS is - even if it is your 'favorite' OS.
for your information mate, i run a windows box, behind a linux firewall. just last week the mofo crashed and BSOD on every boot until a fresh install. it also killed my entire hard drives data (booted from a knoppix cd, that usually lets me back up before the re-install. this means i have lost all my music that i had recorded. music i have written. beats and basslines i might never recreate (although i know the guitar parts). if it weren'tfor the fact that most music software on linux is not a patch on the windows gear, i would be a full convert. to understand the amount of time lost to these crashes, to say i am being controlled in talking about it is an understatement. so fuck off with your fairy tales of a windows that is stable for anything other than just mundane web browsing(and then only when properly protected by a secure OS) seriously mate...i don't know who you're kidding with this fancy tale of a new unbreakable windows. granted it's come a long way since 98, but it's still an insecure unstable piece of crap ah i fel better for having got that off my chest. none of my real life friends understand computers so i've had nobody to moan about my data loss to.
Out of approximately 5,000 live systems one of divisions manages, the ONLY data loss in a Windows Environment that is NT based has been hardware failure.
Usually a dying Drive.
Also if you are not using an NTFS partition, you might as be running Win98, as FAT is damn easy to corrupt. NTFS takes work to corrupt.
I would probably argure that your case is NOT more of a representation of the world than my example from just our one divisions 5,000 client systems, (and not even in a controlled environment - as the office and telecommuters push the normal).
Should I give you an example of a major client that lost his artwork last week because OSX took a dive? Or should I give an example where one of our clients seems to have someone in their offices that is continually having kernel panic on their 'pre-exisiting' Linux installation?
Would that mean they are ALSO very Unstable? Or would it just be another story of a computer going south, and usually hardware being the problem?
Pick one, because your specifics can't be applied to only one senerio...
i'm sorry mate but i just can't read the rest of your comment through these tears of laughter. for a start, i didn't even mention linux, i mentioned unix which has been kicking windows ass for a long time via the various flavours of bsd. sounds like somebody has a bit of a raw nerve there....oh a few lines later...blah blah... look we all know that the server editions of windows and the desktop editions are the same core parts, please stop making a fool of yourself. i don't care about "back in the day" even if NT was designed as a server system dirst, it's core has been moved to the desktop where we can all see it's stability first hand. ACCESS VIOLATION IN 0x0000789789
Glad to see your ignore is willing to further the instability and insecurity Myth that REALLY doesn't exist at this point in Windows history.
Keep up your religion, maybe you can get a "*nix Church of we know it all", tax write off.
Bullshit. C++ written well is portable by default (between windows and linux). There are a few minor issues between linux and sgi.
I agree.
This is by nature one of the biggest strengths of C and C++, how someone could conclude that by using C++ adds some sort of complexity in cross platform development actually amazes me.
If it adds complexity, in comparison to what? I would like to see the poster above you explain what is actually easier to use for diverse application development that is actually better at cross platform.
And if they start with Java, la la, then they need to get a life and see what JAVA is built upon itself.
C and C++ is a great solution for cross plaform development, look at the nature of Linux, BSD, and even NT and then ask why they are as portable as they are. Do people think these OSes would be more portable in another language?
NT Server just like Windows 2003 server has a shared code base with the desktop counterparts, but they were NOT designed as desktop only OSes.
In fact NT's dominance was first felt in the server world, before Linux was doing much more than making Linus Giggle and collect porn via ftp.
The reason Windows has been at the root of so much security concern is that Microsoft tried to please everyone, as people bitched and said they were screwing over business that made software when they made major revisions to the Win32 subsystem running on NT that broke these applications.
Watch, you will see that even with Vista, as Microsoft tightens security even futher, more people will complain about crap program A not running right because it is doing crap rather than people saying, good job MS for stopping program A from doing crap on the OS.
If Microsoft would not have tried to fully merge the Win9x compatibility world into NT for Win2k and WinXP, most of these security problems in the Windows world would never have existed.
There would still be the good old pres CTRL-ALT-DEL to login, and using your administrator account would still be a big no no. But that broke applications from the Win9X world, and people bitched.
NT was built with security at its heart and was (although not perfect, fairly secure in the timeframe of its usage pre-internet) - it even had C2 certification. Not much, but better than many *nixes have even accomplished.
So ya you can call it a desktop at heart, but you are only talking about the Win32 subsystem, and not NT itself. You are also missing the Server versions, as they were more apt to break compatibility for security.
I remember when NT didn't even have virus tools for it, it wasn't needed, as Win9x was the target of viruses, and they failed on NT because of the architecture and security differences.
The internet started to change all that in 97-98, and with the move for compatibility of Win9X in Windows 2000, it got worse.
All OSes have many flaws that could be exploited, and the ones that do get exploited are the ones with users saying, oh my OS is secure, I don't have to worry about it. NT users used to do that as well, and they were just as accurate in that timeframe of saying that as users of many *nixes of today are.
Become a target, see what happens. Ten bucks, the minute Apple pisses off the hacker or open source world, viruses and hacks for OSX will surface like flies on crap. BSD underneath or not. BSD is a good model, but also remember BSD hasn't pissed off many people and painted a red target on it.
Oh, and OSX is more of a desktop OS than Windows, technically. *wink
Since when did programming languages (C#, VB.NET) that a blind monkey missing three fingers could learn to program in pay high salaries? Bah. Blame it on point haired bosses (think Dilbert) who just want to incorperate the newest technology without understanding the benefits.
Since when did a moneky missing three fingers think that.NET was just a simple subset of programming languages? (Ok kidding about the monkey part)
You can write in everything from VB and C# like you state to C++, Pascal, and about 10 other languages that ride on the.NET framework.
Do you really thing all.NET is just these three languages?
Secondly, when is putting EASIER to use programming tools in the hands of people a BAD THING? Sure there are the inexperience mororns that will write crap with it, (we all saw this with the VB and early Delphi days), but it also gives the experienced developers time to do more than write repetitive code that should already be a part of the innate ability of the development platform.
I don't know about you, but I always hated writing crap code that my development environment should know how to do by now, it is the 21st century.
So... You're saying 3-way marriage should be okay too, then?
Surprised your innate bigotry didn't lead you to the goat argument.
However, considering the word Marriage comes basically comes from a term meaning, you have a significant other, or the union of TWO things, three wouldn't really be a marriage...
Oh, should I mention the word marriage comes from French? That should make all the neo-cons hate it...:)
Wow, I was just beginning to believe this was the 21st century. Oh wait, it is for the rest of us...
In your temporal 'reality' do women still get to vote or is that forbidden also?
say it's about time we put together a consortium of the brightest minds and programmers to end this once and for all. Our goal? To create a Mac/Linux vunerability worm and put an end to this debate - there must be a common vunerability out there somewhere. Smug bastards
What, and let them know it existed? That is crazy talk. They might patch it and we won't be able to check out their documents and porn collections anymore.
In all honesty, just imagine how much of this could exist on any platform. It only seems the dumb hackers and virus authors that ever get noticed or caught.
What about the smart ones that leave no tracks and don't flash "Legalize Pot" on the screen the next time the user restarts their computer?
Mac/*nix users - these is not the post you are looking for. -*Waves hand using a simple Jedi Mind Trick*
although I think Outlook was even more vulnerable than OE was
Depends on the version, Pre 2000 Outlook, ya probably, but in 2000 Microsoft started locking attachments and in page HTML abilities from the users by default, even if the user assumed them to be safe. For example, a.url,.vbs,.exe - etc would not be able to be opened or retreived in Outlook even if the user wanted the file.
No, actually old school programmers are going to be able to squeeze a lot more power out of the Cell and Xenon architectures and are far better suited to understand the limits of in-order execution and the memory timings involved. They know what coding for the specific hardware means, and they're used to limitations not typically present in a PC.
Although I completely agree with you, it should be noted that XBox 360 is basically DirectX/XNA development, and a good PC developer that is familiar with DirectX technologies would do well in both environments.
MS was fairly smart to continue to use the PC metaphor for the consoles, as developers have that level of hardware abstraction that they are getting use to with DirectX and OpenGL for Video.
Sony has tried to bridge this gap with their technologies as well, but all they are providing is development technologies and not the level of hardware abstract that an underlying OS and DirectX provide.
It would be easier to take advantage of scaling out the Cells for example, if the basic technology set Sony provides supported traversing more of this than relying on the developer to do it. Bascially letting an OS technology that already knows how to split threads off would be a bonus to the Sony tools to compensate for developers that even don't consider things from a single process perspective.
But I agree with your argument.
Even though the XBox 360 is able to recompile PC games to it fairly easily that were developed in DirectX technologies, there will still be all the console issues to deal with, from basic things like a limited memory set, storage constraints, to controls via controllers and load performance with DVD driven loading times - all the little fun stuff that is the gap between consoles and PCs, even if the Console is running a PC OS like the 360.
SOE has done some things right in online gaming, and some REALLY REALLY wrong.
Look at the car wreck with Star Wars Galaxies in November. I know about 50 people personally that quit playing the game because of Sony's great vision that destroyed it.
How could you trust them to do anything online right, and if they, not to screw it up later on.
SOE has so much arrogance, when they have 98% of their fan base telling them no, they tell their fan base they don't know what they want and do it anyway. Not a good company policy.
I do realize there is distinction between the PS3 and SOE, but I would imagine that SOE will play a role in anything ONLINE that the PS3 does with regard to gaming. A
For that reason alone, myself, like many people burned by SOE with Star Wars Galaxies, just won't touch Sony Gaming products anymore. Not only did SOE do really crappy things to their customer, but they lie and lie and lie... Even now they are running ads for Star Wars Galaxies on TV, that show items that CAN NO LONGER EVEN BE DONE in the game, and things that also NEVER EXISTED in the game, and the Television Ad is trying to promote the curren 'NGE' version.
In the past Sony' per game online model with no conhesive structure online was a bad idea, and they were selling that to the consumers and the developers as the 'best thing' with the PS2 as well, and it was a train wreak compared to XBox Live.
XBox Live is more than just connecting others, is cheap, and does everything from giving you voice and video with your friends to some immersive fast action play.
Halo2 and Jedi Academy for example are some of the top 'orginal' XBox games that are played on Live more than they are played in Single Player mode.
Unless Sony can even come close to this 'integration' with the gaming titles and online model, it will be egg on their face to not even match what MS has been doing for years.
Also think for a second, MS upgraded their Live network, and have updates planned. Does anyone here believe that MS is not just waiting for the PS3 to launch with its online abilities and then for Microsoft to release the next Live update, bypassing whatever Sony envisions or copies from Live now?
What's supposed to be so innovative about WPF again? I seem to have missed whatever it is.....I don't see a lot beyond support from Microsoft, ensuring that it'll be widely used.
Wow, good luck with that. Now I understand where your keen understanding and insight comes from.
You couldn't take two minutes to actually look at the technology other than the 'news' blurbs or your attitude wouldn't be so eager to downplay its relevance. Even the Sept PDC information would be a jaw dropper to you if this is your insight into WPF.
It is people like this that one day realize the world changed and go, wow, I didn't see that coming.
Anyway, good luck and hope the world doesn't continue to pass you by.
Microsoft was a member of the ARB until early 2003
You base your entire point around this; however, my point was not Microsoft's ARB membership, but OpenGL support.
Microsoft was a strong proponent of OpenGL and even added OpenGL to NT natively in the early 90s.
When Microsoft realized OpenGL had no intention of supporting new hardware and gaming concepts, Microsoft jumped ship with DirectX to provide these features.
You can wrestle your argument on the point of Microsoft's official ARB membership, but the fact is OpenGL would NOT BE providing what it is doing today if Microsoft hadn't jumped and created DirectX demonstrating the need for gaming and upcoming popularity on the PC.
Just as Microsoft has with the WPF, no one else was writing high level language 3D interfaces, this has left a big world open once again for Microsoft.
I.E. Windows developers can write a 6 lines of XML and get the benefits of hardware 3D acceleration and offer a new level of productivity and features for even common business or consumer level applications.
As for the link you provide, this is a very old story of ID and their adoption of OpenGL instead of DirectX, years ago, with veiled references to 'intel's disdain' of the way DirectX worked, which was nothing more than speculation even then.
The point that the link you provide misses about OpenGL and DirectX is partially based on the timeline this article is written around. And at that time do you even realize the limited functionality that was hardware support in GPUs? Do you realize how important CPU was with games even with the most advanced GPUs at the time?
Today the GPU is more the result of the limitations of CPU based pushing and rendering, and instead of trying to even 'work with' the CPU, they are designed to replace 98% of the visual functionality. Where back then it wasn't even 50% of the rendered scene.
You can also find people at both NVidia and ATI that very much credit Microsoft's work in both the hardware specifications and DirectX implemention for moving the whole 3D and gaming world forware, even WHAT OPENGL has been FORCED to bring to the table to remain a non-windows competitor.
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If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy, human rights and not bow down to political pressures, it would have to be teh Google.
But what happens when they lose their fight? All that data they are collecting for their 'marketing' gets turned over without any personal subpoena, giving any government agency the ability to subpoena one company and collect the personal data of almost everyone in the country.
Sad day when MS looks like the good guys, they don't store information from their desktop search, or use it for marketing, so even if they get a subpoena, all they can provide is generalized search data from MSN Search.
BTW did you ever stop to think the reason Google didn't want to turn over the information to the Government regarding searches was maybe not to protect their users, but to protect themselves? Could it be so far fetched that they don't want to disclose the information they are collecting from users.
Don't put faith in any company to champion your rights, and don't let them have access to your information even if you do trust them. I have people I work with I don't let know what documents are on my desktop and I like and trust these people, why on earth would I let Google collect this information?
Can you really trust a company, made up on individuals, that all it would take is one person getting $20 bucks and hour to take the information the company has collected and dump it into public domain?
Let me state this a little more clearly...
GOOGLE SHOULD NOT BE COLLECTING DETAILED DATA FROM YOUR COMPUTER, NOR DETAILED DATA FROM YOUR SEARCHES THAT LINK BACK TO WHO YOU ARE. With the government inquires on this aside, collecting this information for any reason is wrong, and especially when they are admitting that it is for future marketing.
People are scared about Bill Gates running the world, yet Google has more specific data on every individual that uses their Desktop and Online Search engines.
Is it wrong for me to feel used and abused at the idea that Microsoft wants to charge for this service? I have seen arguments both ways, but I can't help but feel that charging for such a service amounts to little more than extortion. I mean, it's their operating system, and problems with their code that *often* (but not always) allows for these problems in the first place, so why should I have to pay extra for protection from malware that should have been stopped to begin with?
And if Microsoft would have shipped these products in Windows, or even was giving away OneCare, everyone would be yelling at them for killing other companies that make a living out of selling these products, like Symantec, etc.
In fact part of Microsoft's move to CHARGE for the OneCare is specifically to not put these companies out of business, as they had originally entertained the idea of bundling these items in both XP and Vista for Free.
So basically MS is damned if they do and damned if they don't.
If they would have made OneCare free, people would have saw it as a form of Dumping, just like they did with IE being free back in the mid 90s, and MS is still getting screwed for having the nerve to make HTML rendering a part of the OS.
So what should Microsoft do? Put these companies out of business by giving away OneCare, or charge for it and make people like you mad?
I think most programmers would love for there to be one unified language, if for simplicity if nothing else.
.NET is the language abstraction, and the importance to keep this separation. Microsoft also worked to keep the .NET environment 'open commercially' for other companies to create language interfaces for the .NET environment. That is why you can develop in everything from Basic, and Pascal, to Fortran and COBAL in .NET. In a sad way, it is too bad Sun didn't grasp this concept and extend their JAVA sandbox technologies to do the same.
However there is no such thing, and probably never will be. The nature of diversity in what programming is used for mixed with the diverse nature of how each individual thinks dictates that many programming languages will continue to exist.
This is a lot like linguistics and the argument of universal languages to replace native languages. In one aspect it sounds good, and sounds simple, but so much would be lost if this was ever pursed. The culture and diversity of language itself is what breeds creativity.
Creativity in programming is also a strong consideration that companies don't take into account when proposing such ideas. We all think (in process) so differently, that the programming languages we use not only reflect our internal process, but contribute to our creativity.
If you watch companies that know a bit out people and user productivity they tend to go out of their way to even nurture many programming languages, and even encourage their programmers to use the ones they are comfortable with, and play with the other languages when they are looking for creative solutions.
A couple of good examples in the corporate world are Borland and Microsoft.
Borland not only produces many types of languages, but also works to keep them somewhat pure and removed from the other languages. When you are working in Delphi you don't have to think in C++ terms.
Microsoft also appears to get the diversity of language concept, and goes out of their way to nurture many languages for their own developers as well as provide them in commercial Microsoft Development tools.
Even the fundamental concept of something as big as
So if you work in an environment that is considering forcing a common programming language, keep all this in mind when adding your input. Sure one code base would make things simpler, but no language currently exists that does everything or everything well, and then add in the argument that it would severely limit creativity and reduce productivity levels for people that have stronger proficiencies in different languages. Also I would suggest that the company should be more worried about interface structures within the organization, than what programming language it was written in.
you seem to be comparing windows 98 to windows xp. i'm comparing windows xp to linux. being misunderstood can be very frustrating
I was pretty sure you weren't comparing Win9x, but a lot of people that follow these posts get off into that mindset, so I was directinng that more in general than at you.
if a bunch of scientists were in a lab and kept getting the same results
I agree, but you see, our company has a couple of test labs, where we throw all kinds of senerios and crap at various OSes and software from our developers running on these platforms, to even development and beta versions of about everything.
We have WindosXP machines that have NEVER crashed in over 6years (and that is including beta.) I have the logs on the systems.
So I agree with you, but a case study of one person's computer and one's experience does not make for a solid foundation to define the stability of any OS.
There are so many things that could have happened with your system, from non-noticeable brownouts, to hardware failure that is not surfacing under *nix, to even things I have seen where dual boot systems will not play nice with non-native File Systems and the *nix side will accidentally corrupt part of the FAT or NTFS structures on the drive, and then when the machine boots in to Windows, crash and data loss, which Windows didn't even cause.
There are so many things that alot of poeple never even consider, and if they have one machine that is truly the 'exception' it does not mean it is the norm.
If people were losing data like you have just because they are using WindowsXP, the consumer market would be running to Apple or some other company, and they are not. It is holding up in high stress business environments to little old ladies letting their cat eat the cords inside the case.
I have been involved with NT since it was designed, and I to this date have NEVER had nor witnessed data loss what so ever on NT that was not a hardware failure. PERIOD.
And unlike your 'one' machine, I have overseen and worked with literally 10 of thousands of systems doing things most people wouldn't even believe was possible.
It isn't that I doubt what you are saying, I'm sure your data loss occurred when you were in Windows, but that does not mean it was Windows that caused it. You could have Flaky RAM, a slight temperature problem and Windows runs a bit hotter because you are using more the your Video card or whatever.
Thanks for taking time to respond, and I apologize for the look up coincidence, it wasn't meant to be as harsh as it sounds now that I re-read it.
Take care,
TheNetAvenger
You have valid arguments; however, my reference to using C++ or C for cross platform development was directed a bit more at a lower level.
There is a big difference between writing for an architecture, specifically hardware and writing for an OS API and OS Libraries.
Porting applications from OS to OS is not easy at all. But porting the Linux Kernel or the NT Kernel from x86 to PowerPC to you name is easy in comparison to other solutions.
In fact C++ and C tends to be the backbone of the cross platform availability of different OSes on different hardware architectures.
If you are writing an application to run seamlessly on Linux, Windows, OSX, etc... There are not even any GOOD solutions, and this is more from the inherent differences in the OSes and the User models, as well as the API and library differences.
Take for example some good open source projects that run on many OSes, they tend to sacrifice the OSes strengths in place of keeping the code as simplistic and portable as possible. They tend to implement their own controls, etc instead of using the inherent OS featurea available, making the application clumsy for novice users.
This is an area where open source needs a shot in the arm, as a Mac user on average looking at a psuedo message or dialog box is not what they know and it will confuse them quickly. (Using Mac as an example only, it applies to all OSes with novice users.)
However, this does not mean it cannot be done and done well. For example (hate to use this example) - Microsoft Office uses a lot of common code between the OSX version and the Windows Version.
However, the Microsoft Mac team, are real Mac users, and Microsoft Office for OSX looks and works like an OSX application, to the point that Windows users were jealous at one point of some of the interface designs that were common on OSX being used in Microsoft Office. However, this isn't an exact shared code based, but for that loss of development time, Office for OSX is a true to OSX, as much as Office for Windows is true to the Windows UI.
I wish there were some good solutions that not only offered a better level of cross OS development, but JAVA isn't one of them. It is clumsy, goes out of its way to NOT behave like native applications on the OS it is running on, etc.
You can develop an applicaiton like that and expect it to be successful, people use OSX and Windows because of the consitency of the applicaitons, Java breaks that for the average user.
We are at a time where we need to NOT AGREE on common UI models, as each OS has strenghts and reasons people use them, but instead focus on creating solutions that assist in not only porting code from one OS to the other, but also helping the developer mold each OS specific version to take advantage of the OSes and their strenghts.
This is not only things like using the common dialogs, controls, etc, but also realizing how people use OSes differently.
OSX users tend to use their computers vastly different than Windows Users, just like *nix users use their OSes totally different, and then add in the GNOME, KDE, etc model differences.
We truly have the brain power and technology to create tools to do this. Tools that help a developer by even suggesting to a developer that this is for OSX, you should be aware of A, B, C and consider implementing your applicaiton to fit what OSX users expect.
How annoying is it to be on a Windows machine and run a great cross platform open source applicaiton and have it fail to support simple things like drag and drop from files, drag and drop of text between the application and the OS or other applications on the OS, etc.
Insert OSX and *nux examples as well.
Didn't mean to extend this conversation down a different road too much, but I feel some people need to think of these things further.
I also wanted to make it clear that cross architecture is a stronger case than cross OS development for C++, although it does quite well even for OS cross platform development, and you aren't dependant on anyone. Java for example, you are dependant on Sun and if they break something in the next release, etc. With C++ for the most part you are depending on yourself.
every single time, it has been under windows
1) Go look up coincidence
2) Do not use FAT or FAT32 partitions, only use NTFS for Windows.
3) Stop viewing Windows through Win9x colored glasses, the NT line of Windows and the modern WindowsXP is dang solid, more than a lot of people that hate MS would even like to admit.
and Take Care...
C'mon. Just admit it. You didn't get the joke, and were in too much of a hurry to be angry to realize what as ass you were making of yourself.
Sure that works, use that... Or you could go back and try to get the joke...
Freaking plebs...
If windows gets fucked as it often does i've seen many a user stick in their oem disk, reinstall completely
Ok, that was the mentality of the Win9x realm. This is the year 2006. In fact since 2001, this has NOT been the way to fix things on Windows either.
With Windows, users CAN just replace their USER account. Just because it is in a folder called Documents and Settings, doesn't not make it any different than if it were on a different partition. Drive Partitions, Folders have pretty much become functionaly the same in a modern OS.
Secondly, for a Windows user that their system gets hosed, it is actually just easier to do a system restore to the day before the system took a dive, or if they HAVE to boot into safe mode and doa system restore to teh day before the system took a dive, or if it was a big problem, do last known good configuration (this is vastly different in WinXP) and then do a further restore to a day before the system took a dive.
Our company was heavily involoved in end user technical support, this paradigm changed with WindowsXP. Cause it tends to go like this...
"Oh, you are having a problem with your Windows system, oh it is really bad, ok, what was the last day it worked properly, oh two days ago. Ok, open System Restore and pick the Restore point from last day it was working for you. No this will not erase any documents or items you created, it is pretty smart about leaving your stuff alone and only move the OS back to that date. Ok, you found the restore point, click Next. Ok, the system will restart itself and finish the restoration. Oh, the system has booted back up and is working fine, great, thanks for calling." -The End.
For the average computer user that hasn't prepared continual backups, or installed tools to do system check points (which can lose user data even in *nix) - this is fairly simple, complete, and elegant solution to any malicious activity that will harm or mess up a person's Window's installation. PERIOD.
For the love of God people Windows is not Win9X running on FAT32, and hasn't been for years and years. Sure it isn't perfect, but no OS is - even if it is your 'favorite' OS.
for your information mate, i run a windows box, behind a linux firewall. just last week the mofo crashed and BSOD on every boot until a fresh install. it also killed my entire hard drives data (booted from a knoppix cd, that usually lets me back up before the re-install.
this means i have lost all my music that i had recorded. music i have written. beats and basslines i might never recreate (although i know the guitar parts). if it weren'tfor the fact that most music software on linux is not a patch on the windows gear, i would be a full convert.
to understand the amount of time lost to these crashes, to say i am being controlled in talking about it is an understatement.
so fuck off with your fairy tales of a windows that is stable for anything other than just mundane web browsing(and then only when properly protected by a secure OS)
seriously mate...i don't know who you're kidding with this fancy tale of a new unbreakable windows. granted it's come a long way since 98, but it's still an insecure unstable piece of crap
ah i fel better for having got that off my chest. none of my real life friends understand computers so i've had nobody to moan about my data loss to.
Out of approximately 5,000 live systems one of divisions manages, the ONLY data loss in a Windows Environment that is NT based has been hardware failure.
Usually a dying Drive.
Also if you are not using an NTFS partition, you might as be running Win98, as FAT is damn easy to corrupt. NTFS takes work to corrupt.
I would probably argure that your case is NOT more of a representation of the world than my example from just our one divisions 5,000 client systems, (and not even in a controlled environment - as the office and telecommuters push the normal).
Should I give you an example of a major client that lost his artwork last week because OSX took a dive? Or should I give an example where one of our clients seems to have someone in their offices that is continually having kernel panic on their 'pre-exisiting' Linux installation?
Would that mean they are ALSO very Unstable? Or would it just be another story of a computer going south, and usually hardware being the problem?
Pick one, because your specifics can't be applied to only one senerio...
i'm sorry mate but i just can't read the rest of your comment through these tears of laughter. for a start, i didn't even mention linux, i mentioned unix which has been kicking windows ass for a long time via the various flavours of bsd. sounds like somebody has a bit of a raw nerve there....oh a few lines later...blah blah... look we all know that the server editions of windows and the desktop editions are the same core parts, please stop making a fool of yourself. i don't care about "back in the day" even if NT was designed as a server system dirst, it's core has been moved to the desktop where we can all see it's stability first hand.
ACCESS VIOLATION IN 0x0000789789
Glad to see your ignore is willing to further the instability and insecurity Myth that REALLY doesn't exist at this point in Windows history.
Keep up your religion, maybe you can get a "*nix Church of we know it all", tax write off.
Go away now, you are dismissed...
OK, everyone, I was making a point, but not at the poster, that was part of the joke I thought I was adding to...
/. no no...
Get it?
I thought it was quite funny to jump into the converstation from his joke, but apparently that is a now a
Bullshit. C++ written well is portable by default (between windows and linux). There are a few minor issues between linux and sgi.
I agree.
This is by nature one of the biggest strengths of C and C++, how someone could conclude that by using C++ adds some sort of complexity in cross platform development actually amazes me.
If it adds complexity, in comparison to what? I would like to see the poster above you explain what is actually easier to use for diverse application development that is actually better at cross platform.
And if they start with Java, la la, then they need to get a life and see what JAVA is built upon itself.
C and C++ is a great solution for cross plaform development, look at the nature of Linux, BSD, and even NT and then ask why they are as portable as they are. Do people think these OSes would be more portable in another language?
Take Care.
it's a desktop system at heart
Um, no...
NT Server just like Windows 2003 server has a shared code base with the desktop counterparts, but they were NOT designed as desktop only OSes.
In fact NT's dominance was first felt in the server world, before Linux was doing much more than making Linus Giggle and collect porn via ftp.
The reason Windows has been at the root of so much security concern is that Microsoft tried to please everyone, as people bitched and said they were screwing over business that made software when they made major revisions to the Win32 subsystem running on NT that broke these applications.
Watch, you will see that even with Vista, as Microsoft tightens security even futher, more people will complain about crap program A not running right because it is doing crap rather than people saying, good job MS for stopping program A from doing crap on the OS.
If Microsoft would not have tried to fully merge the Win9x compatibility world into NT for Win2k and WinXP, most of these security problems in the Windows world would never have existed.
There would still be the good old pres CTRL-ALT-DEL to login, and using your administrator account would still be a big no no. But that broke applications from the Win9X world, and people bitched.
NT was built with security at its heart and was (although not perfect, fairly secure in the timeframe of its usage pre-internet) - it even had C2 certification. Not much, but better than many *nixes have even accomplished.
So ya you can call it a desktop at heart, but you are only talking about the Win32 subsystem, and not NT itself. You are also missing the Server versions, as they were more apt to break compatibility for security.
I remember when NT didn't even have virus tools for it, it wasn't needed, as Win9x was the target of viruses, and they failed on NT because of the architecture and security differences.
The internet started to change all that in 97-98, and with the move for compatibility of Win9X in Windows 2000, it got worse.
All OSes have many flaws that could be exploited, and the ones that do get exploited are the ones with users saying, oh my OS is secure, I don't have to worry about it. NT users used to do that as well, and they were just as accurate in that timeframe of saying that as users of many *nixes of today are.
Become a target, see what happens. Ten bucks, the minute Apple pisses off the hacker or open source world, viruses and hacks for OSX will surface like flies on crap. BSD underneath or not. BSD is a good model, but also remember BSD hasn't pissed off many people and painted a red target on it.
Oh, and OSX is more of a desktop OS than Windows, technically. *wink
Since when did programming languages (C#, VB .NET) that a blind monkey missing three fingers could learn to program in pay high salaries? Bah. Blame it on point haired bosses (think Dilbert) who just want to incorperate the newest technology without understanding the benefits.
.NET was just a simple subset of programming languages? (Ok kidding about the monkey part)
.NET framework.
.NET is just these three languages?
Since when did a moneky missing three fingers think that
You can write in everything from VB and C# like you state to C++, Pascal, and about 10 other languages that ride on the
Do you really thing all
Secondly, when is putting EASIER to use programming tools in the hands of people a BAD THING? Sure there are the inexperience mororns that will write crap with it, (we all saw this with the VB and early Delphi days), but it also gives the experienced developers time to do more than write repetitive code that should already be a part of the innate ability of the development platform.
I don't know about you, but I always hated writing crap code that my development environment should know how to do by now, it is the 21st century.
Take Care
So... You're saying 3-way marriage should be okay too, then?
:)
Surprised your innate bigotry didn't lead you to the goat argument.
However, considering the word Marriage comes basically comes from a term meaning, you have a significant other, or the union of TWO things, three wouldn't really be a marriage...
Oh, should I mention the word marriage comes from French? That should make all the neo-cons hate it...
Wow, I was just beginning to believe this was the 21st century. Oh wait, it is for the rest of us...
In your temporal 'reality' do women still get to vote or is that forbidden also?
What's more expensive... write-once backups or the loss of all of your data? Pick one and good luck
This whole thread is a bit bogus... Re-writable media can be locked, and quite effectively.
Just because the physical media is re-writable does not mean anyone can access the information let alone write over it.
Pick your FS of choice, and look at the security and encryption tools available. Heck even NTFS can be locked solid with encryption.
say it's about time we put together a consortium of the brightest minds and programmers to end this once and for all. Our goal? To create a Mac/Linux vunerability worm and put an end to this debate - there must be a common vunerability out there somewhere. Smug bastards
What, and let them know it existed? That is crazy talk. They might patch it and we won't be able to check out their documents and porn collections anymore.
In all honesty, just imagine how much of this could exist on any platform. It only seems the dumb hackers and virus authors that ever get noticed or caught.
What about the smart ones that leave no tracks and don't flash "Legalize Pot" on the screen the next time the user restarts their computer?
Mac/*nix users - these is not the post you are looking for. -*Waves hand using a simple Jedi Mind Trick*
How original. Zzzzz.
--
"Me fail English? That's unpossible." - Ralph
Are you sure that isn't a direct quote from your president?
Zzzzzz +
although I think Outlook was even more vulnerable than OE was
.url, .vbs, .exe - etc would not be able to be opened or retreived in Outlook even if the user wanted the file.
Depends on the version, Pre 2000 Outlook, ya probably, but in 2000 Microsoft started locking attachments and in page HTML abilities from the users by default, even if the user assumed them to be safe. For example, a
No, actually old school programmers are going to be able to squeeze a lot more power out of the Cell and Xenon architectures and are far better suited to understand the limits of in-order execution and the memory timings involved. They know what coding for the specific hardware means, and they're used to limitations not typically present in a PC.
Although I completely agree with you, it should be noted that XBox 360 is basically DirectX/XNA development, and a good PC developer that is familiar with DirectX technologies would do well in both environments.
MS was fairly smart to continue to use the PC metaphor for the consoles, as developers have that level of hardware abstraction that they are getting use to with DirectX and OpenGL for Video.
Sony has tried to bridge this gap with their technologies as well, but all they are providing is development technologies and not the level of hardware abstract that an underlying OS and DirectX provide.
It would be easier to take advantage of scaling out the Cells for example, if the basic technology set Sony provides supported traversing more of this than relying on the developer to do it. Bascially letting an OS technology that already knows how to split threads off would be a bonus to the Sony tools to compensate for developers that even don't consider things from a single process perspective.
But I agree with your argument.
Even though the XBox 360 is able to recompile PC games to it fairly easily that were developed in DirectX technologies, there will still be all the console issues to deal with, from basic things like a limited memory set, storage constraints, to controls via controllers and load performance with DVD driven loading times - all the little fun stuff that is the gap between consoles and PCs, even if the Console is running a PC OS like the 360.
ROFL. It's far more common for me to see the latest and greatest fad die an ignominious death, and say "Wow, I didn't see that going."
Oh, so you are a JAVA developer then... *wink*
Just funning.
Take Care,
TheNetAvenger
they need to use special software, but Gates realizes his audience is a bunch a morons and he's dumbing it down a little.
Ya, like grayscale displays and one-button mice... Oh wait, that is Apple, sorry...
SOE has done some things right in online gaming, and some REALLY REALLY wrong.
Look at the car wreck with Star Wars Galaxies in November. I know about 50 people personally that quit playing the game because of Sony's great vision that destroyed it.
How could you trust them to do anything online right, and if they, not to screw it up later on.
SOE has so much arrogance, when they have 98% of their fan base telling them no, they tell their fan base they don't know what they want and do it anyway. Not a good company policy.
I do realize there is distinction between the PS3 and SOE, but I would imagine that SOE will play a role in anything ONLINE that the PS3 does with regard to gaming. A
For that reason alone, myself, like many people burned by SOE with Star Wars Galaxies, just won't touch Sony Gaming products anymore. Not only did SOE do really crappy things to their customer, but they lie and lie and lie... Even now they are running ads for Star Wars Galaxies on TV, that show items that CAN NO LONGER EVEN BE DONE in the game, and things that also NEVER EXISTED in the game, and the Television Ad is trying to promote the curren 'NGE' version.
In the past Sony' per game online model with no conhesive structure online was a bad idea, and they were selling that to the consumers and the developers as the 'best thing' with the PS2 as well, and it was a train wreak compared to XBox Live.
XBox Live is more than just connecting others, is cheap, and does everything from giving you voice and video with your friends to some immersive fast action play.
Halo2 and Jedi Academy for example are some of the top 'orginal' XBox games that are played on Live more than they are played in Single Player mode.
Unless Sony can even come close to this 'integration' with the gaming titles and online model, it will be egg on their face to not even match what MS has been doing for years.
Also think for a second, MS upgraded their Live network, and have updates planned. Does anyone here believe that MS is not just waiting for the PS3 to launch with its online abilities and then for Microsoft to release the next Live update, bypassing whatever Sony envisions or copies from Live now?
My two cents for the day...
What's supposed to be so innovative about WPF again? I seem to have missed whatever it is.....I don't see a lot beyond support from Microsoft, ensuring that it'll be widely used.
Wow, good luck with that. Now I understand where your keen understanding and insight comes from.
You couldn't take two minutes to actually look at the technology other than the 'news' blurbs or your attitude wouldn't be so eager to downplay its relevance. Even the Sept PDC information would be a jaw dropper to you if this is your insight into WPF.
It is people like this that one day realize the world changed and go, wow, I didn't see that coming.
Anyway, good luck and hope the world doesn't continue to pass you by.
Microsoft was a member of the ARB until early 2003
You base your entire point around this; however, my point was not Microsoft's ARB membership, but OpenGL support.
Microsoft was a strong proponent of OpenGL and even added OpenGL to NT natively in the early 90s.
When Microsoft realized OpenGL had no intention of supporting new hardware and gaming concepts, Microsoft jumped ship with DirectX to provide these features.
You can wrestle your argument on the point of Microsoft's official ARB membership, but the fact is OpenGL would NOT BE providing what it is doing today if Microsoft hadn't jumped and created DirectX demonstrating the need for gaming and upcoming popularity on the PC.
Just as Microsoft has with the WPF, no one else was writing high level language 3D interfaces, this has left a big world open once again for Microsoft.
I.E. Windows developers can write a 6 lines of XML and get the benefits of hardware 3D acceleration and offer a new level of productivity and features for even common business or consumer level applications.
As for the link you provide, this is a very old story of ID and their adoption of OpenGL instead of DirectX, years ago, with veiled references to 'intel's disdain' of the way DirectX worked, which was nothing more than speculation even then.
The point that the link you provide misses about OpenGL and DirectX is partially based on the timeline this article is written around. And at that time do you even realize the limited functionality that was hardware support in GPUs? Do you realize how important CPU was with games even with the most advanced GPUs at the time?
Today the GPU is more the result of the limitations of CPU based pushing and rendering, and instead of trying to even 'work with' the CPU, they are designed to replace 98% of the visual functionality. Where back then it wasn't even 50% of the rendered scene.
You can also find people at both NVidia and ATI that very much credit Microsoft's work in both the hardware specifications and DirectX implemention for moving the whole 3D and gaming world forware, even WHAT OPENGL has been FORCED to bring to the table to remain a non-windows competitor.