Tiger is not a full 64-bit OS because a full 64-bit OS would be slower and more resource-intensive in every way with no benefit. Let me repeat that, zero benefit. The only reason Windows gets away with it is because the x86-64 architecture includes improvements like additional general purpose registers (bringing the number from 4 to 16, half the number PowerPC has always had), not because 64-bitness really helps everything.
You truly have no clue about OS architectures or 64bit based CPUs...
If you think there is NO benefit and that moving to 64bits would slow down the system, you need to do some reading.
How about other little things like addressible RAM, and being able to shove calulation intensive opertions over a 64bit pipe actually do increase performance - considerably.
I swear, Apple's marketing does a better job at brainwashing people on their lack of technology and features than any mind control group in the world.
Let me guess, if the next new Mac has no hard Drive and requires you to insert 25 USB Memory sticks to boot it, and then swap out 10 each time you launch a new application you will all have a very good reason why this is the most brilliant concept and the best way to use a computer ever. And even kill a goat to honor the brilliant Apple designers.
but then you have to scale the images in order to match the text.
This is why the Avalon Graphics system of Longhorn is so important. Scaling of both text and images are no longer limited to a pixelated basis as the current version of WindowsXP and YES, even OSX.
There is no reason to not have 150-300dpi display devices just because the OS is not capable of properly scaling the applications to readable size.
I use a 1600x1200 15" Laptop, and run it at full resolution. I might have better eye site than the average, but when doing Graphic design, the clearity makes our Mac laptops look like toys.
I'm sure a lot of people are probably thinking this, and there's a good reason: Because its not a triple-core cpu. At least not the way you are thinking (hopeing?). It has a PPC like cpu, but the other processors are not PPC's. They are much more simplified and specialized for processing graphics and such. Great for games, but not all that usefull for general PC tasks
You must seriously have this mixed up with either the Cell or some other procesor configuration.
The CPU in the XBOX 360 is a 3+GHZ (TRI-CORE) CPU and is fully capable of two instructions per core, just as the G5 is now.
The video is handled by a custom ATI GPU with 48 pipelines and has the memory integrated on the die.
The CPUs do NOT perform the video functions as you suggest.
The sony Cell processor is more in line with what you are referencing, so I assume that is what you have confused.
Even with Windows you will find this practice, because it is easier and eliminates locked files, conflicting applications in use that could prevent the driver in use to update immediately.
The lowest level Driver in Windows is the Video which drops to a low Ring, and yet it can even be dynamically be loaded and unloaded at any time.
However you will find that 99.9% of the time the Driver developers require the users to restart their systems. - It isn't because Windows NT's kernel and driver system is not capable of this, but just how the driver developers ensure there isn't a problem in the transisiton.
I just had to comment, your post is very refreshing and what I remember the OLD days of Slashdot being like.
It really isn't so hard to say, all OSes have really cool things about them, and we should talk about these cool things, as they enrich the OSes we develop for or use.
Why can't something Microsoft does actually be cool, or something Apple does actually be outstanding, or a *nix project create a whole new paradigm that is fantastic.
Anyway, thanks for the feeling of the old days when people didn't bite immediately when keywords like Microsoft, Apple, BSD, or Linux were used.
The real crime here is that Apple would have even shipped a computer with a 4200rpm drive.
Yes I understand the slight cost difference and the slight possibility of heat difference, but a 4200rpm Drive? Give me a Break; it is almost 3 generations old in technology.
It is hard to even buy a laptop drive that is not at least 5400rpm anymore, and the 7200rpm and upcoming 10000rpm drives equal desktop hard drive performance.
They saved what, maybe $10-25 on the computer by using the 4200rpm drive, and yet I would imagine almost every user would rather pay the extra money to have a computer with a hard drive with 'normal' performance.
How is this innovative or cutting edge, when the technology they are shoving at Mac users, and first time Mac buyers that are not technical was top of line 5 years ago?
Apple can do SO much better than this, and we need to remind Apple that if they want to be the innovators and 'technology' leaders they can't get away with giving people sub quality performance and outdated technology.
I know a lot of people here love Apple and their Macs, but there are times when you need to tell Apple what you think and PUSH them to DO the right things and PUSH them to provide truly the best technology they can.
(In. example, you still can't buy a Mac Laptop with a high resolution LCD Screen, you still can't buy a Mac with graphics that are even in same class as top of the line PC graphics cards, The G5 is a great CPU, but even OSX (yes even Tiger) does not fully even utilize the features of this CPU. Tiger isn't' even a real 64bit OS, and should be (apple controls all the hardware, this should be easier for them than Microsoft and yet Microsoft is the one with a real 64bit OS for consumers. There are numerous other issues that truly bother me when people tell me they are the 'technology leader when it comes to graphic design or imaging' - technically the hardware falls short of what is available to the PC world.
One other note on the G5, if Microsoft can take a tri-core G5 based CPU and put it a Video Game Console (Xbox360) at 3+GHz, why can't Apple do this in a desktop system and be a technology leader?
Ironic that the hard hitting G5 based Tri-core CPU from IBM is running Windows NT and Direct X for gaming and will be sold for playing Games.
Ok, I got off a bit on an Apple Rant, but darn it I used to love Apple back in the late 80s, and they keep disappointing me and disappointing me. I had so hoped OSX would be the saving factor for what I had expected from Apple, yet it is still catching up to Microsoft and Open Source OSes in a lot of ways and Apple still is NOT providing the cutting edge hardware that they 'market' that they are.
Apple fans, don't just accept what Apple gives you is always great, question it, compare it to the PC world, and if it isn't truly the level you expect from Apple, TELL THEM. Maybe some good user feedback will push Apple a bit more.
Take Care all... and sorry about the long rant.:)
Re:Its only the bad things we head about?
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Safari vs. KHTML
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There would be no fucking Safari if it were not for the KHTML team.
Uh, no. Do you really imagine that KHTML was the only game in town? Apple could just as well have gone with Gecko, [ttp] and at the time some criticized their choice to use KHTML as a starting point.
The point is Apple didn't have to write a browser from scratch, and in fact was able to take a lot of hard work and make money off of it for free. And in the long run have contributed pretty much nothing back to the people that worked hard to create the browser engine they are taking advantage of.
It wouldn't matter what technology they chose, they would be screwing over any of the other open source code bases they decided to use.
Oh wait, if you didn't get the previous post's point, I don't think you will get this one either.
I thought this was an open source advocacy site, not a 'suck Apple's butt site'. Apple has done so little for Open Source and have taken a lot from it with nothing in return that can be used by the open source world.
At least Microsoft buys the freaking companies when they want to use technology they didn't develop, they aren't running around sucking off Open Source projects and sticking their label on it and strictly complying with the licensing as little as they have to as Apple has been doing with OSX...
The whole Open Source community should have pitch forks and ready to hang Apple for what they have done to HARM and exploit the open source world, instead we find tons of Apple fans telling us how Wonderful Apple is by ripping off all these good ideas, and making them proprietary.
Were YOU using Windows 15 years ago? Windows 3.0 hadn't even been released yet (it will be 15 years ago next month).
Troll uh?
Yeah, actually I WAS using Windows 15 years ago. It was called Windows/386 and was the precursor to Windows 3.0. I also had 'distributed' beta copies of Windows 3.0 as well.
Unlike Windows, which uses the file extension as a determinant to what type of file it is, the *nixes actually open up the file and read the first few bytes of data. That's what the "magic" file is for.
Are you going to truly debate that this is ultimately the 'best' way to handle associated applications in a Document-centric environment?
Do you realize the nightmares that 'non-technical' people go through when they try to even FORCE an application to open ANOTHER application's document because of a mixed of association. This is the boon of the Mac User world. Our poor Mac users are always having to find a way to break the forks, and reassociate files.
On OSX it is even crazier, as like I said, even if you drag and drop the file into the application you want to try to force to open it, it will fail and try to launch the resource fork associcated application. Ya, that is a lot smoother and easier for the users.
Even today, XP doesn't do what you're claiming. (boots up plain vanilla xp, opens folder with a bunch of files, clicks on "thumbnails" - nope, no previews, just icons). Guess you have to have the "BHOs" - the Browser Helper Objects - for each one installed. In other words, no MS-Word installed, no.doc preview. BTW, the BHOs have been a continuous source of securty problems.
Well if you have the application that created the document installed, or a viewer installed that registered the thumbnail preview engine, then the file WOULD be viewable.
How can you expect an OS to know EVERY FILE TYPE AND DISPLAY a preview for that file type, if the FILE TYPE is NEVER Registered in the OS?
Magic? Elfs? Fairies?
The reason *nix variants can 'preview' a Word Document is that they have added the Word file Document Structure to the OS code base before hand. This is something Microsoft doesn't even do. Talk about bloat. Why don't we all 500,000 applicaiton file types for preview to our OSes so they can preview even Wordstar 1984 files.
This is absolutely ridiculous. And to mention that this somehow invokes a security risk? You have no idea do you?
No they don't. To hire as many developers, and the infrastructure necessary to support them, to compete on a 1-to-1 basis with the millions of open-source coders worldwide would bankrupt them
Not all open source coders would compare to the level of training and education the Microsoft team of developers could and potential do get. Unfortunately many Open Source coders are average joes that make code that gets by, has no clue about interoperability, UI, or ease of use.
This is EXACTLY why I am standing on a soapbox and trying to tell all of the average joe programmers in the open source world, along with the highly trained and skilled developers in the open source world, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE Microsoft in what they HAVE done or COULD do - EVER!
Most of the Open Source developers don't even realize that Microsoft could drop a true Linux subsystem on the NT OS, and it would be binary compatible with the architecture it was running on x86, PPC, and would also be able to have full NT intercommunication and on screen display with other subsystems like Win32 or Win64, as well as have access to the NT driver formats, making it the mosts hardware compatible version of Linux ever made, and it would be distributed and sold by Microsoft, and people that needed the punch of the NT kernel or the driver compatibility would and still wanted Linux would end up Running Microsft NT with Linux built in.
Most people here have NO idea of the GOOD features of the NT architecture, its subsystems, and its unique client/server kernal that makes all of this a possible reality that no current *nix can even do.
So if you want to bury your head in the sand and say, Oh everything Microsoft has done is crap or could do is crap, then you are only fooling yourself with your own ignore from pride.
Some of the outright ignorance of the other posts had me in the 'you have to be kidding that purported professionals wouldn't know simple facts' mindframe.
So I was having a bit of loss of faith in humanity, and I apologize for my zap response to your post.
I do agree that Microsoft has done a BAD job of making many of the features in their OSes known to many users. None of their marketing EVER focuses on any of the 'features' that are remotely technical, instead they try to dumb it down, and in the cross fire, the power users at the time that really would have loved the features, never even knew to try them, let alone the average user.
Even stuff that did 'just work' 99.9% of the world often would miss because Microsoft didn't do a very good job of telling the world or blowing their own horn, as hard to believe as that may sound.
For example Win98, one really brilliant and cool feature that was introduced with Win98 was used by many people, but I would bet that in polling people 99% of them never realized it. Simple OS Driver level sound mixing. Win98 was the first version of Windows to be able to stream multiple sound streams from various applications and sub sample and mix them to a single sound device without developers or users having to make any changes.
What this gave users was the ability to play music, and still mix in the regular sounds of the OS, and otehr applications without one application's sound stopping the sound output from all other applicaitons.
And can you find this feature even mentioned anywhere in Microsoft's marketing? Nope. Even today, all the versions of Windows since have had this feature, something many *nix variant still can't even do, and do you EVER find Microsoft touting this feature anywhere? Nope.
This is just one example, but why in the hell is Microsoft's marketing and development teams so disconnected that even if these features seem small, they are not at least mentioned or put in a long list of features like Apple does for each of its OS releases?
Please provide a reference that windows can symlink or hardlink a file, as opposed to a directory.
You want me to do your homework for you? TummyX posted several references to both.
You could do a CRAZY thing like open Windows Help, or even go all the way to www.microsoft.com/search and look it up yourself.
These were DESIGNED into NTFS back in 1991-1993 when it was created, the API in WIN32 were added for them around 1995-1996, and microsoft has included utilities in resource kits since Win2k (1999) and even as STANDARD commandline functions since WinXP (2001).
Third party utilities existed to create both right after the APIs were introduced and the mount point functions were added into NTFS in 1995-1996.
No wonder everyone hates Windows so much, they know NOTHING about modern Windows. I suppose everyone here compares the crash stability of Win98 with Linux 2.6 as well. WindowsNT is what Windows is built on, it is not the same code base or OS as Win9X, and every geek here all place should know the competition (WinNT) at the very least.
WinNT is not DOS based, it is not Win32, it is the core OS that sits beneath what most people here would call Windows (The Win32 APi and Win32 subsystem)
You're half wrong. In my MSCE class, the instructor said NTFS supports hard links, but there's no interface to create or manage them like there is with UNIX.
You need to find a MSCE instructor that knows what they are talking about. The interface has been a part of the resource kit since Win2k, and a standard part of WinXP - no resource kit needed. Additionally, the APIs for these have been available for a long time, that is why sysinterals had utilities to create them years and years ago.
A bigger missing piece than hardlinks are softlinks. Microsoft really needs those. That's a real space waster because I always seem to need to be able to use two or more different paths to get to the same files when working with legacy software.
Mount point, junctions, symbolic links, whatever you want to call them, are ALSO in Windows NTFS, and also have been available for a long time.
They are a part of WinXP again, and it is even how Windows creates volume mount points as folder links for people that don't want to mount new volumes as drive letters.
It is a part of windows like many other nifty tricks that apparently NOBODY realize windows has been doing for years.
Junctions are cool, but there not really symlinks. They work as symlinks only for directories (and can also be used as mount points and some other cool stuff beyond links).
Still, even though I can't symlink a file, this is quite a useful approach to have in my toolbox
You don't get it. NTFS & Windows supports both forms of Unix types of Sym and Hardlinks.
There is a difference between junctions and hardlinks, and both are capable in NTFS.
If you guys don't know you competition, then how will the open source world ever compete with Microsoft?
(Yes, I do realize you were referring to adding them to Outlook in 2002. It's funny. Laugh.)
No read again, this time slower...
I said this was the latest implementation of this concept that Microsoft had been using since Windows95. I had many 'search' folders saved on my Win95 desktop, except it was done with the find feature and it saved the criteria of the searches.
So unless your link pre-dates 1994 when Win95 was developed, you totally missed my point. And are totaly in love with a company that is blowing smoke up your butt and telling you it is candy.
NTFS wasn't/isn't a journalled file system in the sense that the people who care about journalled file systems mean. It's not journaling in the sense of JFS, XFS, or ReiserFS.
Oh really, shall you post the differences? Or links that explain how NTFS is not a journaled File System?
I would imagine the *nix designers of NTFS would love to be here to debate you on this.
NTFS was designed and is a full journaling files system, and has been since 1992 when it was first created in Alpha stages of the NT development process.
Shall I quote from Inside Windows NT, Dave Cutler's own words, or post links that compare JFS,XFS and ReiserFS where they have just BEGAN to meet the functionality of NTFS.
And NONE of these file systems DO ALL THAT NTFS does. You have several levels to load to get to the same functionaly that NTFS has out of the box.
1) Journaled File System (Yes truly journaled, even by US that do care what real journaling is). 2) Encryption at File and folder level. 3) Compression at File and folder level. 4) Meta-data abilities
Here are just a few that eclispe what other file systems can natively do ON THEIR OWN.
So go ahead and post your links, I am anxious to see why all of a sudden these FS that you specfically state have tried to catch up with, and are constantly compared to NTFS - even though you are telling us that NTFS isn't even a real journaled FS.
Enlighten us since you seem to know more about NTFS than the rest of us.
Thumbnail views didn't handle all media formats. Unde linux/kde, you see a miniature of any web page, text document, the first frame of any mpegs, and if you move your mouse over a sound file, you hear it. Also, if you move your mouse over an item, you get much more than a tool tip.
Have any of you people even used Windows in 15 years?
Not only did thumbnails provide a 'miniture' page view of HTML pages, Word Documents, and almost any Document file format.
In Windows 98, on the left hand task pane when you clicked on any SOUND, MOVIE, or Document you got an additional preview of it, and could hear the sound or even watch the movie in the folder window without even opening the document up.
These are all concepts that existed in Windows 98 for Gods sake, and you people still think Windows can't or didn't do any of these things...
How in the DARK do you have to be to not have known this.
I will once again go over my speech that I post here 100 times.
If you DO NOT KNOW what the COMPETION is doing you will never be able to fully compete with them. If open source software quality is going to EXCEED Microsoft software quality, then we better pull our heads out of our butts and pay attention to what they DO, DO RIGHT, and what they have DONE, and what their systems ARE capable of, instead of just focusing on what WE THINK their OSes can or can't do.
Wakeup, or Microsoft is going to snowball the industry again with R&D innovation and concepts that will leap frog all of us without by us purporting our ignorance. Microsoft may not be the best development company in the world, but they have the money to put in R&D to be years ahead of others.
If we are so ignorant to not even know what 1998 technology they had, how can we compete or ask more from our OS vendors?
Wake up Open Source and Apple zealots... You need to be paying closer attetion to Microsoft. You need to be out developing them in the open source world, and Apple users, you need to STOP buying the crap APPLE feeds you and DEMAND that the Mac OSX TRULY is leaps ahead of what Microsoft is putting out.
And unfortunately, it still simply isn't, the only lead Apple has is tight hardware integration and off-screen buffering for cute animatinos, that Windows Developers have PROVEN that windows is fully capable of doing as well, even though Microsoft didn't make it standard part of the UI.
In Xp, the thumbnail view shows the Word document icon, not an image of the first page of the document.
Apparently you have never used thumbnail views, because it DOES show the first page, for Word Documents, Excel Documents, Images, HTML Pages, and a TONS of other Document formats.
Thumbnail previews is a API that developers can tie into to give ANY Document format the ability to be displayed. It is not just Microsoft applications that use this, and HAD been a part of Windows for a long time... In fact the API extends to not only thumbnail views, but ALL icon views. For example, Corel takes advantage of this and even in Icon view the Icons are a preview of the CorelDraw graphic. And this portion of the API existed before the 1998 thumbnails Microsoft Introduced.
Geesh... See the ignornace is compounded, even when you post a reply correcting an ASSUMPTION, people are eager to post and show how little they truly do know about something.
NTFS was designed to reduce the fragmentation when every file was written.
Additionally since Win2k, Windows has done de-fragmenting in the background. Something the other 'unnamed' OSes have just started to catch up to.
And if anyone wants to debate HFS+ to NTFS, go for it. NTFS was natively a Journelled File system with no performance impact on system back in 1993, let alone todays modern systems.
For Apple to keep journaling off because of performance reasons in the first releases of OSX says a lot about the difference in the development. If Microsoft could pull high performance with journaling on back in 1993, why couldn't Apple pull it off in 2001 when the hardware was 10-20 times faster?
If anyone here knew much about Windows they would know exactly what the quote was referring to, and it is not simply background de-fragmenting.
ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously symlinks, Smart Folders
And you point here is? Windows NTFS was built with regard to symbolic and hard-links, and it was implemented in the Win32 API back in the 1990s and has been available to any Windows user since then.
As for search folders, Win95 had the ability to save 'search' folders, but not many people used them. This is why Microsoft decided to create a new search folder system that was announced for their OS back in 2001, and even implemented in Office 2003 in Outlook long before Apple even considered adding it to Tiger.
People that know so little about MS technology are the first ones to champion Apple for their 'innovations', when the people that actually know a bit about the technology like myself just shake our heads at the Apple marketing machines and watch the zealots lick up anything Apple says as the truth and give them the credit of creating everything...
For every Apple user out there that doesn't think Microsoft 'innovates' or has influenced Apple more than they realize. I want you to do this one test on your Mac, or even any modern *nix. Open your word processor, Type "I Love Apple" Select it (highlight it), and the change its font, then change its color, then make it italic.
Guess what, this was a Microsoft innovation from Word back in the 1980s. The whole GUI concept of SELECT AND MODIFY came from Microsoft, NOT APPLE.
So it is quite ironic that as these people are typing stuff, highlighting and modifying whatever they type THROUGHOUT their precious OS, they are using a Microsoft Innovated Concept that has been copied into EVERY GUI based OS since the 1980s.
So next time you select something and modify it, thank Microsoft. The next time you command click a mis-spelled word that is underlined in red, thank Microsoft, the next time you pick up text in your document and drag it to another location or another application entirely, thank Microsoft.
And these are such fundamental ideals in the modern GUI based Oses like OSX, people forget that it all came from Redmond, and continue to use these clever features while they bash Microsoft for never Innovating...
Geesh...
PS, this post is directed more at the thread than your post specifically, so don't take everything I have said as being directed to your post.
To be fair, microsoft has symlinks already, they are just called shortcuts. What they are talking about here is hard links, which unix has been doing for decades also.
Windows has both junctions and hardlinks for years as well, however many peole never use them. NTFS had support for them from its creation.
What Microsoft is talking about is having 'search' folders that display a set a documents based on criteria, like the search folders introduced in Office Outlook back in 2002. (Again a Microsoft innovation)
Also Win95 and newer had the ability to save searches, so that just opening the search would open the folder - again people did not use it.
The new version of this feature is what Microsoft is talking about, where the folders will have a better UI to access the 'search' folders and update faster instead of implementing a new search by maintaining a simple indexed system. (again something that was in Win2k, but never used because of the lack of support in the UI).
Everyone says Microsoft is stealing these ideas from Apple, but if you look back Microsoft had these concepts in their OS but the UI lacked for them.
Microsoft is simply putting some performance to the them and making them easier to use. As they did in Outlook 2003, search folders super easy and extremely fast in Outlook. Indexing and maintaining Inboxes of folders in execess of 10gb without a blink of an eye.
If I was going to say who was copying who, Apple copied these concepts, especially as the Microsoft Office team demonstrated more how they would work in the future OSes via their implementation in Outlook 2003. Which was in beta and had this conceptual feature long before tiger even was in the birthing process.
The Microsoft Desktop Search Agent is another feature where Microsoft is testing the UI of the search features, and as you would see if you have tried both, Apple is copying more of Microsoft again, than what they would want you to believe.
One thing about Apple, their marketing is more effective, and they have more zealots in their corner, Microsoft somehow doesn't have the same fan base where you have people consistently post 'we love Microsoft no matter what they do'.
PS this post is more for the thread than just a response to your comments, so please don't think I am directing everything at your comments about hardlinks.
I'm not familiar with setting up Active Desktop to, say, run cron jobs or searches, poll information about the current network connection and system status. Without resorting to ActiveX or other such architecture, I do not believe Active Desktop can interact with other applications, such as iTunes or iCal. Dashboard Widgets can, and with relative ease.
Besides, you can only run one Active Desktop page at a time, not the many componentized widgets of Dashboard.
Ok let's stop you right there... You truly don't anything about the Active Desktop feature of Windows. Applets can fully interact with the OS, Run applications on the Applet Pages, and you can run as many applets on your desktop as you want.
I have had a calendar page and Weather map I have used on my desktop for almost 6 years. Trust me you can run 100s of Active Desktop pages at a time if you wish.
Again, MSN Desktop is optional. Thus, developers need to consider whether taking the time to add functionality is worth the consumer response
True for the extent of its availability today, but you are forgetting that NTFS and metadata has been a part of the WindowsNT File system for years, and developers do use it.
Spotlight is a nice technology, but it is nothing new... Just like Sherlock was nothing new, even though Apple made a lot of people thing it was.
As for the 'Spotlight' search features that will for show all your Word Documents on your system no matter where they are located and 'save' this folder view is also not a new concept.
Windows was able to save Search Folders since Windows 95, unfortunately many people never used them because Microsoft didn't tell all the Windows fanatics that they had invented the wheel with this simple feature.
If you will also notice the 'search' folder concept in a more 'evolved' version was first introduced in Microsoft Outlook, which was in development for a more than a couple of years before Apple started on Spotlight. So again, who is photocopying whose technology?
And Windows XP can do this?
The point, I reiterate, is that the functionality is built into the system; no third party software needed
Actually Microsoft considered licensing this form of CD burning, as they licensed the engine from Adaptec anyway, and Microsoft licensed the Roxio engine as a courtesy, as Microsoft actually had in house code for CD burning
Microsoft however was under the microscope of product bundling, and by providing this full functionality into WindowsXP was considered by managers to be a red flag to the DOJ and everyone out to lynch Microsoft for bundling more products into the OS.
When Apple does product bundling and screws the companies that made a competing product everyone thinks Apple is wonderful, and yet when Microsoft even goes to the extent to license the components they want to integrate (even though they could develop the software themselves) they are flamed as bundling too many features into the OS.
It is really sad, as Windows users would like their OS to be as full featured as possible, but with the 'government protecting us from ourselves', Microsoft will no longer be able to just add innovation without approval from the US govt and EU.
Apple's small market share is the only reason they are able to get away with this.
I shall give you "a freaking break", when you stop ranting and begin discussing.
I actually apologize, as my comments were not intended to be directed at you solely, and more of a directed post in regard to many of the statements and reactions of many of the zealots that have no idea what they are talking about.
You know your Mac OSX facts far better than most people; however, I still attest that your understanding of the features that have been available or are available in other OSes for many years are old hat, even though they are cool and new for Mac users.
Just look at OSX - Windows NT, or Unix users could have made
No. They're webviews because they're written with extended JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. They're extremely easy to develop and design, as a result. (And in this, I recognize they're strangely similar to Konfabulator widgets. However, Konfabulator does extremely odd things with its threads and child processes, so said widgets are the most amazing resource hogs.)
Do you even realize that the Active Desktop feature in Windows98 has and was doing this almost 7 years ago.
Many products used comparable technologies. How is this innovative for Apple again? Besides the fact that programs like Konfabulator perfected the applet desktop concept a long time ago as well.
Ya, we can run Web applets on our desktop, just like the Windows98 users could 7 years ago.. Hurray...
Oh, and we have Ok, and partially working RAID support now. Hurray, just Like WindowsNT did back in 1993, oh wait WindowsNT RAID support back then was more complete than what we offer even today. oops.
Give me a freaking break...
There are more 'fixes' than features, and bundled concepts they have ripped off MANY other companies.
How about the direct Burn to CD feature - wow.. Adaptec's DirectCD was doing this back in 1998 as well, it was an instant burn process, NO staging as well.
Apple should be ashamed of every feature they tout as THEIRS or INNOVATIVE or REVOLUTIONARY when it was a feature or function that existed in other products and OS long before Apple even got their act together in making a solid operating system like OSX. Shame on Apple for stealing thunder and then telling the world that Microsoft only copies them. Shame, Shame... Shall we talk about the Xerox lawsuit they won against Apple for the GUI? Funny, no one seems to mention it anymore either... Apple is now the INNOVATOR. Geesh...
Spotlight, the wonderful new search feature? (You say it is special because it is a Service)... Bull... MSN Desktop Search is just as freaking functional and it is an experimental beta for God's sake. It has API sets for application developers just like Spotlight (so it accessible just like your service) and also tracks and references MetaData that NTFS supports natively, as it has since 1993 as well.
Sure this is a great new release for OSX, and I will upgrade my Macs... But to tell the world how wonderful Apple is and how advanced this 'Tiger' is, is the one that truly is living in a cave and hasn't noticed the rest of the industry around them for quite sometime.
It is a good update, it is nothing special. PERIOD.
The trouble here is that the Opteron processors are limited to 8GB of memory per processor
You're kidding right?
The 64bit AMD processors support a 40bit physical address space and a 48bit virtual address space, this means it can technically use up to 1 Terabyte of Physical Memory, and reference 256 Terabytes of virtual Memory.
Now lets put this in a real world senerio...
It is going to be impossible to find hardware or chipsets that support this much RAM, or even OSes that will natively support this much RAM.
So we will use WindowsXP64 (AMD Version). It fully supports 128GB of RAM as hardware allows for the AMD 64bit processor. (And this is not a Multi-processor configuration, as the Pro version of Windows XP64 (AMD) is only licensed for 2 processors.
As for Virtual memory, it supports 16 terabytes of space. This would be a rather large page file, but not impossible.
The 128GB physical limitations in WindowsXP64 are designed to meet initial and near future hardware requirements, as new hardware is developed that actually can even use 128GB for a DESKTOP OS, then WindowsXP will be updated to take advantage of the next jump in using the potential of 1 Terabyte of physical RAM.
As for the 8GB limit you quote, not sure where you got it or why you purport it...
(And I am NOT an AMD fanboy. We use Intel and AMD in our systems as demand needs for our desktop and medium server configurations.)
Slashdot Mirror
Tiger is not a full 64-bit OS because a full 64-bit OS would be slower and more resource-intensive in every way with no benefit. Let me repeat that, zero benefit. The only reason Windows gets away with it is because the x86-64 architecture includes improvements like additional general purpose registers (bringing the number from 4 to 16, half the number PowerPC has always had), not because 64-bitness really helps everything.
You truly have no clue about OS architectures or 64bit based CPUs...
If you think there is NO benefit and that moving to 64bits would slow down the system, you need to do some reading.
How about other little things like addressible RAM, and being able to shove calulation intensive opertions over a 64bit pipe actually do increase performance - considerably.
I swear, Apple's marketing does a better job at brainwashing people on their lack of technology and features than any mind control group in the world.
Let me guess, if the next new Mac has no hard Drive and requires you to insert 25 USB Memory sticks to boot it, and then swap out 10 each time you launch a new application you will all have a very good reason why this is the most brilliant concept and the best way to use a computer ever. And even kill a goat to honor the brilliant Apple designers.
Give me a break....
but then you have to scale the images in order to match the text.
This is why the Avalon Graphics system of Longhorn is so important. Scaling of both text and images are no longer limited to a pixelated basis as the current version of WindowsXP and YES, even OSX.
There is no reason to not have 150-300dpi display devices just because the OS is not capable of properly scaling the applications to readable size.
I use a 1600x1200 15" Laptop, and run it at full resolution. I might have better eye site than the average, but when doing Graphic design, the clearity makes our Mac laptops look like toys.
I'm sure a lot of people are probably thinking this, and there's a good reason: Because its not a triple-core cpu. At least not the way you are thinking (hopeing?). It has a PPC like cpu, but the other processors are not PPC's. They are much more simplified and specialized for processing graphics and such. Great for games, but not all that usefull for general PC tasks
You must seriously have this mixed up with either the Cell or some other procesor configuration.
The CPU in the XBOX 360 is a 3+GHZ (TRI-CORE) CPU and is fully capable of two instructions per core, just as the G5 is now.
The video is handled by a custom ATI GPU with 48 pipelines and has the memory integrated on the die.
The CPUs do NOT perform the video functions as you suggest.
The sony Cell processor is more in line with what you are referencing, so I assume that is what you have confused.
I have to agree with your post.
Even with Windows you will find this practice, because it is easier and eliminates locked files, conflicting applications in use that could prevent the driver in use to update immediately.
The lowest level Driver in Windows is the Video which drops to a low Ring, and yet it can even be dynamically be loaded and unloaded at any time.
However you will find that 99.9% of the time the Driver developers require the users to restart their systems. - It isn't because Windows NT's kernel and driver system is not capable of this, but just how the driver developers ensure there isn't a problem in the transisiton.
I just had to comment, your post is very refreshing and what I remember the OLD days of Slashdot being like.
It really isn't so hard to say, all OSes have really cool things about them, and we should talk about these cool things, as they enrich the OSes we develop for or use.
Why can't something Microsoft does actually be cool, or something Apple does actually be outstanding, or a *nix project create a whole new paradigm that is fantastic.
Anyway, thanks for the feeling of the old days when people didn't bite immediately when keywords like Microsoft, Apple, BSD, or Linux were used.
Take care...
The real crime here is that Apple would have even shipped a computer with a 4200rpm drive.
:)
Yes I understand the slight cost difference and the slight possibility of heat difference, but a 4200rpm Drive? Give me a Break; it is almost 3 generations old in technology.
It is hard to even buy a laptop drive that is not at least 5400rpm anymore, and the 7200rpm and upcoming 10000rpm drives equal desktop hard drive performance.
They saved what, maybe $10-25 on the computer by using the 4200rpm drive, and yet I would imagine almost every user would rather pay the extra money to have a computer with a hard drive with 'normal' performance.
How is this innovative or cutting edge, when the technology they are shoving at Mac users, and first time Mac buyers that are not technical was top of line 5 years ago?
Apple can do SO much better than this, and we need to remind Apple that if they want to be the innovators and 'technology' leaders they can't get away with giving people sub quality performance and outdated technology.
I know a lot of people here love Apple and their Macs, but there are times when you need to tell Apple what you think and PUSH them to DO the right things and PUSH them to provide truly the best technology they can.
(In. example, you still can't buy a Mac Laptop with a high resolution LCD Screen, you still can't buy a Mac with graphics that are even in same class as top of the line PC graphics cards, The G5 is a great CPU, but even OSX (yes even Tiger) does not fully even utilize the features of this CPU. Tiger isn't' even a real 64bit OS, and should be (apple controls all the hardware, this should be easier for them than Microsoft and yet Microsoft is the one with a real 64bit OS for consumers. There are numerous other issues that truly bother me when people tell me they are the 'technology leader when it comes to graphic design or imaging' - technically the hardware falls short of what is available to the PC world.
One other note on the G5, if Microsoft can take a tri-core G5 based CPU and put it a Video Game Console (Xbox360) at 3+GHz, why can't Apple do this in a desktop system and be a technology leader?
Ironic that the hard hitting G5 based Tri-core CPU from IBM is running Windows NT and Direct X for gaming and will be sold for playing Games.
Ok, I got off a bit on an Apple Rant, but darn it I used to love Apple back in the late 80s, and they keep disappointing me and disappointing me. I had so hoped OSX would be the saving factor for what I had expected from Apple, yet it is still catching up to Microsoft and Open Source OSes in a lot of ways and Apple still is NOT providing the cutting edge hardware that they 'market' that they are.
Apple fans, don't just accept what Apple gives you is always great, question it, compare it to the PC world, and if it isn't truly the level you expect from Apple, TELL THEM. Maybe some good user feedback will push Apple a bit more.
Take Care all... and sorry about the long rant.
There would be no fucking Safari if it were not for the KHTML team.
Uh, no. Do you really imagine that KHTML was the only game in town? Apple could just as well have gone with Gecko, [ttp] and at the time some criticized their choice to use KHTML as a starting point.
The point is Apple didn't have to write a browser from scratch, and in fact was able to take a lot of hard work and make money off of it for free. And in the long run have contributed pretty much nothing back to the people that worked hard to create the browser engine they are taking advantage of.
It wouldn't matter what technology they chose, they would be screwing over any of the other open source code bases they decided to use.
Oh wait, if you didn't get the previous post's point, I don't think you will get this one either.
I thought this was an open source advocacy site, not a 'suck Apple's butt site'. Apple has done so little for Open Source and have taken a lot from it with nothing in return that can be used by the open source world.
At least Microsoft buys the freaking companies when they want to use technology they didn't develop, they aren't running around sucking off Open Source projects and sticking their label on it and strictly complying with the licensing as little as they have to as Apple has been doing with OSX...
The whole Open Source community should have pitch forks and ready to hang Apple for what they have done to HARM and exploit the open source world, instead we find tons of Apple fans telling us how Wonderful Apple is by ripping off all these good ideas, and making them proprietary.
Give me a break.... Geesh...
Were YOU using Windows 15 years ago? Windows 3.0 hadn't even been released yet (it will be 15 years ago next month).
.doc preview. BTW, the BHOs have been a continuous source of securty problems.
Troll uh?
Yeah, actually I WAS using Windows 15 years ago. It was called Windows/386 and was the precursor to Windows 3.0. I also had 'distributed' beta copies of Windows 3.0 as well.
Unlike Windows, which uses the file extension as a determinant to what type of file it is, the *nixes actually open up the file and read the first few bytes of data. That's what the "magic" file is for.
Are you going to truly debate that this is ultimately the 'best' way to handle associated applications in a Document-centric environment?
Do you realize the nightmares that 'non-technical' people go through when they try to even FORCE an application to open ANOTHER application's document because of a mixed of association. This is the boon of the Mac User world. Our poor Mac users are always having to find a way to break the forks, and reassociate files.
On OSX it is even crazier, as like I said, even if you drag and drop the file into the application you want to try to force to open it, it will fail and try to launch the resource fork associcated application. Ya, that is a lot smoother and easier for the users.
Even today, XP doesn't do what you're claiming. (boots up plain vanilla xp, opens folder with a bunch of files, clicks on "thumbnails" - nope, no previews, just icons). Guess you have to have the "BHOs" - the Browser Helper Objects - for each one installed. In other words, no MS-Word installed, no
Well if you have the application that created the document installed, or a viewer installed that registered the thumbnail preview engine, then the file WOULD be viewable.
How can you expect an OS to know EVERY FILE TYPE AND DISPLAY a preview for that file type, if the FILE TYPE is NEVER Registered in the OS?
Magic? Elfs? Fairies?
The reason *nix variants can 'preview' a Word Document is that they have added the Word file Document Structure to the OS code base before hand. This is something Microsoft doesn't even do. Talk about bloat. Why don't we all 500,000 applicaiton file types for preview to our OSes so they can preview even Wordstar 1984 files.
This is absolutely ridiculous. And to mention that this somehow invokes a security risk? You have no idea do you?
No they don't. To hire as many developers, and the infrastructure necessary to support them, to compete on a 1-to-1 basis with the millions of open-source coders worldwide would bankrupt them
Not all open source coders would compare to the level of training and education the Microsoft team of developers could and potential do get. Unfortunately many Open Source coders are average joes that make code that gets by, has no clue about interoperability, UI, or ease of use.
This is EXACTLY why I am standing on a soapbox and trying to tell all of the average joe programmers in the open source world, along with the highly trained and skilled developers in the open source world, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE Microsoft in what they HAVE done or COULD do - EVER!
Most of the Open Source developers don't even realize that Microsoft could drop a true Linux subsystem on the NT OS, and it would be binary compatible with the architecture it was running on x86, PPC, and would also be able to have full NT intercommunication and on screen display with other subsystems like Win32 or Win64, as well as have access to the NT driver formats, making it the mosts hardware compatible version of Linux ever made, and it would be distributed and sold by Microsoft, and people that needed the punch of the NT kernel or the driver compatibility would and still wanted Linux would end up Running Microsft NT with Linux built in.
Most people here have NO idea of the GOOD features of the NT architecture, its subsystems, and its unique client/server kernal that makes all of this a possible reality that no current *nix can even do.
So if you want to bury your head in the sand and say, Oh everything Microsoft has done is crap or could do is crap, then you are only fooling yourself with your own ignore from pride.
Ya I totally missed the levity...
Some of the outright ignorance of the other posts had me in the 'you have to be kidding that purported professionals wouldn't know simple facts' mindframe.
So I was having a bit of loss of faith in humanity, and I apologize for my zap response to your post.
I do agree that Microsoft has done a BAD job of making many of the features in their OSes known to many users. None of their marketing EVER focuses on any of the 'features' that are remotely technical, instead they try to dumb it down, and in the cross fire, the power users at the time that really would have loved the features, never even knew to try them, let alone the average user.
Even stuff that did 'just work' 99.9% of the world often would miss because Microsoft didn't do a very good job of telling the world or blowing their own horn, as hard to believe as that may sound.
For example Win98, one really brilliant and cool feature that was introduced with Win98 was used by many people, but I would bet that in polling people 99% of them never realized it. Simple OS Driver level sound mixing. Win98 was the first version of Windows to be able to stream multiple sound streams from various applications and sub sample and mix them to a single sound device without developers or users having to make any changes.
What this gave users was the ability to play music, and still mix in the regular sounds of the OS, and otehr applications without one application's sound stopping the sound output from all other applicaitons.
And can you find this feature even mentioned anywhere in Microsoft's marketing? Nope. Even today, all the versions of Windows since have had this feature, something many *nix variant still can't even do, and do you EVER find Microsoft touting this feature anywhere? Nope.
This is just one example, but why in the hell is Microsoft's marketing and development teams so disconnected that even if these features seem small, they are not at least mentioned or put in a long list of features like Apple does for each of its OS releases?
Just amazes me...
Please provide a reference that windows can symlink or hardlink a file, as opposed to a directory.
You want me to do your homework for you? TummyX posted several references to both.
You could do a CRAZY thing like open Windows Help, or even go all the way to www.microsoft.com/search and look it up yourself.
These were DESIGNED into NTFS back in 1991-1993 when it was created, the API in WIN32 were added for them around 1995-1996, and microsoft has included utilities in resource kits since Win2k (1999) and even as STANDARD commandline functions since WinXP (2001).
Third party utilities existed to create both right after the APIs were introduced and the mount point functions were added into NTFS in 1995-1996.
No wonder everyone hates Windows so much, they know NOTHING about modern Windows. I suppose everyone here compares the crash stability of Win98 with Linux 2.6 as well. WindowsNT is what Windows is built on, it is not the same code base or OS as Win9X, and every geek here all place should know the competition (WinNT) at the very least.
WinNT is not DOS based, it is not Win32, it is the core OS that sits beneath what most people here would call Windows (The Win32 APi and Win32 subsystem)
You're half wrong. In my MSCE class, the instructor said NTFS supports hard links, but there's no interface to create or manage them like there is with UNIX.
You need to find a MSCE instructor that knows what they are talking about. The interface has been a part of the resource kit since Win2k, and a standard part of WinXP - no resource kit needed. Additionally, the APIs for these have been available for a long time, that is why sysinterals had utilities to create them years and years ago.
A bigger missing piece than hardlinks are softlinks. Microsoft really needs those. That's a real space waster because I always seem to need to be able to use two or more different paths to get to the same files when working with legacy software.
Mount point, junctions, symbolic links, whatever you want to call them, are ALSO in Windows NTFS, and also have been available for a long time.
They are a part of WinXP again, and it is even how Windows creates volume mount points as folder links for people that don't want to mount new volumes as drive letters.
It is a part of windows like many other nifty tricks that apparently NOBODY realize windows has been doing for years.
Thanks you saved me an extra post...
It is amazing that people don't know this stuff and it is ancient news.
And how in the hell would they have gotten MSCE without knowing something as basic as this? That is really the scary part.
Junctions are cool, but there not really symlinks. They work as symlinks only for directories (and can also be used as mount points and some other cool stuff beyond links).
Still, even though I can't symlink a file, this is quite a useful approach to have in my toolbox
You don't get it. NTFS & Windows supports both forms of Unix types of Sym and Hardlinks.
There is a difference between junctions and hardlinks, and both are capable in NTFS.
If you guys don't know you competition, then how will the open source world ever compete with Microsoft?
(Yes, I do realize you were referring to adding them to Outlook in 2002. It's funny. Laugh.)
No read again, this time slower...
I said this was the latest implementation of this concept that Microsoft had been using since Windows95. I had many 'search' folders saved on my Win95 desktop, except it was done with the find feature and it saved the criteria of the searches.
So unless your link pre-dates 1994 when Win95 was developed, you totally missed my point. And are totaly in love with a company that is blowing smoke up your butt and telling you it is candy.
It would be cool if it wasn't hardlinks but the ablity to spread a big file over multiple volumes.
Not sure what you are going for, but Windows can combine multiple physical drives into one volume, making file volume spanning an obsolete concept.
NTFS wasn't/isn't a journalled file system in the sense that the people who care about journalled file systems mean. It's not journaling in the sense of JFS, XFS, or ReiserFS.
Oh really, shall you post the differences? Or links that explain how NTFS is not a journaled File System?
I would imagine the *nix designers of NTFS would love to be here to debate you on this.
NTFS was designed and is a full journaling files system, and has been since 1992 when it was first created in Alpha stages of the NT development process.
Shall I quote from Inside Windows NT, Dave Cutler's own words, or post links that compare JFS,XFS and ReiserFS where they have just BEGAN to meet the functionality of NTFS.
And NONE of these file systems DO ALL THAT NTFS does. You have several levels to load to get to the same functionaly that NTFS has out of the box.
1) Journaled File System (Yes truly journaled, even by US that do care what real journaling is).
2) Encryption at File and folder level.
3) Compression at File and folder level.
4) Meta-data abilities
Here are just a few that eclispe what other file systems can natively do ON THEIR OWN.
So go ahead and post your links, I am anxious to see why all of a sudden these FS that you specfically state have tried to catch up with, and are constantly compared to NTFS - even though you are telling us that NTFS isn't even a real journaled FS.
Enlighten us since you seem to know more about NTFS than the rest of us.
Thumbnail views didn't handle all media formats. Unde linux/kde, you see a miniature of any web page, text document, the first frame of any mpegs, and if you move your mouse over a sound file, you hear it.
Also, if you move your mouse over an item, you get much more than a tool tip.
Have any of you people even used Windows in 15 years?
Not only did thumbnails provide a 'miniture' page view of HTML pages, Word Documents, and almost any Document file format.
In Windows 98, on the left hand task pane when you clicked on any SOUND, MOVIE, or Document you got an additional preview of it, and could hear the sound or even watch the movie in the folder window without even opening the document up.
These are all concepts that existed in Windows 98 for Gods sake, and you people still think Windows can't or didn't do any of these things...
How in the DARK do you have to be to not have known this.
I will once again go over my speech that I post here 100 times.
If you DO NOT KNOW what the COMPETION is doing you will never be able to fully compete with them. If open source software quality is going to EXCEED Microsoft software quality, then we better pull our heads out of our butts and pay attention to what they DO, DO RIGHT, and what they have DONE, and what their systems ARE capable of, instead of just focusing on what WE THINK their OSes can or can't do.
Wakeup, or Microsoft is going to snowball the industry again with R&D innovation and concepts that will leap frog all of us without by us purporting our ignorance. Microsoft may not be the best development company in the world, but they have the money to put in R&D to be years ahead of others.
If we are so ignorant to not even know what 1998 technology they had, how can we compete or ask more from our OS vendors?
Wake up Open Source and Apple zealots... You need to be paying closer attetion to Microsoft. You need to be out developing them in the open source world, and Apple users, you need to STOP buying the crap APPLE feeds you and DEMAND that the Mac OSX TRULY is leaps ahead of what Microsoft is putting out.
And unfortunately, it still simply isn't, the only lead Apple has is tight hardware integration and off-screen buffering for cute animatinos, that Windows Developers have PROVEN that windows is fully capable of doing as well, even though Microsoft didn't make it standard part of the UI.
In Xp, the thumbnail view shows the Word document icon, not an image of the first page of the document.
Apparently you have never used thumbnail views, because it DOES show the first page, for Word Documents, Excel Documents, Images, HTML Pages, and a TONS of other Document formats.
Thumbnail previews is a API that developers can tie into to give ANY Document format the ability to be displayed. It is not just Microsoft applications that use this, and HAD been a part of Windows for a long time... In fact the API extends to not only thumbnail views, but ALL icon views. For example, Corel takes advantage of this and even in Icon view the Icons are a preview of the CorelDraw graphic. And this portion of the API existed before the 1998 thumbnails Microsoft Introduced.
Geesh... See the ignornace is compounded, even when you post a reply correcting an ASSUMPTION, people are eager to post and show how little they truly do know about something.
auto-defragmenting in the background HFS+
NTFS was designed to reduce the fragmentation when every file was written.
Additionally since Win2k, Windows has done de-fragmenting in the background. Something the other 'unnamed' OSes have just started to catch up to.
And if anyone wants to debate HFS+ to NTFS, go for it. NTFS was natively a Journelled File system with no performance impact on system back in 1993, let alone todays modern systems.
For Apple to keep journaling off because of performance reasons in the first releases of OSX says a lot about the difference in the development. If Microsoft could pull high performance with journaling on back in 1993, why couldn't Apple pull it off in 2001 when the hardware was 10-20 times faster?
If anyone here knew much about Windows they would know exactly what the quote was referring to, and it is not simply background de-fragmenting.
ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously symlinks, Smart Folders
And you point here is? Windows NTFS was built with regard to symbolic and hard-links, and it was implemented in the Win32 API back in the 1990s and has been available to any Windows user since then.
As for search folders, Win95 had the ability to save 'search' folders, but not many people used them. This is why Microsoft decided to create a new search folder system that was announced for their OS back in 2001, and even implemented in Office 2003 in Outlook long before Apple even considered adding it to Tiger.
People that know so little about MS technology are the first ones to champion Apple for their 'innovations', when the people that actually know a bit about the technology like myself just shake our heads at the Apple marketing machines and watch the zealots lick up anything Apple says as the truth and give them the credit of creating everything...
For every Apple user out there that doesn't think Microsoft 'innovates' or has influenced Apple more than they realize. I want you to do this one test on your Mac, or even any modern *nix. Open your word processor, Type "I Love Apple" Select it (highlight it), and the change its font, then change its color, then make it italic.
Guess what, this was a Microsoft innovation from Word back in the 1980s. The whole GUI concept of SELECT AND MODIFY came from Microsoft, NOT APPLE.
So it is quite ironic that as these people are typing stuff, highlighting and modifying whatever they type THROUGHOUT their precious OS, they are using a Microsoft Innovated Concept that has been copied into EVERY GUI based OS since the 1980s.
So next time you select something and modify it, thank Microsoft. The next time you command click a mis-spelled word that is underlined in red, thank Microsoft, the next time you pick up text in your document and drag it to another location or another application entirely, thank Microsoft.
And these are such fundamental ideals in the modern GUI based Oses like OSX, people forget that it all came from Redmond, and continue to use these clever features while they bash Microsoft for never Innovating...
Geesh...
PS, this post is directed more at the thread than your post specifically, so don't take everything I have said as being directed to your post.
To be fair, microsoft has symlinks already, they are just called shortcuts. What they are talking about here is hard links, which unix has been doing for decades also.
Windows has both junctions and hardlinks for years as well, however many peole never use them. NTFS had support for them from its creation.
What Microsoft is talking about is having 'search' folders that display a set a documents based on criteria, like the search folders introduced in Office Outlook back in 2002. (Again a Microsoft innovation)
Also Win95 and newer had the ability to save searches, so that just opening the search would open the folder - again people did not use it.
The new version of this feature is what Microsoft is talking about, where the folders will have a better UI to access the 'search' folders and update faster instead of implementing a new search by maintaining a simple indexed system. (again something that was in Win2k, but never used because of the lack of support in the UI).
Everyone says Microsoft is stealing these ideas from Apple, but if you look back Microsoft had these concepts in their OS but the UI lacked for them.
Microsoft is simply putting some performance to the them and making them easier to use. As they did in Outlook 2003, search folders super easy and extremely fast in Outlook. Indexing and maintaining Inboxes of folders in execess of 10gb without a blink of an eye.
If I was going to say who was copying who, Apple copied these concepts, especially as the Microsoft Office team demonstrated more how they would work in the future OSes via their implementation in Outlook 2003. Which was in beta and had this conceptual feature long before tiger even was in the birthing process.
The Microsoft Desktop Search Agent is another feature where Microsoft is testing the UI of the search features, and as you would see if you have tried both, Apple is copying more of Microsoft again, than what they would want you to believe.
One thing about Apple, their marketing is more effective, and they have more zealots in their corner, Microsoft somehow doesn't have the same fan base where you have people consistently post 'we love Microsoft no matter what they do'.
PS this post is more for the thread than just a response to your comments, so please don't think I am directing everything at your comments about hardlinks.
Gee whiz, nice to know that eventually Windows users will be getting some of the desktop features linux users already have.
Do people really not know, or just forget that Thumbnail views was present in Windows98, long before it was in LINUX, or any Mac OS.
Who copied who?
I'm not familiar with setting up Active Desktop to, say, run cron jobs or searches, poll information about the current network connection and system status. Without resorting to ActiveX or other such architecture, I do not believe Active Desktop can interact with other applications, such as iTunes or iCal. Dashboard Widgets can, and with relative ease.
Besides, you can only run one Active Desktop page at a time, not the many componentized widgets of Dashboard.
Ok let's stop you right there... You truly don't anything about the Active Desktop feature of Windows. Applets can fully interact with the OS, Run applications on the Applet Pages, and you can run as many applets on your desktop as you want.
I have had a calendar page and Weather map I have used on my desktop for almost 6 years. Trust me you can run 100s of Active Desktop pages at a time if you wish.
Again, MSN Desktop is optional. Thus, developers need to consider whether taking the time to add functionality is worth the consumer response
True for the extent of its availability today, but you are forgetting that NTFS and metadata has been a part of the WindowsNT File system for years, and developers do use it.
Spotlight is a nice technology, but it is nothing new... Just like Sherlock was nothing new, even though Apple made a lot of people thing it was.
As for the 'Spotlight' search features that will for show all your Word Documents on your system no matter where they are located and 'save' this folder view is also not a new concept.
Windows was able to save Search Folders since Windows 95, unfortunately many people never used them because Microsoft didn't tell all the Windows fanatics that they had invented the wheel with this simple feature.
If you will also notice the 'search' folder concept in a more 'evolved' version was first introduced in Microsoft Outlook, which was in development for a more than a couple of years before Apple started on Spotlight. So again, who is photocopying whose technology?
And Windows XP can do this?
The point, I reiterate, is that the functionality is built into the system; no third party software needed
Actually Microsoft considered licensing this form of CD burning, as they licensed the engine from Adaptec anyway, and Microsoft licensed the Roxio engine as a courtesy, as Microsoft actually had in house code for CD burning
Microsoft however was under the microscope of product bundling, and by providing this full functionality into WindowsXP was considered by managers to be a red flag to the DOJ and everyone out to lynch Microsoft for bundling more products into the OS.
When Apple does product bundling and screws the companies that made a competing product everyone thinks Apple is wonderful, and yet when Microsoft even goes to the extent to license the components they want to integrate (even though they could develop the software themselves) they are flamed as bundling too many features into the OS.
It is really sad, as Windows users would like their OS to be as full featured as possible, but with the 'government protecting us from ourselves', Microsoft will no longer be able to just add innovation without approval from the US govt and EU.
Apple's small market share is the only reason they are able to get away with this.
I shall give you "a freaking break", when you stop ranting and begin discussing.
I actually apologize, as my comments were not intended to be directed at you solely, and more of a directed post in regard to many of the statements and reactions of many of the zealots that have no idea what they are talking about.
You know your Mac OSX facts far better than most people; however, I still attest that your understanding of the features that have been available or are available in other OSes for many years are old hat, even though they are cool and new for Mac users.
Just look at OSX - Windows NT, or Unix users could have made
No. They're webviews because they're written with extended JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. They're extremely easy to develop and design, as a result. (And in this, I recognize they're strangely similar to Konfabulator widgets. However, Konfabulator does extremely odd things with its threads and child processes, so said widgets are the most amazing resource hogs.)
Do you even realize that the Active Desktop feature in Windows98 has and was doing this almost 7 years ago.
Many products used comparable technologies. How is this innovative for Apple again? Besides the fact that programs like Konfabulator perfected the applet desktop concept a long time ago as well.
Ya, we can run Web applets on our desktop, just like the Windows98 users could 7 years ago.. Hurray...
Oh, and we have Ok, and partially working RAID support now. Hurray, just Like WindowsNT did back in 1993, oh wait WindowsNT RAID support back then was more complete than what we offer even today. oops.
Give me a freaking break...
There are more 'fixes' than features, and bundled concepts they have ripped off MANY other companies.
How about the direct Burn to CD feature - wow.. Adaptec's DirectCD was doing this back in 1998 as well, it was an instant burn process, NO staging as well.
Apple should be ashamed of every feature they tout as THEIRS or INNOVATIVE or REVOLUTIONARY when it was a feature or function that existed in other products and OS long before Apple even got their act together in making a solid operating system like OSX. Shame on Apple for stealing thunder and then telling the world that Microsoft only copies them. Shame, Shame... Shall we talk about the Xerox lawsuit they won against Apple for the GUI? Funny, no one seems to mention it anymore either... Apple is now the INNOVATOR. Geesh...
Spotlight, the wonderful new search feature? (You say it is special because it is a Service)... Bull... MSN Desktop Search is just as freaking functional and it is an experimental beta for God's sake. It has API sets for application developers just like Spotlight (so it accessible just like your service) and also tracks and references MetaData that NTFS supports natively, as it has since 1993 as well.
Sure this is a great new release for OSX, and I will upgrade my Macs... But to tell the world how wonderful Apple is and how advanced this 'Tiger' is, is the one that truly is living in a cave and hasn't noticed the rest of the industry around them for quite sometime.
It is a good update, it is nothing special. PERIOD.
As for Virtual memory, it supports 16 terabytes of space. This would be a rather large page file, but not impossible.
Self Correction... Should read 512 terabytes - thats what I get for typing faster than my brain.
The trouble here is that the Opteron processors are limited to 8GB of memory per processor
You're kidding right?
The 64bit AMD processors support a 40bit physical address space and a 48bit virtual address space, this means it can technically use up to 1 Terabyte of Physical Memory, and reference 256 Terabytes of virtual Memory.
Now lets put this in a real world senerio...
It is going to be impossible to find hardware or chipsets that support this much RAM, or even OSes that will natively support this much RAM.
So we will use WindowsXP64 (AMD Version). It fully supports 128GB of RAM as hardware allows for the AMD 64bit processor. (And this is not a Multi-processor configuration, as the Pro version of Windows XP64 (AMD) is only licensed for 2 processors.
As for Virtual memory, it supports 16 terabytes of space. This would be a rather large page file, but not impossible.
The 128GB physical limitations in WindowsXP64 are designed to meet initial and near future hardware requirements, as new hardware is developed that actually can even use 128GB for a DESKTOP OS, then WindowsXP will be updated to take advantage of the next jump in using the potential of 1 Terabyte of physical RAM.
As for the 8GB limit you quote, not sure where you got it or why you purport it...
(And I am NOT an AMD fanboy. We use Intel and AMD in our systems as demand needs for our desktop and medium server configurations.)