64bit notebooks have been around since long before you could buy your AMD thing. SPARCbooks, Alphabooks, some PA-RISC ones. Even a limited-availablity notebook based on an SGI O2 design. Are they inherently better through having 64 bits?
The move to 64bit is a great move. Letting apps talk to all 8/16GB of main memory is a lovely thing. Just don't confuse AMD fixing the x86 crap and adding a 64bit mode, as 64bit being the major performance boost you seem to think that it was with AMD.
Also, if Apple -could- build a G5 into a laptop, they would. All reports say it's thermally unfeasible at current.
My 386 can address 4gb of memory, theoretically. Would I really want it to? Really? It's a notebook, by the time 16GB+ machines are common, it will be so outdated so as to not even be funny.
Again, no one will drop the mindset that 32bit and straight architectural advantages are enough for the future.
That is insane. We will hit the 32bit memory Cap, in fact we ALREADY have for many users. 4GB of addressable space is just not enough. Even the Apple 16gb of address space truly isn't enough.
If you think it is plenty, they maybe you should do a quote like '4gb' of RAM is more than anyone will ever need, and then you can be laughed at in 5-10 years.
Secondly I never said the AMD was the first 64bit notebook, or 64bit portable. As for general market, it maybe is the least expensive and first that is readily available to the non-technical world. But I never even previous made that assessment.
It is sad that Apple has no direction for a full 64bit version of OSX, it is also sad that they have no way or intention of getting a 64bit processor in a portable form factor.
Which is something that notebook makers using the AMD CPU have been able to pull off for quite a while.
I advise, you know, a little research and fact-checking before you spout off. A few clues go a very long way.
I suggest you consider who might be on the other end of the conversation before you pretend to be the definitive expert.
I wasn't addressing the technical aspects of the 64/32 world but would love to carry this debate if you feel up to it.
You assessment of the 64bit AMD processors and their performance advantages and equivaqly the G4 and G5 performance miss many aspects of the good and bad of each.
1) Address space - This is very important when we are moving to larger needs for RAM. Unfortunately the G5 paired with OSX is still limited to 16gb. Unlike the AMD which can do full 48bit (and higher) memory address allocation depending on the OS. A specific OS example would be WindowsXP that is not limited to 16gb of RAM on the AMD architecture.
2) The 16/32bit debate days were much like the current 32/64bit debates. The extra bits can cause more overhead, la la la. Sure a finely tuned 16bit application could potentially out perform a 32bit application, but could it do as much as the 32bit application? Even as you stated it isn't just the 'extra' bits that give the 64bit CPUS an edge.
3) You have no account for future growth and direction. This is what stagnated thee 32bit market for several years, as the application and OS vendors (like IBM), couldn't see past the 16bit world. Right now we are again on the edge of a budding market where applications and demands for RAM and the 'extra features' in the 64bit processors are going to be needed and used. And hopefully the industry will be a bit smarter about the transition this time, than they were in the 32bit era.
However if they keep the current mindset, that posts like yours continue to propagate, we will still be using G5s with 32bit OSes, and AMD64s with 32bit versions of Linux and Windows. I for one would love to see the desktop market move in this direction and have truly photorealistic environments, and other unforeseen uses for the 'extra bits' taken advantage of as fast as possible.
So yes, I stand by my statement, I think it is important that we can buy 64bit notebooks, and are NOT limited to ONE mindset that is SET BY ONE COMPANY LIKE APPLE.
Surely you jest... you can't possibly be comparing the cromagnon capabilities of cmd.exe to a real shell like csh or bash, could you? Naw, I didn't think so.
Never even crossed my mind, but I guess it did yours. Strange...
The original post wanted to boot windows without icons or any of the cute GUI, even in the regular non-embedded version of Windows this is one way of doing it as I suggested.
There are other good command interpreters as you suggest, and just as I suggested using cmd.exe as your shell you can easily select one of them as your shell just as easily.
So ya, good point, if you want a more powerful command line tool, just use it instead of cmd.exe.
Everyone seems to think that Apple or OSX is going to make a large impact on the computing world.
In reality, Microsoft and even the Linux world doesn't see Apple as a threat, they are not a big enough fish in the market at this point. If they were or are a threat Microsoft would not have supported Apple in the tough times, or continue to make Microsoft Office for the Mac, when it is not a large revenue product.
Secondly, Apple could of been a LARGE contender, they blew it, several times.
With Windows, you get... well, Windows. You have to shim other things onto it to get it to be useful. For example, I don't use icons, toolbars, window frames or titlebars. Show me how I can configure Windows to provide that interface, in an easy way... you can't. Not without 10 different third-party products.
Simply boot to the command prompt, you won't even have to look at an Icon...
If you need help in doing this Simply set your shell to cmd.exe in the registry.
Pure command line fun for all the geeks that don't realize the benefists and productivity of a Windowed environment with consistent UI aspects.
No it wouldn't. There's little to no benefits from 64-bit computing on a portable
Really? Then the AMD 64bit Notebooks that have been out for a year or two are not worth anything, it is just wasted performace or a waste of bits?
Even though they run on a NATIVE 64OS, and benchmark considerably faster than the 32bit counterparts?
Ya, your right, 64bits in a notebook would be insane (only for Mac users though). I guess if OSX was truly 64bit, it might be a bit more of an incentive to have 64bit computing in a notebook.
But hey, some people thought no one would need color screens, more than 128k of RAM, or a two button Mouse. To each his own.
Have you read Plato's Cave allegory btw, it might really help you with this reality thing.
You get back to us when your quarterly sales top $3 billion and your market cap is over $30 billion
Mmmkay...
Ok, and how does this compare to IBM or even Dell alone, and they are single companies selling a variety of the the competing architecture. Mmmkay...
Shall we compare Microsoft's Sales and Cap?
Gates alone could personally Buy out Apple out of his personal assets.
So we should all hail the great success of Apple, why again? Mmmkay...
Oh wait, they are successful because of the popularity of the IPOD. A device that mimics features found on products that Create Jukebox had released in 1998 - wow some innovation, rip off the competition... Oh wait, only Microsoft would do that, not your precious Apple. Just like they wouldn't rip off the BSD interface or the Kernel in OSX. Oh wait, they did that too.
When oh when will Apple innovate again?
Ipod sales do not equate to Market share on the desktop, nor is the halo effect going to increase the Mac's market share enough to even make companies like Dell or Microsoft BLINK.
Fine Grain Locking (SMP scalability) Enjoy improved performance and scalability.
And with the cool feature of being built on a monolithic kernel interface. Way to go Apple. Whoo Hoo.
Oh wait, the monolithic kernel interface they stole kind of sucks at multi-processor and mult-threaded performance.
Maybe the next Open Source software they steal and sell at high prices will be better suited for the G5 architecture with Dual Core Processors.
And people have the nerve to bitch at Microsoft, when Apple not only rips off who they can, and then drops it in a propriety OS on proriety hardware. At least Microsoft Built their own freaking Kernel and Kernel client/server system - i.e. Cutler's development team.
"can you say that you can use a 6-year old PC without any siginificant upgrades and still run the latest OS and software and be productive with it?
Sure. As long as you're not married to Windows.
Actually we have 1997 200mhz laptops that came with 80mb of RAM and 5gb Hard Drives, they are used in testing and for diagnostics when a tech doesn't want to drag a new laptop out or needs one that still has the good old serial and parallel ports.
They run WindowsXP (even with Themes turned on), and benchmark almost 20% faster in applications than they do if we swap hard drives and run Win98 on the poor suckers.
I think they pretty much qualify for some of the lower end equipment, and techs even have Windows media Player 10 on them, and watch videos and use them as jukeboxes. It is quite amusing actually.
But as for the tied to Windows thing, not true.
XP can get a lot of performance out of a computer, especially considering these laptops are running faster with XP for the techs now then when our company bought them in 1997 and was running Win95 or Beta Win98 on them.
Your metaphor is good, but you're missing one small point. The reason that NT was successful (even in the hard-line geek world back in the early 90s), and continues to be successful as core OS model is that the abstraction that you see as confusion is greater extensibility than anyone else has.
Like I said, this concept that is part of the NT kernel/core and unique to NT that it gives NT the ability to not only be flexible on portability, but also flexible on what is above the NT kernel and what it can run or do for the asking subsystems above it.
As for the whole debugging scenario that you set forth, if you have to debug both the Win32 subsystem kernel and then the NT kernel, you are either writing a fairly specialized driver, or would be a novice that is digging into the NT kernel with no reason.
Most Win32 developers never realize that they are just working in the OS subsystem that is Win32, and there is no reason for them TO KNOW different 99.99999% of the time, unless it is a very specialized application. (Even many of the NT Kernel specific functions are translated and available to developers in the Win32 subsystem, so even when they need a NT kernel feature, they still don't have to go to the true NT kernel to use it). The Win32 API provides either functions for or translation to almost every NT kernel feature needed from a developer standpoint.
This is truly an advantage, even though it may seem a bit complex as it plays to both sides. But when you realize that the client/server kernel, and object based subsystem model is, NT deserves a bit of respect as the Cutler team did create a Next Gen OS model. What NT is, was only theory in part when it was devised.
It also has more extensibility than anyone truly sees - which if competitors ever lose site of, they will be shocked and beaten by Microsoft again, when Microsoft turns NT on a dime if they need to and compete directly. Imagine a Darwin Subsystem, FreeBSD subsystem, Linux Subsystem, and just keep going from there.
NT could be EVERY OS, doing what each of these other OSes can only do one at a time (except through VM emulation), and not only run these subsystems and their applications side by side on screen, with NT's object messaging model passing information if needed between them, and the user could still have a win32/win64 subsystem as well just for playing games when they aren't managing the apache server in the FreeBSD subsystem.
NT has some genius, whether the win32 subsystem code is sloppy or not, and do not for second ever discount this, or the open source and open source OSes will truly get out foxed in the end and all their work will end up just like it did at Apple, a part of closed proprietary OS...
As far as kernel source not making a distribution, Windows is pretty monolithic. Unlike Linux, where most of your system is isolated in small stand-alone utilities, pretty much everything in Windows is woven together such that it would be a nightmare to try and untangle it. Longhorn may start to address this, but it's an architectural condition that can't really be resolved without making some major changes to the O/S
Actually the NT kernel is far form monolithic. It is still classified as a client/server kernel (which is somewhat unique into iself)
There are NO woven' or NT kernel dependancies. Each subsystem that lies on top of the NT kernel have their own 'OS Layer' Kernels, that are woven in their specific Subsystem, but they are not woven into NT kernsl, and far from it.
NT's arichtecture can actually do things that neither a monolithic BSD or micro Linux kernel can do, that is part of the genius behind Cutler and the NT development team of 1990-1993. And this is still being used today.
Not only does it offer a HAL an portabiltiy, but it also offers the same type of portability up in layers on the platform.
Microsoft already has a Unix subsystem for Windows, and it is even running on a couple of server here (one for test). It is a UNIX Subsystem, it has NOTHING to do with the Win32 subystem unless it wants to. In theory, Microsoft could even drop in a Linux binary level subsytem (with slight kernel changes in their Linux subsystem kernel), and run binary compatible i386 applicaitons in a Subsystem, and have the applications, EVEN X, appear side by side on the Windows desktop. And Linux would even then be running on TOP of the NT kernel, with possibly even an increase in performance for the Linux applications.
The irony in this, is that if Linux ever gets too succesful, that is all Microsoft would have to do is just add a Linux Subystem to the NT platform, and bingo, the users have WIndows and Linux too.
is head straight for the settings and set "Classic Desktop".
Hows that fancy screenshot gonna look then.
Why even run a GUI OS at all then?
I also assume you dress like Dilbert, and everything in your house is either B&W or Brown & Tan, and you probably understand or care as much about perception influence of art as a color-blind animal?
"Additionally, Longhorn will feature a new instant-on capability that will see Longhorn-savvy systems resume from Standby in 2 seconds or less."
Doesn't "Longhorn-savvy" kind of imply specific hardware is required? Or is that just me? And to be honest, I wouldn't really sell this as a feature other OSs have had for years...OS X certainly starts up from standby on my iBook in under 2 seconds...
And... Windows has been resuming from Standby in less than 2secs since APM standby was released.
This is NOT what they mean. It means an 'instant on BOOT'. They are NOT talking about standby or hibernation (suspend to disk).
If you want to compare your Mac's standby in 2secs as something super, take into effect that the crappy 2002 WindowsXP Laptop I am writing this on can resume from a full powered off hibernation state in less than 2secs, and that even includes bringing the wireless network back online.
Resume from Standby on this machine is almost instant.
(I get so tired of people's concepts that if their Mac has it, it is unique and better than anything else in the whole world, I guess because they are special, and also they don't ever pay attention to the rest of the world long enough to realize that there are other things outside their Apple based Plato's Cave)
One thing users should be aware of is that Longhorn will include a new kernel and will thus not offer the same level of compatibility with legacy 16-bit and 32-bit code that Windows XP does today. For business users, Microsoft believes that Virtual PC 2007 will help broaden corporations' compatibility options.
The kernel changes in Longhorn are minor, just as they have been in every version of NT since 1991. Why? Because the main kernel was designed fairly well, and is still doing what it was designed to be a client/sever model kernel that lets upper level subsystems have independent kernels with complete interoperability.
However what DOES change is the Win32/64 Subsystem Kernels, which are just a layer and not the OS kernel per se.
As for the quote, it is in regard to the 64bit versions, not the 32bit versions. Application compatibility will only affect applications that would be curtailed by further security layer tightening. This includes additional OSI Application layer filtering, etc.
Then the irony.... You knock Virtual PC (which is actually targeted at SERVERs, NOT home users) as a bad solution, yet you are a Mac user, so tell me once again how you run a native System 9 Application... Oh wait, you boot a full version of System 9? Wow, that would be even worse than booting a full version of XP in Virtual PC... Oh wait, never mind - IT IS THE SAME FREAKING CONCEPT.
The irony is that WindowsNT's 16bit support back in 1991 was transparent to the user, and loaded a subset layer for the 16bit version of Windows, the 16bit applications and the 32bit applications did and continue to run side by side.
This was quite an ingenious and elegant, and fast solution for the 16bit to 32bit migration for the NT platform back in 1993. Any yet when OSX was released, Apple Zealots were talking about how smart Apple was to allow OSX to boot System9 in its on environment, yet it was NOT transparent, and the applications could and would not run side by side the OSX applications. Apple's solution to System9 software was about as NEW, UNIQUE or ELEGANT as spit. So what were OSX users left with, dual boothing System9, or running it in a Virtual OS space, yet still separate from OSX and the OSX applications. What a freaking kludge!!!
Argh... This sometimes drives me crazy that I actually have to defend Microsoft because people can't read and like to ASSUME.
Microsoft has done some good things and a lot of crap things, but when it gets to the point that people start making stuff up, or contrast the perfection of Apple, it is just too much.
With great irony, I don't currently work with or at the EU, but have in the past, and still have many contacts and friends still working in Brussels.
As I write this I happened to look down and my briefcase that I still carry and it is still the one I had when I did work there with the EU stamped engraving on it when it was given to me.
The ideals you refer to are still so subjective, as even the courts and the EU have trouble trying to balance if Microsoft is a monopoly and if so what actions they have done have actually hurt consumers.
Including a free Internet Brower in the OS is not something that hurt people, but got a lot more people in the world connected. IBM's OS/2 had a built in browser a few years before Microsoft did this with Win98 even. So was that an abuse that hurt consumers? If you read the US rulings you would think so, most people don't, the government didn't get, and still don't.
The same is true of the EU, they are trying to 'protect' consumers, and yet their actions have more of the guise of helping competitors rather than actually helping the consumers. Just as the US case did.
Even defining Microsoft as a monopoly, just because a US judge ruled so, does not make it REAL, just legally just. It is something many attorneys will continue to debate for the next century, just as they have the IBM and AT&T monopoly cases. In reality, monopoly is a very general term, even in the legal realm, as it has to have a basis of what is monopolized and how it has unruly control that is harming.
I for example could arguer that GM has a monopoly on the Corvette, and that they use their monopoly power of the Corvette to offer only Delco brand radios in the car. Why do we allow this? Shouldn't we call them a monopoly and tell them they MUST give the users a choice of radios in their car, or not put the Delco radio the Corvette at all? In reality, this is kind of what happened to Microsoft. It is just the Corvette wasn't so successful that ever Car Dealer only wanted to sell Corvettes and in order to get more money from the consumers signed exclusivity contracts with GM.
Again, this is what happened with and to Microsoft. If anyone is at fault in the Microsoft monopoly scandal it should be the large OEMs that took the exclusivity offer from Microsoft, AS MANY SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE VENDORS DO. And when questioned on why all their new PCs only came with Microsoft Windows, they shifted the blame back to Microsoft, when it was their choice in the first place to lock the consumer into this, not something Microsoft forced (and no it was not proven Microsoft forced ANY OEM into exclusivity contracts). Everyone here that hates the fact that their new PCs came with Windows, should be yelling at the companies that MADE the computers, not Microsoft.
To really follow the 'monopoly' of Microsoft you would have to timeline the whole set of stories going back to when Novell and WordPerfect first cried fowl and Orin Hatch (from their state) pushed the Justice Department to review Microsoft's actions.
In what I have seen of this paperwork, it was more to help WordPerfect and Novell than to actually try to find fault with MS. WordPerfect claimed that the undocumented APIs helped the Word Team, yet after review by technical analysts, they found this wasn't true, even though a few undocumented Windows APIs were discovered. WordPerfect failed because they assumed they had the market and didn't give a rat's ass about a Windows version of their product.
WordPerfect had screwed their customers with the 5.x era for several years with no upgrades, and then they wondered why they were losing market share to Microsoft so fast after Windows started being successful. Besides, Word was a mature and rather good Word-Processor, as Mac users from the 80s would attest to.
The irony to this story, is that when Windows 3.0 hit and was a marginal success, Microsoft tried to compel all major application companies to create a
but that it _forbid_ OEM's to install Quicktime or Realplayer on systems shipped
Been in the OEM business for many years, and we have yet to see any documentation from Microsoft preventing us from installing ANYTHING we want on the OSes for our PCs.
Additionally, prior to Windows2000, Windows95 and 98 had REALPLAYER on the OEM setup CD provided by Microsoft and it was installed in Windows, just they also had setups for AOL, Compuserve, and MSN.
If Microsoft is FORBIDDING the installation of this software, why is it on the OEM CDS that Microsoft provided to Manuafacturers up until the time these companies started stabbing Microsoft in the back by participaiting in lawsuits against MS.
Bully for Microsoft. I would of stopped putting RealPlayer, and AOL on my OS setup CDs as a courtesy to these companies once they testified against my company.
But EVEN after all that, there is NOTHING to forbid the installation of these applications, our Microsoft Contact, knows we do, and has even provided help from Microsoft on some of our installation troubles with these products, which they DID NOT HAVE TO DO.
The consipiracy theories here just keep getting bigger and bigger.
As for the whold Media Player issue in this thread... A) The EU requried MS to Remove Media Player (the UI) B) The EU required MS to Remove Media player control (the applet that allows it to play on web pages, and also provides OLE access). So even if the CODECS are installed on the system, but there is NO EXISTING Applet or Application to process them, how in the world could any reasonable person expect the video to play?
This is the most uneducated and ridiculous item I have seen in a while. And goes to prove the Government should fund and support technology but NOT REGULATE IT, as most people in the Government DOn't Get, won't get, nor have any expertise in these matters, no matter how many witnesses and hours are spent trying to EDUCATE a judge just so they can make an honest ruling.
I am so sick of Gov't thinking it knows better than the 'scientists', and 'technology' leaders of the world. Support these people don't second guess them.
As for the Intenet Explorer trial issues with regard to the Microsoft Monopoly, even the creator of Netscape later said it was bullcrap. (And he would be considered educated in the field, far more than the judges and lawyers making decisions FOR US).
This is gotten insane, in the US they preach capitalisim, yet when lawmakers or competitors draw into question a company that is too successful, the get put on a block and picked apart.
Sure there were idiots at Microsoft that did screwy stuff, but that doesn't mean Microsoft as a whole set out to do 99.9% of the things that Slashdot members keep refering to, over and over, and very inaccurately as well.
Get over it...
You don't like Microsoft, beat them at their own game. Truly make an Open Source OS that is as easy as Windows and supports as many program and hardware as Windows, and can do so without having prioritory Hardware like Apple does, and you will not even have to worry about Microsoft.
Ok, off my rant, and 90% of this stuff was NOT directed at the person that I am replying to, but I had to get it off my chest and into this discussion thread.
(Sorry in advance to RogerWilco)
-Also ignore the typos and grammar, I can see several in a quick proof, but don't have the time to edit them today.
I should add for people following this thread that the touted multi-threading abilities in JAVA have not always even been in JAVA.
It wasn't until the release of the 5.0 platform that they even added features to manage concurrency in an application that is even remotely on par with what is available in other development/platform environments.
For example, prior to the this release even getting a return value from a thread required a ton of code, something that has been very easy to do in other the other development languages/platforms for years and years now.
) you dont like Java b) so you don't work with Java c) so you don't care about Java d) so you only pick up random statements which fit into your view about Java
A) you have no facts, so go after the poster's credibility. B) you are so in love with java, that you are considering making it your religion C) you have never serious developed in the real world D) you know nothing about me, and are only making assumptions... An assumption is just fool's intuition.
I was using JAVA when it first appeared, and marveled at the concepts of its ideals when it was in an infant stage and a lot of it was still conceptual (not that all of it has STILL been implemented). My company and I played with it for years, hoping that it would eventually live up to the promises of cross platform reliability, scalability and performance.
However now... It is kind of old news. Running applets and applications across the Web is old hat, and there are several technologies that do it well.
Besides, wasn't this topic about multi-threading?
Java has very little real support of multi-threading. The very nature of the language and it cross-platform designs never were designed to be the end all to be all for multi-threading.
What little 'ease' in multi-threading in developing a JAVA application was nothing more than picking up on concepts introduced YEARS before JAVA was even constructed. Maybe you should pretend like you are capable of researching something, and actually go look up these theories, how they were implemented in various development languages and OS platforms.
If you want to compare JAVA to writing C++ code for WindowsNT back in 1993, then absolutely, I am 100% with you, JAVA is far easier to easily create multi-threaded applications. But in comparison to VB, Delphi, Kylix, and MODERN C development languages and APIs and Libraries, it is nothing special, far from it.
I wasn't just trying to make a rant that JAVA was just pure crap; I was trying to bring some reality back to the topic. Everyone for some reason rallies around SUN and JAVA here in these open source forums, when in fact they have done SO LITTLE for open source.
Sun, nor its precious JAVA get any kudos in my book for being open source. (Even though there are rumors again yesterday that Sun might open JAVA up, rumors again - carrot on the stick comes out to get press.)
After trying to use JAVA in production environments where cross platform and performance are important it STILL fails miserably. That is why you don't even see SUN making all their cross platform applications in JAVA, they are even writing them in C and compiling them platform specifically. Unless you are talking Web Applets very few if hardly ANY mainstream applications are JAVA based.
When you can show me a Video rendering subsystem written in JAVA because of the reliability of its managed code and hardware independence, I will gladly apologize. Heck even Microsoft's 'bloated'.NET is capable of doing this, portions of DirectX9 are written in.NET, a managed development language. Yet after 10 years JAVA still has trouble running a sprite based frogger game reliably. Microsoft is literally pushing around 3D photorealistic imaging that is hardware independent and writing it in a managed framework that is a lot like the conceptual makings of what JAVA was supposed to become someday.
So even if you walk away from this thinking, this person knows nothing about the EASE of multi-threading in JAVA, ask yourself this simple fact...
What GOOD is multi-threading going to do in a development language that is performance challenged, when using muti-threading is a concept designed to get the most PERFORMANCE out of your hardware?
The companies producing and innovating multi-core CPUS, mutli-CPU configurations, Hyperthreading and other emerging innovations are not going to tell everyone to use JAVA because it is easier to multi-thread and take advantage of the great performance boost these technologies provide.
Anyone that HAS worked with JAVA and has sensibility can realize how ridiculous this would be.
care to elaborate? I was thinking the same thing as the grandparent... Java is one of the few languages which make multithreading relatively painless
Elaborate? Consider the 10year old next door using Visual Basic (or Delphi) and easily writing multi-threaded applications with only a couple of lines of code. Let alone the multi-threading the API of Win32 and especially.NET already do automatically.
Take this reference from Visual Basic, if you can't understand it and write a solid 'controlled' multi-threaded application, you need to consider another career.
The problem with developers and multi-threading within their own applicaitons is thinking beyond the event model where a response triggers a single action.
Java is still a poor language patch together by a few smart people trying to save it. Even the Solaris team at one time called Java crap that was shoved down their throats.
Java was the birth of many good ideas, but few Sun has brought to fruition. (And again, why on an Open Source Advocay site, do people still bow down to Java and Sun? Microsoft has made C# and.NET more open than Sun has Java even. Geesh)
And I am definately not a Microsoft Developer fan boy, even on the Windows Platform I seldom use MS development tools.
Apparently, the only thing Longhorn will offer over Windows XP is a Direct3D interface that requires you to upgrade your computer in order to run it.
Actually, this tends to be a win-win for Windows users. (Pardon any puns)
People that want to keep XP and hold out for Longhorn, can do so, and still get access to most upcoming 3rd party next generation applications.
Developers are also helped, as they can start using the next generation technologies and tools and ensure that their target market is going to be larger than just the Longhorn crowd.
So in that respect you are correct and it is a way smart move on Microsoft's part to get the developers interested in Longhorn type technologies today.
However there a quite a few design changes coming with Longhorn that you won't get with XP.
As you state a new 3D interface, which comes with a new way of working with applications and folders as well as a new shell (explorer) for the GUI.
Longhorn also has a few other tricks up its sleeve that maybe most people won't notice or the press won't jump on. For example, its ability to do VM like work with existing 3D Graphics and video card memory, allowing more 3D applications to run concurrently than even what the hardware would normally allow.
There are also many NT kernel enhancements and stuff happening at the NT level (below the Win32 and Win64 layers). Also don't be surprised to see some new subsystems re-added back into the OS to be more competitive in the *nix markets, especially on the server versions.
Plus you have some of the optimizations and other things that still haven't been shifted into XP. Still take XP and Windows 2003 server, the revamp that delayed Windows 2003 server did great things for its performance, and it still runs smoother and faster than desktop XP.
The Longhorn/XP and the Win98/Win95 analogy people are using here is probably going to be somewhat true... But there were many features added to Win98 that nobody either picked up on or reported. Like the updates to the font rendering subsystem and many other OS optimizations and abilities. For example, Win98 was one of the first OSes that could multitask sound from within or between various applications. Prior to this, most OSes that played sound only allowed one application to play sound at a time. (And I can remember the days of writing sound multiplexing code; Win98's sound features were a nice feature for developers like me, as I no longer had to worry about it and could just let the OS distribute the sound in realtime.)
Are they trying to create a market where none exists, or do some people really get a sore wrist from mousing?
Well, not sure of the product or their marketing ploy...
However, I do know that people that are suffering from RSI injuries, and using a mouse adds to the pain and discomfort they have, as it creates further swelling in the wrist area, putting pressure on the nerves.
Now whether a mouse or keyboard created the RSI injuries is up for debate, because even in the people I have worked with, it can't be demonstrated to have one single activity that created the problem.
Also, products like this 'may', like I said, help with people that already have RSI injuries, but one of the most effective and simplistic solutions for RSI suffers in a Pen Tablet, whether it be a desktop Wacom or a full blown Tablet PC. The Pen (or Pencil) seems to create less pain for existing RSI users, and pen devices are also cheap now and also add functionality if the people do any handwriting notes or paint on their computers.
(Yes a pen tablet can take a bit for users to get use to, but once they do, most prefer it over a common mouse, especially because of the absolute mapping and precision that comes with it.)
Longhorn uses the 3D accelerator to render everything, Avalon the new presentation system is built on Direct3D, but so far theres not much actual 3D in the interface.
Which is true, but MS has only said that the 3d UI innovations will not be presented until early beta or later. They are keeping the 3D UI improvements under wraps to keep what they have innovated in this regard from being stolen or attempted to be copied.
The tools and developement they have made in regard to Avalon, kind of sets a stage for what is possible and leaves a lot of imagination up to the developers already to create quite impressive 3D UI elements in their applications.
I remember thinking a Mac Mini is obsolete the day you buy it since, among other things, it only comes with 32MB video RAM
Yep, and once again I call on all Mac fans to SCREAM at Apple, aren't they supposed to be the 'graphics leader'? Wait, that was back in 1991 when they started losing that title (ATI Vantage and 8514 IBM accelerated adapters on the PC were blazing fast compared to the video in Macs at that point, and Apple hasn't caught up yet.). (Even today, the video in the Macs is usually the middle of the Road ATI video card, and PC users can get a much faster version of the card.)
It is really sad considering even 99.9% of the generic video cards you can buy today have 64-128mb of RAM.
It is also really sad if these Mac people that buy them think they are going to EVER run any graphically intense game (not that there are many for the Mac).
My 4year old notebook has a more advanced video card in it than the new mini-mac. For a mini, you would think they could at least hit the PC standards for laptop video back in 2001.
Don't flag me as an Apple basher, I am someone that wants them to do great things, but Apple fans simply buying into their marketing instead of questioning what Apple is telling them isn't helping anyone but Apple make money off of ignorance and loyalty.
If people want to trust Apple as their graphics and technological leader, they need to be yelling at Apple that this is not good enough. In fact, not one Mac on the Apple site has the BEST graphics available today, why?
True Apple fans, tell Apple this is NOT acceptable.
Windows and Active Directory are a proprietary ripoff of LDAP and kerberos with some gui tools
Well I guess if you never used it, you would probably think this.
AD goes so far beyond a type of LDAP or authenication system it would be like saying Linux is nothing more than a rip off of 1969 *nix and doesn't do anymore.
ember when Win2000 had over 65000 known (to Microsoft) flaws
Ya, and I can tell you for a fact that the majority of these FLAWS were items like "Icon Background does not fully repaint with Web Desktop Enabled on NVidia GeForce2", and other BUGS that beta testers found and submitted to Microsoft that ranged from cosmetic to functionality impaired, but very few were SERIOUS or SECURITY risks, and the ones that were, were addressed before the product went live.
So you can call a icon not repainting, or a Network share shortcut not always tracking across NTFS properly as MAJOR FLAWs, but in the world of software, these are Bugs, not serious OS design flaws.
You seem to be living in a parallel dimension or something. Microsoft is playing "catch-up" at the moment. LongHorn isn't out yet, OS X has been for years. Microsoft has seen the Aqua colored light! They're going to give it their best, but don't give into all their hype just yet. Besides, when was the last time Microsoft did something even remotely revolutionary
You are obviously a fan boy/girl and don't pay attention or you wouldn't even have the nerve to post this.
As for OSX having a more mature presentation layer than Windows, yes, but does it even compare to what Microsoft has been working on for several years? No.
Additionally, just because Apple has the offscreen drawing and a slightly enhanced vector presentation layer than Windows does not make it the leader. If you will notice there is NOTHING IN THE APPLE UI that CANNOT BE DONE ON WINDOWS 2000 or WindowsXP. If you don't belive me, check out all the third party add ons that can give a Windows user EVERY feature a Mac OSX user has.
If the OSX model was 'ahead' then these third party programs would not even be possible on the WIndows system, but they are, because just because Microsoft didn't provide the cute UI that Apple did, doesn't mean the guts for doing what Apple is doing is not in part already been in Windows since 2000.
If you look up GDI+ to other application layer APIs available in Windows, you will even see they have been around far before anything like what Apple is providing in their OS.
Yes Apple does have a better presentation layer on a small scale, but NOT on the level it should be, nor on the level that even compares to what Microsoft has coming down the road. Once the Avalon technologies hit (EVEN ON WINDOWSXP), it will be another Apple period of catch up, just like it has been for last 15 years.
As for Microsoft not did anything revolutionary, pick a few things, the NT OS core Design and Kernel are STILL considered to be one of the most advanced kernels in practice from theory, and it is 13years old. If you want cute little revolutions like people in the Apple world like to cite, the next time you highlight a word and change the font think to yourself, this is a concept invented by Microsoft.
Microsoft has done a lot more than we would like to give them credit for. And by just putting our heads in the sand and saying they haven't ever did anything we are just keeping our ignorance and are NOT learning anything that we need to be competitive with Microsoft or to Encourage companies like Apple to do FAR more than what they are doing.
As your you assumptions that Microsoft has only ben keeping up with Apple, you need to review the OS market from 1991-2000, you will find Microsoft was providing features to users that Apple didn't GET AROUND to providing until OSX. That is SAD, VERY SAD. Just things like the memory managmement model and application isolation in System 9 and older is patheitic compared to Linux, Windows, or any other OS that was stil on the market. Even the failed OS/2 back in 1992 was years ahead of any Apple system software until OSX.
So ya, OSX is great, but why is Apple the one catching up to everyone else? Which is my point, Apple WAS the leader when the Mac came out, then they started to slip and haven't realized that THEY need to be the technology leaders again, not just keep up with Microsoft and the rest of the world as they are doing Now.
Right now the Apple world SO reminds me of when the Atari's, Amiga, and WIndows for the PC hit. Apple was SO arrogant they even made fun of these other platforms for HAVING MORE FEATURES.
It was a fight to get Apple to provide something as simplistic as COLOR on their Macs, and they and their Mac users made fun of color displays. Guess what, Apple was wrong, and they should ahve been the leader in providing Color on their Macs before anyone else was doing it. Instead they took pride in their Greyscale displays and made of fun of people that thought they would even have need for color.
So here we are again, form the one button mouse to the technologies Apple is providing, arrogance is going to cause them to dip behind, especially IF THEIR USERS BUY THEIR FUD AND MARKETING AND DON'T CONTINUE TO PUSH THEM TO KEEP APPLE ON TOP.
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64bit notebooks have been around since long before you could buy your AMD thing. SPARCbooks, Alphabooks, some PA-RISC ones. Even a limited-availablity notebook based on an SGI O2 design. Are they inherently better through having 64 bits?
The move to 64bit is a great move. Letting apps talk to all 8/16GB of main memory is a lovely thing. Just don't confuse AMD fixing the x86 crap and adding a 64bit mode, as 64bit being the major performance boost you seem to think that it was with AMD.
Also, if Apple -could- build a G5 into a laptop, they would. All reports say it's thermally unfeasible at current.
My 386 can address 4gb of memory, theoretically. Would I really want it to? Really? It's a notebook, by the time 16GB+ machines are common, it will be so outdated so as to not even be funny.
Again, no one will drop the mindset that 32bit and straight architectural advantages are enough for the future.
That is insane. We will hit the 32bit memory Cap, in fact we ALREADY have for many users. 4GB of addressable space is just not enough. Even the Apple 16gb of address space truly isn't enough.
If you think it is plenty, they maybe you should do a quote like '4gb' of RAM is more than anyone will ever need, and then you can be laughed at in 5-10 years.
Secondly I never said the AMD was the first 64bit notebook, or 64bit portable. As for general market, it maybe is the least expensive and first that is readily available to the non-technical world. But I never even previous made that assessment.
It is sad that Apple has no direction for a full 64bit version of OSX, it is also sad that they have no way or intention of getting a 64bit processor in a portable form factor.
Which is something that notebook makers using the AMD CPU have been able to pull off for quite a while.
I advise, you know, a little research and fact-checking before you spout off. A few clues go a very long way.
I suggest you consider who might be on the other end of the conversation before you pretend to be the definitive expert.
I wasn't addressing the technical aspects of the 64/32 world but would love to carry this debate if you feel up to it.
You assessment of the 64bit AMD processors and their performance advantages and equivaqly the G4 and G5 performance miss many aspects of the good and bad of each.
1) Address space - This is very important when we are moving to larger needs for RAM. Unfortunately the G5 paired with OSX is still limited to 16gb. Unlike the AMD which can do full 48bit (and higher) memory address allocation depending on the OS. A specific OS example would be WindowsXP that is not limited to 16gb of RAM on the AMD architecture.
2) The 16/32bit debate days were much like the current 32/64bit debates. The extra bits can cause more overhead, la la la. Sure a finely tuned 16bit application could potentially out perform a 32bit application, but could it do as much as the 32bit application? Even as you stated it isn't just the 'extra' bits that give the 64bit CPUS an edge.
3) You have no account for future growth and direction. This is what stagnated thee 32bit market for several years, as the application and OS vendors (like IBM), couldn't see past the 16bit world. Right now we are again on the edge of a budding market where applications and demands for RAM and the 'extra features' in the 64bit processors are going to be needed and used. And hopefully the industry will be a bit smarter about the transition this time, than they were in the 32bit era.
However if they keep the current mindset, that posts like yours continue to propagate, we will still be using G5s with 32bit OSes, and AMD64s with 32bit versions of Linux and Windows. I for one would love to see the desktop market move in this direction and have truly photorealistic environments, and other unforeseen uses for the 'extra bits' taken advantage of as fast as possible.
So yes, I stand by my statement, I think it is important that we can buy 64bit notebooks, and are NOT limited to ONE mindset that is SET BY ONE COMPANY LIKE APPLE.
Surely you jest... you can't possibly be comparing the cromagnon capabilities of cmd.exe to a real shell like csh or bash, could you? Naw, I didn't think so.
Never even crossed my mind, but I guess it did yours. Strange...
The original post wanted to boot windows without icons or any of the cute GUI, even in the regular non-embedded version of Windows this is one way of doing it as I suggested.
There are other good command interpreters as you suggest, and just as I suggested using cmd.exe as your shell you can easily select one of them as your shell just as easily.
So ya, good point, if you want a more powerful command line tool, just use it instead of cmd.exe.
Take Care,
The Net Avenger
No one seems to get the point of my post.
Everyone seems to think that Apple or OSX is going to make a large impact on the computing world.
In reality, Microsoft and even the Linux world doesn't see Apple as a threat, they are not a big enough fish in the market at this point. If they were or are a threat Microsoft would not have supported Apple in the tough times, or continue to make Microsoft Office for the Mac, when it is not a large revenue product.
Secondly, Apple could of been a LARGE contender, they blew it, several times.
With Windows, you get... well, Windows. You have to shim other things onto it to get it to be useful. For example, I don't use icons, toolbars, window frames or titlebars. Show me how I can configure Windows to provide that interface, in an easy way... you can't. Not without 10 different third-party products.
Simply boot to the command prompt, you won't even have to look at an Icon...
If you need help in doing this Simply set your shell to cmd.exe in the registry.
Pure command line fun for all the geeks that don't realize the benefists and productivity of a Windowed environment with consistent UI aspects.
No it wouldn't. There's little to no benefits from 64-bit computing on a portable
Really? Then the AMD 64bit Notebooks that have been out for a year or two are not worth anything, it is just wasted performace or a waste of bits?
Even though they run on a NATIVE 64OS, and benchmark considerably faster than the 32bit counterparts?
Ya, your right, 64bits in a notebook would be insane (only for Mac users though). I guess if OSX was truly 64bit, it might be a bit more of an incentive to have 64bit computing in a notebook.
But hey, some people thought no one would need color screens, more than 128k of RAM, or a two button Mouse. To each his own.
Have you read Plato's Cave allegory btw, it might really help you with this reality thing.
You get back to us when your quarterly sales top $3 billion and your market cap is over $30 billion
Mmmkay...
Ok, and how does this compare to IBM or even Dell alone, and they are single companies selling a variety of the the competing architecture. Mmmkay...
Shall we compare Microsoft's Sales and Cap?
Gates alone could personally Buy out Apple out of his personal assets.
So we should all hail the great success of Apple, why again? Mmmkay...
Oh wait, they are successful because of the popularity of the IPOD. A device that mimics features found on products that Create Jukebox had released in 1998 - wow some innovation, rip off the competition... Oh wait, only Microsoft would do that, not your precious Apple. Just like they wouldn't rip off the BSD interface or the Kernel in OSX. Oh wait, they did that too.
When oh when will Apple innovate again?
Ipod sales do not equate to Market share on the desktop, nor is the halo effect going to increase the Mac's market share enough to even make companies like Dell or Microsoft BLINK.
Why? Because Apple is small potatoes... MMMKay...
Tiger is supposed to include this feature:
Fine Grain Locking (SMP scalability)
Enjoy improved performance and scalability.
And with the cool feature of being built on a monolithic kernel interface. Way to go Apple. Whoo Hoo.
Oh wait, the monolithic kernel interface they stole kind of sucks at multi-processor and mult-threaded performance.
Maybe the next Open Source software they steal and sell at high prices will be better suited for the G5 architecture with Dual Core Processors.
And people have the nerve to bitch at Microsoft, when Apple not only rips off who they can, and then drops it in a propriety OS on proriety hardware. At least Microsoft Built their own freaking Kernel and Kernel client/server system - i.e. Cutler's development team.
"can you say that you can use a 6-year old PC without any siginificant upgrades and still run the latest OS and software and be productive with it?
Sure. As long as you're not married to Windows.
Actually we have 1997 200mhz laptops that came with 80mb of RAM and 5gb Hard Drives, they are used in testing and for diagnostics when a tech doesn't want to drag a new laptop out or needs one that still has the good old serial and parallel ports.
They run WindowsXP (even with Themes turned on), and benchmark almost 20% faster in applications than they do if we swap hard drives and run Win98 on the poor suckers.
I think they pretty much qualify for some of the lower end equipment, and techs even have Windows media Player 10 on them, and watch videos and use them as jukeboxes. It is quite amusing actually.
But as for the tied to Windows thing, not true.
XP can get a lot of performance out of a computer, especially considering these laptops are running faster with XP for the techs now then when our company bought them in 1997 and was running Win95 or Beta Win98 on them.
Your metaphor is good, but you're missing one small point. The reason that NT was successful (even in the hard-line geek world back in the early 90s), and continues to be successful as core OS model is that the abstraction that you see as confusion is greater extensibility than anyone else has.
Like I said, this concept that is part of the NT kernel/core and unique to NT that it gives NT the ability to not only be flexible on portability, but also flexible on what is above the NT kernel and what it can run or do for the asking subsystems above it.
As for the whole debugging scenario that you set forth, if you have to debug both the Win32 subsystem kernel and then the NT kernel, you are either writing a fairly specialized driver, or would be a novice that is digging into the NT kernel with no reason.
Most Win32 developers never realize that they are just working in the OS subsystem that is Win32, and there is no reason for them TO KNOW different 99.99999% of the time, unless it is a very specialized application. (Even many of the NT Kernel specific functions are translated and available to developers in the Win32 subsystem, so even when they need a NT kernel feature, they still don't have to go to the true NT kernel to use it). The Win32 API provides either functions for or translation to almost every NT kernel feature needed from a developer standpoint.
This is truly an advantage, even though it may seem a bit complex as it plays to both sides. But when you realize that the client/server kernel, and object based subsystem model is, NT deserves a bit of respect as the Cutler team did create a Next Gen OS model. What NT is, was only theory in part when it was devised.
It also has more extensibility than anyone truly sees - which if competitors ever lose site of, they will be shocked and beaten by Microsoft again, when Microsoft turns NT on a dime if they need to and compete directly. Imagine a Darwin Subsystem, FreeBSD subsystem, Linux Subsystem, and just keep going from there.
NT could be EVERY OS, doing what each of these other OSes can only do one at a time (except through VM emulation), and not only run these subsystems and their applications side by side on screen, with NT's object messaging model passing information if needed between them, and the user could still have a win32/win64 subsystem as well just for playing games when they aren't managing the apache server in the FreeBSD subsystem.
NT has some genius, whether the win32 subsystem code is sloppy or not, and do not for second ever discount this, or the open source and open source OSes will truly get out foxed in the end and all their work will end up just like it did at Apple, a part of closed proprietary OS...
As far as kernel source not making a distribution, Windows is pretty monolithic. Unlike Linux, where most of your system is isolated in small stand-alone utilities, pretty much everything in Windows is woven together such that it would be a nightmare to try and untangle it. Longhorn may start to address this, but it's an architectural condition that can't really be resolved without making some major changes to the O/S
Actually the NT kernel is far form monolithic. It is still classified as a client/server kernel (which is somewhat unique into iself)
There are NO woven' or NT kernel dependancies. Each subsystem that lies on top of the NT kernel have their own 'OS Layer' Kernels, that are woven in their specific Subsystem, but they are not woven into NT kernsl, and far from it.
NT's arichtecture can actually do things that neither a monolithic BSD or micro Linux kernel can do, that is part of the genius behind Cutler and the NT development team of 1990-1993. And this is still being used today.
Not only does it offer a HAL an portabiltiy, but it also offers the same type of portability up in layers on the platform.
Microsoft already has a Unix subsystem for Windows, and it is even running on a couple of server here (one for test). It is a UNIX Subsystem, it has NOTHING to do with the Win32 subystem unless it wants to. In theory, Microsoft could even drop in a Linux binary level subsytem (with slight kernel changes in their Linux subsystem kernel), and run binary compatible i386 applicaitons in a Subsystem, and have the applications, EVEN X, appear side by side on the Windows desktop. And Linux would even then be running on TOP of the NT kernel, with possibly even an increase in performance for the Linux applications.
The irony in this, is that if Linux ever gets too succesful, that is all Microsoft would have to do is just add a Linux Subystem to the NT platform, and bingo, the users have WIndows and Linux too.
is head straight for the settings and set "Classic Desktop".
Hows that fancy screenshot gonna look then.
Why even run a GUI OS at all then?
I also assume you dress like Dilbert, and everything in your house is either B&W or Brown & Tan, and you probably understand or care as much about perception influence of art as a color-blind animal?
Gessh...
"Additionally, Longhorn will feature a new instant-on capability that will see Longhorn-savvy systems resume from Standby in 2 seconds or less."
Doesn't "Longhorn-savvy" kind of imply specific hardware is required? Or is that just me? And to be honest, I wouldn't really sell this as a feature other OSs have had for years...OS X certainly starts up from standby on my iBook in under 2 seconds...
And... Windows has been resuming from Standby in less than 2secs since APM standby was released.
This is NOT what they mean. It means an 'instant on BOOT'. They are NOT talking about standby or hibernation (suspend to disk).
If you want to compare your Mac's standby in 2secs as something super, take into effect that the crappy 2002 WindowsXP Laptop I am writing this on can resume from a full powered off hibernation state in less than 2secs, and that even includes bringing the wireless network back online.
Resume from Standby on this machine is almost instant.
(I get so tired of people's concepts that if their Mac has it, it is unique and better than anything else in the whole world, I guess because they are special, and also they don't ever pay attention to the rest of the world long enough to realize that there are other things outside their Apple based Plato's Cave)
One thing users should be aware of is that Longhorn will include a new kernel and will thus not offer the same level of compatibility with legacy 16-bit and 32-bit code that Windows XP does today. For business users, Microsoft believes that Virtual PC 2007 will help broaden corporations' compatibility options.
The kernel changes in Longhorn are minor, just as they have been in every version of NT since 1991. Why? Because the main kernel was designed fairly well, and is still doing what it was designed to be a client/sever model kernel that lets upper level subsystems have independent kernels with complete interoperability.
However what DOES change is the Win32/64 Subsystem Kernels, which are just a layer and not the OS kernel per se.
As for the quote, it is in regard to the 64bit versions, not the 32bit versions. Application compatibility will only affect applications that would be curtailed by further security layer tightening. This includes additional OSI Application layer filtering, etc.
Then the irony....
You knock Virtual PC (which is actually targeted at SERVERs, NOT home users) as a bad solution, yet you are a Mac user, so tell me once again how you run a native System 9 Application... Oh wait, you boot a full version of System 9? Wow, that would be even worse than booting a full version of XP in Virtual PC... Oh wait, never mind - IT IS THE SAME FREAKING CONCEPT.
The irony is that WindowsNT's 16bit support back in 1991 was transparent to the user, and loaded a subset layer for the 16bit version of Windows, the 16bit applications and the 32bit applications did and continue to run side by side.
This was quite an ingenious and elegant, and fast solution for the 16bit to 32bit migration for the NT platform back in 1993. Any yet when OSX was released, Apple Zealots were talking about how smart Apple was to allow OSX to boot System9 in its on environment, yet it was NOT transparent, and the applications could and would not run side by side the OSX applications. Apple's solution to System9 software was about as NEW, UNIQUE or ELEGANT as spit. So what were OSX users left with, dual boothing System9, or running it in a Virtual OS space, yet still separate from OSX and the OSX applications. What a freaking kludge!!!
Argh... This sometimes drives me crazy that I actually have to defend Microsoft because people can't read and like to ASSUME.
Microsoft has done some good things and a lot of crap things, but when it gets to the point that people start making stuff up, or contrast the perfection of Apple, it is just too much.
Are you in the EU?
With great irony, I don't currently work with or at the EU, but have in the past, and still have many contacts and friends still working in Brussels.
As I write this I happened to look down and my briefcase that I still carry and it is still the one I had when I did work there with the EU stamped engraving on it when it was given to me.
The ideals you refer to are still so subjective, as even the courts and the EU have trouble trying to balance if Microsoft is a monopoly and if so what actions they have done have actually hurt consumers.
Including a free Internet Brower in the OS is not something that hurt people, but got a lot more people in the world connected. IBM's OS/2 had a built in browser a few years before Microsoft did this with Win98 even. So was that an abuse that hurt consumers? If you read the US rulings you would think so, most people don't, the government didn't get, and still don't.
The same is true of the EU, they are trying to 'protect' consumers, and yet their actions have more of the guise of helping competitors rather than actually helping the consumers. Just as the US case did.
Even defining Microsoft as a monopoly, just because a US judge ruled so, does not make it REAL, just legally just. It is something many attorneys will continue to debate for the next century, just as they have the IBM and AT&T monopoly cases. In reality, monopoly is a very general term, even in the legal realm, as it has to have a basis of what is monopolized and how it has unruly control that is harming.
I for example could arguer that GM has a monopoly on the Corvette, and that they use their monopoly power of the Corvette to offer only Delco brand radios in the car. Why do we allow this? Shouldn't we call them a monopoly and tell them they MUST give the users a choice of radios in their car, or not put the Delco radio the Corvette at all? In reality, this is kind of what happened to Microsoft. It is just the Corvette wasn't so successful that ever Car Dealer only wanted to sell Corvettes and in order to get more money from the consumers signed exclusivity contracts with GM.
Again, this is what happened with and to Microsoft. If anyone is at fault in the Microsoft monopoly scandal it should be the large OEMs that took the exclusivity offer from Microsoft, AS MANY SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE VENDORS DO. And when questioned on why all their new PCs only came with Microsoft Windows, they shifted the blame back to Microsoft, when it was their choice in the first place to lock the consumer into this, not something Microsoft forced (and no it was not proven Microsoft forced ANY OEM into exclusivity contracts). Everyone here that hates the fact that their new PCs came with Windows, should be yelling at the companies that MADE the computers, not Microsoft.
To really follow the 'monopoly' of Microsoft you would have to timeline the whole set of stories going back to when Novell and WordPerfect first cried fowl and Orin Hatch (from their state) pushed the Justice Department to review Microsoft's actions.
In what I have seen of this paperwork, it was more to help WordPerfect and Novell than to actually try to find fault with MS. WordPerfect claimed that the undocumented APIs helped the Word Team, yet after review by technical analysts, they found this wasn't true, even though a few undocumented Windows APIs were discovered. WordPerfect failed because they assumed they had the market and didn't give a rat's ass about a Windows version of their product.
WordPerfect had screwed their customers with the 5.x era for several years with no upgrades, and then they wondered why they were losing market share to Microsoft so fast after Windows started being successful. Besides, Word was a mature and rather good Word-Processor, as Mac users from the 80s would attest to.
The irony to this story, is that when Windows 3.0 hit and was a marginal success, Microsoft tried to compel all major application companies to create a
but that it _forbid_ OEM's to install Quicktime or Realplayer on systems shipped
Been in the OEM business for many years, and we have yet to see any documentation from Microsoft preventing us from installing ANYTHING we want on the OSes for our PCs.
Additionally, prior to Windows2000, Windows95 and 98 had REALPLAYER on the OEM setup CD provided by Microsoft and it was installed in Windows, just they also had setups for AOL, Compuserve, and MSN.
If Microsoft is FORBIDDING the installation of this software, why is it on the OEM CDS that Microsoft provided to Manuafacturers up until the time these companies started stabbing Microsoft in the back by participaiting in lawsuits against MS.
Bully for Microsoft. I would of stopped putting RealPlayer, and AOL on my OS setup CDs as a courtesy to these companies once they testified against my company.
But EVEN after all that, there is NOTHING to forbid the installation of these applications, our Microsoft Contact, knows we do, and has even provided help from Microsoft on some of our installation troubles with these products, which they DID NOT HAVE TO DO.
The consipiracy theories here just keep getting bigger and bigger.
As for the whold Media Player issue in this thread... A) The EU requried MS to Remove Media Player (the UI) B) The EU required MS to Remove Media player control (the applet that allows it to play on web pages, and also provides OLE access). So even if the CODECS are installed on the system, but there is NO EXISTING Applet or Application to process them, how in the world could any reasonable person expect the video to play?
This is the most uneducated and ridiculous item I have seen in a while. And goes to prove the Government should fund and support technology but NOT REGULATE IT, as most people in the Government DOn't Get, won't get, nor have any expertise in these matters, no matter how many witnesses and hours are spent trying to EDUCATE a judge just so they can make an honest ruling.
I am so sick of Gov't thinking it knows better than the 'scientists', and 'technology' leaders of the world. Support these people don't second guess them.
As for the Intenet Explorer trial issues with regard to the Microsoft Monopoly, even the creator of Netscape later said it was bullcrap. (And he would be considered educated in the field, far more than the judges and lawyers making decisions FOR US).
This is gotten insane, in the US they preach capitalisim, yet when lawmakers or competitors draw into question a company that is too successful, the get put on a block and picked apart.
Sure there were idiots at Microsoft that did screwy stuff, but that doesn't mean Microsoft as a whole set out to do 99.9% of the things that Slashdot members keep refering to, over and over, and very inaccurately as well.
Get over it...
You don't like Microsoft, beat them at their own game. Truly make an Open Source OS that is as easy as Windows and supports as many program and hardware as Windows, and can do so without having prioritory Hardware like Apple does, and you will not even have to worry about Microsoft.
Ok, off my rant, and 90% of this stuff was NOT directed at the person that I am replying to, but I had to get it off my chest and into this discussion thread.
(Sorry in advance to RogerWilco)
-Also ignore the typos and grammar, I can see several in a quick proof, but don't have the time to edit them today.
TheNetAvenger - ranting off....
PS
I should add for people following this thread that the touted multi-threading abilities in JAVA have not always even been in JAVA.
It wasn't until the release of the 5.0 platform that they even added features to manage concurrency in an application that is even remotely on par with what is available in other development/platform environments.
For example, prior to the this release even getting a return value from a thread required a ton of code, something that has been very easy to do in other the other development languages/platforms for years and years now.
) you dont like Java
.NET is capable of doing this, portions of DirectX9 are written in .NET, a managed development language. Yet after 10 years JAVA still has trouble running a sprite based frogger game reliably. Microsoft is literally pushing around 3D photorealistic imaging that is hardware independent and writing it in a managed framework that is a lot like the conceptual makings of what JAVA was supposed to become someday.
b) so you don't work with Java
c) so you don't care about Java
d) so you only pick up random statements which fit into your view about Java
A) you have no facts, so go after the poster's credibility.
B) you are so in love with java, that you are considering making it your religion
C) you have never serious developed in the real world
D) you know nothing about me, and are only making assumptions... An assumption is just fool's intuition.
I was using JAVA when it first appeared, and marveled at the concepts of its ideals when it was in an infant stage and a lot of it was still conceptual (not that all of it has STILL been implemented). My company and I played with it for years, hoping that it would eventually live up to the promises of cross platform reliability, scalability and performance.
However now... It is kind of old news. Running applets and applications across the Web is old hat, and there are several technologies that do it well.
Besides, wasn't this topic about multi-threading?
Java has very little real support of multi-threading. The very nature of the language and it cross-platform designs never were designed to be the end all to be all for multi-threading.
What little 'ease' in multi-threading in developing a JAVA application was nothing more than picking up on concepts introduced YEARS before JAVA was even constructed. Maybe you should pretend like you are capable of researching something, and actually go look up these theories, how they were implemented in various development languages and OS platforms.
If you want to compare JAVA to writing C++ code for WindowsNT back in 1993, then absolutely, I am 100% with you, JAVA is far easier to easily create multi-threaded applications. But in comparison to VB, Delphi, Kylix, and MODERN C development languages and APIs and Libraries, it is nothing special, far from it.
I wasn't just trying to make a rant that JAVA was just pure crap; I was trying to bring some reality back to the topic. Everyone for some reason rallies around SUN and JAVA here in these open source forums, when in fact they have done SO LITTLE for open source.
Sun, nor its precious JAVA get any kudos in my book for being open source. (Even though there are rumors again yesterday that Sun might open JAVA up, rumors again - carrot on the stick comes out to get press.)
After trying to use JAVA in production environments where cross platform and performance are important it STILL fails miserably. That is why you don't even see SUN making all their cross platform applications in JAVA, they are even writing them in C and compiling them platform specifically. Unless you are talking Web Applets very few if hardly ANY mainstream applications are JAVA based.
When you can show me a Video rendering subsystem written in JAVA because of the reliability of its managed code and hardware independence, I will gladly apologize. Heck even Microsoft's 'bloated'
So even if you walk away from this thinking, this person knows nothing about the EASE of multi-threading in JAVA, ask yourself this simple fact...
What GOOD is multi-threading going to do in a development language that is performance challenged, when using muti-threading is a concept designed to get the most PERFORMANCE out of your hardware?
The companies producing and innovating multi-core CPUS, mutli-CPU configurations, Hyperthreading and other emerging innovations are not going to tell everyone to use JAVA because it is easier to multi-thread and take advantage of the great performance boost these technologies provide.
Anyone that HAS worked with JAVA and has sensibility can realize how ridiculous this would be.
care to elaborate? I was thinking the same thing as the grandparent... Java is one of the few languages which make multithreading relatively painless
.NET already do automatically.
= /library/en-us/vbcn7/html/vaconfreethreading.asp
.NET more open than Sun has Java even. Geesh)
Elaborate? Consider the 10year old next door using Visual Basic (or Delphi) and easily writing multi-threaded applications with only a couple of lines of code. Let alone the multi-threading the API of Win32 and especially
Take this reference from Visual Basic, if you can't understand it and write a solid 'controlled' multi-threaded application, you need to consider another career.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
The problem with developers and multi-threading within their own applicaitons is thinking beyond the event model where a response triggers a single action.
Java is still a poor language patch together by a few smart people trying to save it. Even the Solaris team at one time called Java crap that was shoved down their throats.
Java was the birth of many good ideas, but few Sun has brought to fruition. (And again, why on an Open Source Advocay site, do people still bow down to Java and Sun? Microsoft has made C# and
And I am definately not a Microsoft Developer fan boy, even on the Windows Platform I seldom use MS development tools.
Apparently, the only thing Longhorn will offer over Windows XP is a Direct3D interface that requires you to upgrade your computer in order to run it.
Actually, this tends to be a win-win for Windows users. (Pardon any puns)
People that want to keep XP and hold out for Longhorn, can do so, and still get access to most upcoming 3rd party next generation applications.
Developers are also helped, as they can start using the next generation technologies and tools and ensure that their target market is going to be larger than just the Longhorn crowd.
So in that respect you are correct and it is a way smart move on Microsoft's part to get the developers interested in Longhorn type technologies today.
However there a quite a few design changes coming with Longhorn that you won't get with XP.
As you state a new 3D interface, which comes with a new way of working with applications and folders as well as a new shell (explorer) for the GUI.
Longhorn also has a few other tricks up its sleeve that maybe most people won't notice or the press won't jump on. For example, its ability to do VM like work with existing 3D Graphics and video card memory, allowing more 3D applications to run concurrently than even what the hardware would normally allow.
There are also many NT kernel enhancements and stuff happening at the NT level (below the Win32 and Win64 layers). Also don't be surprised to see some new subsystems re-added back into the OS to be more competitive in the *nix markets, especially on the server versions.
Plus you have some of the optimizations and other things that still haven't been shifted into XP. Still take XP and Windows 2003 server, the revamp that delayed Windows 2003 server did great things for its performance, and it still runs smoother and faster than desktop XP.
The Longhorn/XP and the Win98/Win95 analogy people are using here is probably going to be somewhat true... But there were many features added to Win98 that nobody either picked up on or reported. Like the updates to the font rendering subsystem and many other OS optimizations and abilities. For example, Win98 was one of the first OSes that could multitask sound from within or between various applications. Prior to this, most OSes that played sound only allowed one application to play sound at a time. (And I can remember the days of writing sound multiplexing code; Win98's sound features were a nice feature for developers like me, as I no longer had to worry about it and could just let the OS distribute the sound in realtime.)
Are they trying to create a market where none exists, or do some people really get a sore wrist from mousing?
Well, not sure of the product or their marketing ploy...
However, I do know that people that are suffering from RSI injuries, and using a mouse adds to the pain and discomfort they have, as it creates further swelling in the wrist area, putting pressure on the nerves.
Now whether a mouse or keyboard created the RSI injuries is up for debate, because even in the people I have worked with, it can't be demonstrated to have one single activity that created the problem.
Also, products like this 'may', like I said, help with people that already have RSI injuries, but one of the most effective and simplistic solutions for RSI suffers in a Pen Tablet, whether it be a desktop Wacom or a full blown Tablet PC. The Pen (or Pencil) seems to create less pain for existing RSI users, and pen devices are also cheap now and also add functionality if the people do any handwriting notes or paint on their computers.
(Yes a pen tablet can take a bit for users to get use to, but once they do, most prefer it over a common mouse, especially because of the absolute mapping and precision that comes with it.)
Longhorn uses the 3D accelerator to render everything, Avalon the new presentation system is built on Direct3D, but so far theres not much actual 3D in the interface.
Which is true, but MS has only said that the 3d UI innovations will not be presented until early beta or later. They are keeping the 3D UI improvements under wraps to keep what they have innovated in this regard from being stolen or attempted to be copied.
The tools and developement they have made in regard to Avalon, kind of sets a stage for what is possible and leaves a lot of imagination up to the developers already to create quite impressive 3D UI elements in their applications.
I remember thinking a Mac Mini is obsolete the day you buy it since, among other things, it only comes with 32MB video RAM
Yep, and once again I call on all Mac fans to SCREAM at Apple, aren't they supposed to be the 'graphics leader'? Wait, that was back in 1991 when they started losing that title (ATI Vantage and 8514 IBM accelerated adapters on the PC were blazing fast compared to the video in Macs at that point, and Apple hasn't caught up yet.). (Even today, the video in the Macs is usually the middle of the Road ATI video card, and PC users can get a much faster version of the card.)
It is really sad considering even 99.9% of the generic video cards you can buy today have 64-128mb of RAM.
It is also really sad if these Mac people that buy them think they are going to EVER run any graphically intense game (not that there are many for the Mac).
My 4year old notebook has a more advanced video card in it than the new mini-mac. For a mini, you would think they could at least hit the PC standards for laptop video back in 2001.
Don't flag me as an Apple basher, I am someone that wants them to do great things, but Apple fans simply buying into their marketing instead of questioning what Apple is telling them isn't helping anyone but Apple make money off of ignorance and loyalty.
If people want to trust Apple as their graphics and technological leader, they need to be yelling at Apple that this is not good enough. In fact, not one Mac on the Apple site has the BEST graphics available today, why?
True Apple fans, tell Apple this is NOT acceptable.
Windows and Active Directory are a proprietary ripoff of LDAP and kerberos with some gui tools
Well I guess if you never used it, you would probably think this.
AD goes so far beyond a type of LDAP or authenication system it would be like saying Linux is nothing more than a rip off of 1969 *nix and doesn't do anymore.
(And no I don't believe that about Linux.)
Geesh...
ember when Win2000 had over 65000 known (to Microsoft) flaws
Ya, and I can tell you for a fact that the majority of these FLAWS were items like "Icon Background does not fully repaint with Web Desktop Enabled on NVidia GeForce2", and other BUGS that beta testers found and submitted to Microsoft that ranged from cosmetic to functionality impaired, but very few were SERIOUS or SECURITY risks, and the ones that were, were addressed before the product went live.
So you can call a icon not repainting, or a Network share shortcut not always tracking across NTFS properly as MAJOR FLAWs, but in the world of software, these are Bugs, not serious OS design flaws.
Get a life.
You seem to be living in a parallel dimension or something. Microsoft is playing "catch-up" at the moment. LongHorn isn't out yet, OS X has been for years. Microsoft has seen the Aqua colored light! They're going to give it their best, but don't give into all their hype just yet. Besides, when was the last time Microsoft did something even remotely revolutionary
You are obviously a fan boy/girl and don't pay attention or you wouldn't even have the nerve to post this.
As for OSX having a more mature presentation layer than Windows, yes, but does it even compare to what Microsoft has been working on for several years? No.
Additionally, just because Apple has the offscreen drawing and a slightly enhanced vector presentation layer than Windows does not make it the leader. If you will notice there is NOTHING IN THE APPLE UI that CANNOT BE DONE ON WINDOWS 2000 or WindowsXP. If you don't belive me, check out all the third party add ons that can give a Windows user EVERY feature a Mac OSX user has.
If the OSX model was 'ahead' then these third party programs would not even be possible on the WIndows system, but they are, because just because Microsoft didn't provide the cute UI that Apple did, doesn't mean the guts for doing what Apple is doing is not in part already been in Windows since 2000.
If you look up GDI+ to other application layer APIs available in Windows, you will even see they have been around far before anything like what Apple is providing in their OS.
Yes Apple does have a better presentation layer on a small scale, but NOT on the level it should be, nor on the level that even compares to what Microsoft has coming down the road. Once the Avalon technologies hit (EVEN ON WINDOWSXP), it will be another Apple period of catch up, just like it has been for last 15 years.
As for Microsoft not did anything revolutionary, pick a few things, the NT OS core Design and Kernel are STILL considered to be one of the most advanced kernels in practice from theory, and it is 13years old. If you want cute little revolutions like people in the Apple world like to cite, the next time you highlight a word and change the font think to yourself, this is a concept invented by Microsoft.
Microsoft has done a lot more than we would like to give them credit for. And by just putting our heads in the sand and saying they haven't ever did anything we are just keeping our ignorance and are NOT learning anything that we need to be competitive with Microsoft or to Encourage companies like Apple to do FAR more than what they are doing.
As your you assumptions that Microsoft has only ben keeping up with Apple, you need to review the OS market from 1991-2000, you will find Microsoft was providing features to users that Apple didn't GET AROUND to providing until OSX. That is SAD, VERY SAD. Just things like the memory managmement model and application isolation in System 9 and older is patheitic compared to Linux, Windows, or any other OS that was stil on the market. Even the failed OS/2 back in 1992 was years ahead of any Apple system software until OSX.
So ya, OSX is great, but why is Apple the one catching up to everyone else? Which is my point, Apple WAS the leader when the Mac came out, then they started to slip and haven't realized that THEY need to be the technology leaders again, not just keep up with Microsoft and the rest of the world as they are doing Now.
Right now the Apple world SO reminds me of when the Atari's, Amiga, and WIndows for the PC hit. Apple was SO arrogant they even made fun of these other platforms for HAVING MORE FEATURES.
It was a fight to get Apple to provide something as simplistic as COLOR on their Macs, and they and their Mac users made fun of color displays. Guess what, Apple was wrong, and they should ahve been the leader in providing Color on their Macs before anyone else was doing it. Instead they took pride in their Greyscale displays and made of fun of people that thought they would even have need for color.
So here we are again, form the one button mouse to the technologies Apple is providing, arrogance is going to cause them to dip behind, especially IF THEIR USERS BUY THEIR FUD AND MARKETING AND DON'T CONTINUE TO PUSH THEM TO KEEP APPLE ON TOP.