I don't really see the reasoning for what we got instead.
It's simple. The MP3 player market is very competitive. Like always, Apple looks for the high end niche to avoid the dog fight.
MP3 players, desktops, workstations, servers, or laptops -- Apple does not try to compete at the low end. There's no money to be made using their typical high style and marketing. iTunes store and software seem to be the exception, but they are provided to encourage the sale of iPods and computers.
This is why the Apple we know today will never make a big splash in the bottom-line corporate world. Same reason why we don't see BMW fleet cars.
The problem with your position on 1080i is that many of your 720p "advantages" are due to the limits of today's technology.
- Today's sets can't show full 1920 - Today's cameras can't shoot full 1920 - Interlaced to progressive conversion is expensive - Digitizing progressive is easier
While these statements are true today, in 5 years these problems will be be solved. They are technology limits.
Approximating the recovery of interlaced fields is simply a technology problem, not a mathematical limit. We throw away these fields as a compression technique, to compliment the other techniques used in MPEG2. Recovering an approximation should be as accepted and accurate as the color-depth recovery that we employ with JPEG and MPEG decompression filtering.
What won't change is that at the same bit-rate, the higher resolution interlaced fields have the potential to look sharper than the lower resolution progressive frames.
Good motion compensated de-interlacing can make interlaced fields look smooth, and these systems will be cheap enough to include in every set in 5 to 10 years. As far as I know, no such solution exists to enhance the lack of resolution. (Yes, I know sharpness filters exists, but the results are poor, and they are not typically sought as a solution to video problems. Maybe these will get better too, but I doubt it.)
I'm sure most people would agree that if we had been stuck with something like 320p vs. 480i for NTSC, that we would have been living with poorer quality images for the last two decades, once image processing had reached the limits of the format.
P.S. Most of today's sets are not natively progressive scan, but are still built with tubes. I agree this is rapidly changing, but tubes still have the picture quality edge. I'm betting on nano-tube cathode displays as the best replacement for direct-view tubes.
So JigSaw reads an interesting write up about the struggles in getting several 64 bit distros to boot, and spins it Linux offers good Opteron support where Windows-64 doesn't seem to.
Here's a summary of the "good support":
Couldn't get X to work at all on Gentoo. Wouldn't even compile.
Mandrake wouldn't install - failed to recognize the partitions even of a freshly formatted disk
Suse 8.2 random lockups - no support for the network card on the ASUS board
Suse 9 - failed to load kernel until ACPI was turned off - did eventually boot and run after 2.5 hours of install
A lot of standard packages crash hard, or even fail to compile
Let's be honest. Nearly all copied music files are illegally copied, and nearly all P2P music swappers are criminals.
This isn't the Betamax case. There are very few justifiable reasons for ripping to non DRM files. If Microsoft were the government, or the only vendor of multi-media software, I would be the first to join you in denouncing the loss of liberty.
Microsoft is doing what the corporate world is demanding, and that is protecting property rights. They're trying to walk the line between satisfying end-users and content providers. You may not like their choice, but then you still have options.
You should like Longhorn better because there be a sandbox - inside will be Sony, Universal, etc - and outside will be your content, over which you will have complete control. Good fences make good neighbors.
I seem to recall that Windows2000 had driver issues (actually, the lack of drivers) when it debuted
Win 2000 and 98 both supported the unified driver model, which was available to developers at least four years before 2000 was released. This was done to ensure 2000 had good driver support at it's release - which it did. 2000 wouldn't support 95 drivers, but it would use both 98 and NT drivers.
The parent is right - driver support is critical for an OS. One could argue it is the primary purpose for an OS to exist. Printer drivers were a primary reason for creation of Windows in the early 80's. Bill needed an environment for Word and Excel, one for printer manufactures to target. You see WordPerfect 5.1 was number one largely due to it's fantasic use of printers - cool fonts and graphics, independant of printer capability. Printing under Linux/Unix is still an adventure if the printer doesn't support post-script.
Seems bold of you to claim a music CD as your "own work". When was the last time you ripped a CD that wasn't copyrighted?
If you are in fact a music producer, surely you have better tools that WMP with which to copy your tracks. I know you are not, otherwise you would not be defending the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.
Your information is not completely correct. The operating speeds for all but the oldest TGV are at least 300kph.
Your reference seems to be speeds on "normal" rails, but many of the routes in France are designed for 300kph (or higher) speeds, and are used for commercial traffic at these speeds.
Microsoft didn't purchase Mica from Digital. They hired David Cutler and his team to create OS/2 NT in 1988 after Digial cancelled the Prism/Mica project.
NT started out with services, networking, user ACLs, and security. None of these were afterthoughts. I think you must be thinking about Win95, which Microsoft wisely abandoned in the late 90's.
Please provide evidence as to this complete new rewrite. If you are referring to Longhorn, this is not a rewrite, but a new layer on the file system to make document management easier combined with a new GDI layer to make it easier to code user interfaces. Longhorn is NT 6.0.
I also have never experienced a virus or worm on my 2000 box -- this without a firewall and using a static IP. You see, I regularly install patches.
Think of it as the difference between Playdough (Windows) and Lego (Unix).
How is a design based on hundreds of modular DLLs "monolithic"?
I claim NT's design is elegant because it is based on a micro-kernel, with modular sub systems for application support (file, graphics, networking, win32, win16, posix, and now win64). Security is inherient in the process and thread model through the use of handles and ACLs for access to files, pipes, sockets, and practically any other system resource. In fact, most people would acknowlege NT was a next generation design of VMS, an advanced unix style variant from Digital.
I acknowedlge the simplicity of the "everything is a file" model, but it has limits. You're comparing apples and oranges if you don't include X, XUL, KDE, Apache modules, JDK, and all of the other open source APIs that are used to create solutions under Linux and BSD. These APIs consist of more than open, close, read, write, fork and exec.
I'm not going to defend the overall security of Windows as a platform (with all of it's additional functionality), but I don't think the design of the NT kernel and sub-systems are to blame. I blame the application designers (including the I.E. group) who were schooled on Win95 and under-estimate the zeal of the hackers and virus writers.
I take issue with your statement that Unix design is more elegant. I feel that NT is a wonderful, modern, design, with inherently more built-in security features than BSD or Linux variants.
Microsoft's security troubles are caused by weak sucurity practices carried over from Win 3.1 and 95 to support legacy apps that were not designed to support security. Those weak practices combined with a useful, widely used, interprocess mechanism (COM, which BSD and Linux have no equivalent), are responsible for the vast majority of security issues under Windows.
You missed the only real advantage of optical connections - elimination of noise via grounds. Optical cables can't transmit power supply or other EM noise, nor can they transmit harmful power spikes.
Maybe that's why Murdoch doesn't do HD - after buying the NFL, he doesn't want us to see how poor the rest of his low budget line-up is.
Seriously though, there's lot of entertaining programming on network TV today - West Wing, CSI, NCAA Football, Frasier, Nova, Frontline, Newshour, Nightline, NYPD Blue, Letterman, Survivor (OK, I'm warped).
I know it's a matter of taste, but in my opinion, there are more quality shows on network TV than ever before. Unfortunately, there are also a hoarde of cheaply produced reality shows that are being used as filler.
does anyone actually give two shits if they watch Friends in analog or digital.
I do.
I can understand tax dollars trying to hurry along progression of medical technologies, defense technologies, communication technologies, but TV?? Who cares?
Because the airwaves belong to the public, and there's no reason to let such a valuable asset stagnate with analog signals while every other broadcast medium including satellite and cable has made the transition to digital.
Your experience doesn't sound typical for late 1993 - more like mid 1992.
Today, the average HD junkie gets several HDTV channels from either DirecTV or Echostar, or if they're lucky, one of the few enlightened cable companies. Typical lineups includes HBO, Showtime, Discovery, ESPN, HDNet, and a PPV. A new satellite service called VOOM has 25 HD channels now, and promises 39 by February.
In addition, most people (>90%) have multiple free OTA DTV stations in their area, receivable with hardware ranging from a VHF/UHF set top antenna up to a roof or attic mounted 80" boom.
Most local CBS, ABC, and NBC affilitates are transmitting HDTV network feeds -- although some Mountain Time Zone stations have a problem with the 1 hour delay.
And those HD network feeds include nearly all prime-time programming except news and reality shows. Leno too. Many sporting events are also HD broadcasts. The quality is excellect, far exceeding DVD quality. HD video feeds are simply amazing to look at.
Sadly UPN and Fox have no HD content, while WB has some, but few affiliates have HD capability yet.
Following their mandates to support schools, PBS affiliates often use the multicasting during the day and HD at night. Fortunately most commercial stations have followed the networks leads and chosen quality (HD) over quantity (multicasting).
Programming has improved dramatically over the last two years, and DTV adoption is beyond critical mass. All large screen sets are DTV ready, jsut waiting for your cable, satellite, or OTA box. Over 6.5 million DTV products will have been sold by the end of 2003, 60% of that amount this year alone. Growth rates are following other major comsumer electronics products like DVD. Quoting Consumer Electronics Vision, a CEA trade publication, "The bottom line? In spite of the jockeying on specific issues, HDTV is an enormous success story in the United States."
That's the state of HD in America today. It's already happened.
A technical note: VSB actually helps more people receive a strong enough signal to lock digital stations, as it enables the same power levels to cover a larger area as compared to the Sinclair backed COFDM. 3rd generation chipsets have largely eliminated the multipath problems that COFDM was designed to correct.
These devices are a more natural successor to the CRT based systems - excellect contrast and brightness (as good as existing CRTs), flat panel design, lower power consumption (as compared to plasma). The technology is essentially one cathode per pixel.
From IEEE Spectrum, September 2003:
Samsung and Motorola are aggressively pursuing field-emission display technology using nanotubes. Samsung, for example, has already demonstrated a full-color 38-inch field-emission display capable of handling normal video frame rates. What's more, a Japanese government-funded consortium was announced earlier this year to develop similar displays, and Sony Corp. (Tokyo) is developing its own nanotube display technology as well.
Re:Yeah, let's have some realisation please
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
You should be ashamed that you've encouraged people to switch from an NT based OS to a DOS based UI. You should know better, and I suspect you've done it to enslave them to your support costs. Anyone who thinks 95, 98, or ME is a more reliable solution than 2000 or XP is clearly ignorant and not suited to give advise on Windows computing. I suggest your Blaster victim should have purchased an inexpensive firewall instead wasting his money on your misguided services.
Re:it still isnt gonna go mainstream
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
In every corporation I've done IT for, the users have had far too much control for anything but Windows (one exteme) or completely dumb terminals (the other) to succeed. Between screen savers, Real Player, cool little utilities from home, special mice, personal laptops, AOL, and every other G*d D*mn thing you can think of, each desktop requires intelligent maintenance and security solutions.
Everyone has joined the Windows world at home, and they're smart enough to partially administer their own boxes at work. Copy exact workstations went out with suits and ties at the places I've worked.
Isn't this sort of potential disclosure of trade secrets covered by existing law? Can't Best Buy claim that the information was stolen? It seems that a court would rule that since any disclosure of such information serves no public interest, the information is the exclusive property of Best Buy.
I've been using Unix style tools in my profession for 15 years, but that doesn't mean I think they're easy to use -- which was your claim. They're not. They're for power users.
Most good commercial software is designed around the layman's behaviors and knowledge, and yet still has the features and automated interfaces for power users. It enables the common man to use the computer to accomplish powerful things. Most people in the Windows world want a checkbox for "compress" not "| gzip -blah -blah -blah". They don't want to read the man page, read a FAQ, or post a message to a forum. They want a wizard to help them set up a backup profile. They don't want to learn a scripting language to automate their backups.
The discussion was about using disk imaging tools for BACKUP -- your initial post establishes that. That's why I pointed out why dd is poorly suited for Windows backup. In addition, for your benefit, I also discussed how dd is lacking commonly needed features for Windows imaging.
Unfortunately the dd solution (or any disk imaging solution) stinks as a backup tool because:
1) You can't selectively restore files, which is one of the most useful things to do with backups.
2) You can't restore to a different type/size of disk or to a different file system
3) You can't do it while you are using the partition
4) A windows dd solution has no easy to use disaster recovery options
5) You can't do differential backups
6) You can't span multiple media types, or backup to tape at all
7) It doesn't compress on the target media
dd is not a backup tool -- it is an imaging tool. There are several good commercial backup products on the market that do all of these things. This was my point.
Not only that, commercial imaging tools are better at their job than dd because of:
1) Windows UUID
2) Media spanning
3) Compression
4) UI Feedback
5) Ease of Installation/Online help (vs cygwin for most windows users)
6) For Windows users, not having to wrestle with hd0 and other unix style device notation
So dd loses out on everything but the free argument, which is all most of your type is interested in - not paying.
why not try one of the many good backup software packages. I like Tapeware by Yosemite technologies. Good windows backup software will create a bootable recovery CD-ROM that will enable you to restore without first re-installing windows.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really see the reasoning for what we got instead.
It's simple. The MP3 player market is very competitive. Like always, Apple looks for the high end niche to avoid the dog fight.
MP3 players, desktops, workstations, servers, or laptops -- Apple does not try to compete at the low end. There's no money to be made using their typical high style and marketing. iTunes store and software seem to be the exception, but they are provided to encourage the sale of iPods and computers.
This is why the Apple we know today will never make a big splash in the bottom-line corporate world. Same reason why we don't see BMW fleet cars.
The problem with your position on 1080i is that many of your 720p "advantages" are due to the limits of today's technology.
- Today's sets can't show full 1920
- Today's cameras can't shoot full 1920
- Interlaced to progressive conversion is expensive
- Digitizing progressive is easier
While these statements are true today, in 5 years these problems will be be solved. They are technology limits.
Approximating the recovery of interlaced fields is simply a technology problem, not a mathematical limit. We throw away these fields as a compression technique, to compliment the other techniques used in MPEG2. Recovering an approximation should be as accepted and accurate as the color-depth recovery that we employ with JPEG and MPEG decompression filtering.
What won't change is that at the same bit-rate, the higher resolution interlaced fields have the potential to look sharper than the lower resolution progressive frames.
Good motion compensated de-interlacing can make interlaced fields look smooth, and these systems will be cheap enough to include in every set in 5 to 10 years. As far as I know, no such solution exists to enhance the lack of resolution. (Yes, I know sharpness filters exists, but the results are poor, and they are not typically sought as a solution to video problems. Maybe these will get better too, but I doubt it.)
I'm sure most people would agree that if we had been stuck with something like 320p vs. 480i for NTSC, that we would have been living with poorer quality images for the last two decades, once image processing had reached the limits of the format.
Fortunately, ATSC wisely accomodates multiple formats.
Dave
P.S. Most of today's sets are not natively progressive scan, but are still built with tubes. I agree this is rapidly changing, but tubes still have the picture quality edge. I'm betting on nano-tube cathode displays as the best replacement for direct-view tubes.
So JigSaw reads an interesting write up about the struggles in getting several 64 bit distros to boot, and spins it Linux offers good Opteron support where Windows-64 doesn't seem to.
Here's a summary of the "good support":
Please stop...your spinning makes me nauseous.
Let's be honest. Nearly all copied music files are illegally copied, and nearly all P2P music swappers are criminals.
This isn't the Betamax case. There are very few justifiable reasons for ripping to non DRM files. If Microsoft were the government, or the only vendor of multi-media software, I would be the first to join you in denouncing the loss of liberty.
Microsoft is doing what the corporate world is demanding, and that is protecting property rights. They're trying to walk the line between satisfying end-users and content providers. You may not like their choice, but then you still have options.
You should like Longhorn better because there be a sandbox - inside will be Sony, Universal, etc - and outside will be your content, over which you will have complete control. Good fences make good neighbors.
I seem to recall that Windows2000 had driver issues (actually, the lack of drivers) when it debuted
Win 2000 and 98 both supported the unified driver model, which was available to developers at least four years before 2000 was released. This was done to ensure 2000 had good driver support at it's release - which it did. 2000 wouldn't support 95 drivers, but it would use both 98 and NT drivers.
The parent is right - driver support is critical for an OS. One could argue it is the primary purpose for an OS to exist. Printer drivers were a primary reason for creation of Windows in the early 80's. Bill needed an environment for Word and Excel, one for printer manufactures to target. You see WordPerfect 5.1 was number one largely due to it's fantasic use of printers - cool fonts and graphics, independant of printer capability. Printing under Linux/Unix is still an adventure if the printer doesn't support post-script.
automaticaly applies DRM to your own work.
Seems bold of you to claim a music CD as your "own work". When was the last time you ripped a CD that wasn't copyrighted?
If you are in fact a music producer, surely you have better tools that WMP with which to copy your tracks. I know you are not, otherwise you would not be defending the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.
I'm sure someone is preparing the calculations for you. In the mean time, I'll give you some hints.
Hair Dryers - power - measured in watts.
50,000 pounds lifted 1/4 inch - a measure of energy, or work done
energy = power * time
So you just need to factor in the amount of time required to lift the train cars.
I suspect the press release was actually referring to the power loss in the system (as heat) when maintaining 1/4 of lift above the rail.
In comparison, the French TGV system requires 0.0 watts of power to keep a 50,000-pound car lifted several inches above the rail - they use wheels.
Your information is not completely correct. The operating speeds for all but the oldest TGV are at least 300kph.
Your reference seems to be speeds on "normal" rails, but many of the routes in France are designed for 300kph (or higher) speeds, and are used for commercial traffic at these speeds.
Microsoft didn't purchase Mica from Digital. They hired David Cutler and his team to create OS/2 NT in 1988 after Digial cancelled the Prism/Mica project.
NT started out with services, networking, user ACLs, and security. None of these were afterthoughts. I think you must be thinking about Win95, which Microsoft wisely abandoned in the late 90's.
Please provide evidence as to this complete new rewrite. If you are referring to Longhorn, this is not a rewrite, but a new layer on the file system to make document management easier combined with a new GDI layer to make it easier to code user interfaces. Longhorn is NT 6.0.
I also have never experienced a virus or worm on my 2000 box -- this without a firewall and using a static IP. You see, I regularly install patches.
large monolitic code
Think of it as the difference between Playdough (Windows) and Lego (Unix).
How is a design based on hundreds of modular DLLs "monolithic"?
I claim NT's design is elegant because it is based on a micro-kernel, with modular sub systems for application support (file, graphics, networking, win32, win16, posix, and now win64). Security is inherient in the process and thread model through the use of handles and ACLs for access to files, pipes, sockets, and practically any other system resource. In fact, most people would acknowlege NT was a next generation design of VMS, an advanced unix style variant from Digital.
I acknowedlge the simplicity of the "everything is a file" model, but it has limits. You're comparing apples and oranges if you don't include X, XUL, KDE, Apache modules, JDK, and all of the other open source APIs that are used to create solutions under Linux and BSD. These APIs consist of more than open, close, read, write, fork and exec.
I'm not going to defend the overall security of Windows as a platform (with all of it's additional functionality), but I don't think the design of the NT kernel and sub-systems are to blame. I blame the application designers (including the I.E. group) who were schooled on Win95 and under-estimate the zeal of the hackers and virus writers.
I take issue with your statement that Unix design is more elegant. I feel that NT is a wonderful, modern, design, with inherently more built-in security features than BSD or Linux variants.
Microsoft's security troubles are caused by weak sucurity practices carried over from Win 3.1 and 95 to support legacy apps that were not designed to support security. Those weak practices combined with a useful, widely used, interprocess mechanism (COM, which BSD and Linux have no equivalent), are responsible for the vast majority of security issues under Windows.
Sorry, wrong decade.
You missed the only real advantage of optical connections - elimination of noise via grounds. Optical cables can't transmit power supply or other EM noise, nor can they transmit harmful power spikes.
Maybe that's why Murdoch doesn't do HD - after buying the NFL, he doesn't want us to see how poor the rest of his low budget line-up is.
Seriously though, there's lot of entertaining programming on network TV today - West Wing, CSI, NCAA Football, Frasier, Nova, Frontline, Newshour, Nightline, NYPD Blue, Letterman, Survivor (OK, I'm warped).
I know it's a matter of taste, but in my opinion, there are more quality shows on network TV than ever before. Unfortunately, there are also a hoarde of cheaply produced reality shows that are being used as filler.
I do.
I can understand tax dollars trying to hurry along progression of medical technologies, defense technologies, communication technologies, but TV?? Who cares?Because the airwaves belong to the public, and there's no reason to let such a valuable asset stagnate with analog signals while every other broadcast medium including satellite and cable has made the transition to digital.
Your experience doesn't sound typical for late 1993 - more like mid 1992.
Today, the average HD junkie gets several HDTV channels from either DirecTV or Echostar, or if they're lucky, one of the few enlightened cable companies. Typical lineups includes HBO, Showtime, Discovery, ESPN, HDNet, and a PPV. A new satellite service called VOOM has 25 HD channels now, and promises 39 by February.
In addition, most people (>90%) have multiple free OTA DTV stations in their area, receivable with hardware ranging from a VHF/UHF set top antenna up to a roof or attic mounted 80" boom.
Most local CBS, ABC, and NBC affilitates are transmitting HDTV network feeds -- although some Mountain Time Zone stations have a problem with the 1 hour delay.
And those HD network feeds include nearly all prime-time programming except news and reality shows. Leno too. Many sporting events are also HD broadcasts. The quality is excellect, far exceeding DVD quality. HD video feeds are simply amazing to look at.
Sadly UPN and Fox have no HD content, while WB has some, but few affiliates have HD capability yet.
Following their mandates to support schools, PBS affiliates often use the multicasting during the day and HD at night. Fortunately most commercial stations have followed the networks leads and chosen quality (HD) over quantity (multicasting).
Programming has improved dramatically over the last two years, and DTV adoption is beyond critical mass. All large screen sets are DTV ready, jsut waiting for your cable, satellite, or OTA box. Over 6.5 million DTV products will have been sold by the end of 2003, 60% of that amount this year alone. Growth rates are following other major comsumer electronics products like DVD. Quoting Consumer Electronics Vision, a CEA trade publication, "The bottom line? In spite of the jockeying on specific issues, HDTV is an enormous success story in the United States."
That's the state of HD in America today. It's already happened.
A technical note: VSB actually helps more people receive a strong enough signal to lock digital stations, as it enables the same power levels to cover a larger area as compared to the Sinclair backed COFDM. 3rd generation chipsets have largely eliminated the multipath problems that COFDM was designed to correct.
These devices are a more natural successor to the CRT based systems - excellect contrast and brightness (as good as existing CRTs), flat panel design, lower power consumption (as compared to plasma). The technology is essentially one cathode per pixel.
From IEEE Spectrum, September 2003:
Samsung and Motorola are aggressively pursuing field-emission display technology using nanotubes. Samsung, for example, has already demonstrated a full-color 38-inch field-emission display capable of handling normal video frame rates. What's more, a Japanese government-funded consortium was announced earlier this year to develop similar displays, and Sony Corp. (Tokyo) is developing its own nanotube display technology as well.
You should be ashamed that you've encouraged people to switch from an NT based OS to a DOS based UI. You should know better, and I suspect you've done it to enslave them to your support costs. Anyone who thinks 95, 98, or ME is a more reliable solution than 2000 or XP is clearly ignorant and not suited to give advise on Windows computing. I suggest your Blaster victim should have purchased an inexpensive firewall instead wasting his money on your misguided services.
In every corporation I've done IT for, the users have had far too much control for anything but Windows (one exteme) or completely dumb terminals (the other) to succeed. Between screen savers, Real Player, cool little utilities from home, special mice, personal laptops, AOL, and every other G*d D*mn thing you can think of, each desktop requires intelligent maintenance and security solutions.
Everyone has joined the Windows world at home, and they're smart enough to partially administer their own boxes at work. Copy exact workstations went out with suits and ties at the places I've worked.
Isn't this sort of potential disclosure of trade secrets covered by existing law? Can't Best Buy claim that the information was stolen? It seems that a court would rule that since any disclosure of such information serves no public interest, the information is the exclusive property of Best Buy.
I've been using Unix style tools in my profession for 15 years, but that doesn't mean I think they're easy to use -- which was your claim. They're not. They're for power users.
Most good commercial software is designed around the layman's behaviors and knowledge, and yet still has the features and automated interfaces for power users. It enables the common man to use the computer to accomplish powerful things. Most people in the Windows world want a checkbox for "compress" not "| gzip -blah -blah -blah". They don't want to read the man page, read a FAQ, or post a message to a forum. They want a wizard to help them set up a backup profile. They don't want to learn a scripting language to automate their backups.
The discussion was about using disk imaging tools for BACKUP -- your initial post establishes that. That's why I pointed out why dd is poorly suited for Windows backup. In addition, for your benefit, I also discussed how dd is lacking commonly needed features for Windows imaging.
Unfortunately the dd solution (or any disk imaging solution) stinks as a backup tool because:
1) You can't selectively restore files, which is one of the most useful things to do with backups.
2) You can't restore to a different type/size of disk or to a different file system
3) You can't do it while you are using the partition
4) A windows dd solution has no easy to use disaster recovery options
5) You can't do differential backups
6) You can't span multiple media types, or backup to tape at all
7) It doesn't compress on the target media
dd is not a backup tool -- it is an imaging tool. There are several good commercial backup products on the market that do all of these things. This was my point.
Not only that, commercial imaging tools are better at their job than dd because of:
1) Windows UUID
2) Media spanning
3) Compression
4) UI Feedback
5) Ease of Installation/Online help (vs cygwin for most windows users)
6) For Windows users, not having to wrestle with hd0 and other unix style device notation
So dd loses out on everything but the free argument, which is all most of your type is interested in - not paying.
Anyone who thinks dd is the easiest way to do backups is certainly wearing rose colored glasses - ease of use has come a long way since the 70s.
It's funny how some people who espouse free and open are so often closed minded toward commercial software.
why not try one of the many good backup software packages. I like Tapeware by Yosemite technologies. Good windows backup software will create a bootable recovery CD-ROM that will enable you to restore without first re-installing windows.