'I'm curious what the actual hardware was. I've never seen that happen on any of dozens of Vista installs. '
I'm a technician and I see new problems on XP installs on a fairly regular basis that I haven't see on hundreds of previous installs. Including problems that others run into regularly.
'This perception exists because Vista had a particularly rocky launch.'
That and a buggy security model (even with UAC off), network printing issues, being slow compared to its predecessor on the same hardware, and generally sucking.;)
'If you use suitable hardware, and don't depend on shitty legacy software,'
Shitty legacy software, like Nero 9, or Quickbooks 2006, MagicISO/MagicDisk (current release) or any other fancy ancient software like that. As for suitable hardware, the definition of suitable for Vista is a large part of the problem. It wouldn't even be as bad if Vista performed better than XP if you just gave it enough muscle but it doesn't, your quad-core with 8gb of ram will still run better on XP than vista.
'The security situation with it out of the box is significantly improved over previous versions.'
In what way? UAC certainly isn't an improvement and in my experience the bugs in the security model will get in the user (or at least their tech's) way repeatedly.
'Microsoft's made several blunders with Vista, but failing to realize that consumers even today in this malware cesspool that XP is still don't view security as a feature was one of them.'
I might buy this line if vista were an improvement. In my experience vista equates to serious software incompatibility and massive inundation with useless UAC prompts. Even if there is a prompt when it counts the user clicks through it anyway because there are thousands for obviously benign behavior and users don't know what the prompts mean!
I guess its tough for users to appreciate security when their software doesn't run, they get a thousand useless prompts that mean nothing to them each day, they can't print to the network printer consistently, and flaws in the new 'security' model cause permission errors like not being able to delete files from your desktop... as administrator... with explicitly set permissions.
'And worse, that everytime a user ran into shitty software that copied its dll's into the system32 folder everytime it launched, re-registered its COM components evertime you accessed a menu item, stored its user settings in the program files folder, and violated every other bit of security common sense and windows developer guideline you can imagine'
New guidelines that contradict previously given information to developers. Further, tools like Visual X have intentionally brought up a generation of developers who wouldn't recognize or understand the use of a best practice if it slapped them in the face.
Microsoft has nobody but Microsoft to blame for the inept mainstay windows developer.
As for security, it can be seen on non-windows systems and it doesn't need to be the nightmare that is windows vista.
If Microsoft wants to fix visa security I would applaud it. Do away with senseless UAC prompts and just block behavior that never makes sense. Issue new developer and partner guidelines and release their operating system and DON'T push the new system. Instead, give people time to gradually and slowly port their applications and new hardware over a several year period. Discontinuing XP OEM's should be a decade down the road and the start of the vista compatibility push shouldn't even happen until all the major applications work.
I suspect Windows 7 'speed' is smoke and mirrors. I saw a benchmark I trust that said it was as fast as vista and a couple from traditional MS apologizer sites that said it was faster than vista.
'Joe Enduser is leading the charge in the anti-Vista crusades, and Joe sees that the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.'
Not really. Joe Enduser's tech is leading the crusades and making the decisions and making Joe feel like the boss by telling him what choice to make and then asking for Joe's decision (which will be entirely based on what his tech just said).
Joe doesn't know if he has a good system or not. In fact, if Joe has too many problems he will assume its the tech and not the system that is defective.
'The problem with Vista -now- really is primarily PR.'
That and the buggy security model, incompatible major software issues, numerous issues with network printing, and the fact that even on 'suitable hardware' it is outperformed by its predecessor in almost all areas. And lets not forget the marketing screwup of releasing it in 200 flavors when two confused the userbase.
Vista still remains a downgrade from XP with no clear advantages (except video previews on the taskbar... ooo... ahhh...) and plenty of shortcomings.
'The only major obstacle in the face of Microsoft really is public perception that "Vista sucks"; and most of the people who think it sucks haven't even tried it, and won't.'
The public doesn't know. The public won't even know after having Vista on their computer for a few years. Their techs know, and the techs have tried vista and have found it lacking compared with XP. The service pack didn't even fix much of anything, it actually just added a new array of problems.
I'm speaking as a technician who has been running vista for the past few months just in case I didn't give it enough of a chance the first time I loaded it. The first time I ran the system for about a week before declaring it to be of alpha quality. That is bad, MS usually releases with beta quality.
'I hear that the developers for Windows 7SP1 will include a natively-built grep-like utility.'
OMG OMFG, EVERYONE SHUTUP!!!! Windows 7 will include the first release of an application with the power and utility of grep. It only took them 20 years to manage it even with BSD sources to steal... err utilize. Truly, windows + grep is worthy of being considered a new name. Next up, text based configuration that would actually make text utils like grep useful!.
'1. I use Vista, I'm an IT professional, and I don't think it's that great. It's not horrible, but it's not worth paying money for.'
I have Vista loaded at the moment. I'm an IT professional, and I don't think it's that great either. It IS pretty horrible, and its certainly not worth paying money for.
The entire system is plagued with permissions and security problems (whether you have UAC on or not). Nero is trashed. Network printing may or may not work depending on the day of the week. Backwards compatibility simply didn't exist, and the resource requirements are well within the realm of insane.
A typical new off the shelf vista system is a quad core with 8gb of ram and a half tb of storage. That box will run vista fairly well (such as it is), that box will run XP with insane speed, combine that with a decent video card and you can max out settings on any game on the market. Those are the specs of systems being sold for general desktop vista systems!
Actually he is 100% correct. The confusion has simply spread into the technical community as well. I suspect it is windows programmers and techs who bring the idea that an operating system is something the user interact with to the table.
Some CS courses have been updated to reflect those misplaced ideas and perhaps the term in changing but 10-15yrs ago any book or course teaching operating system design meant kernel design. There has been debate on whether certain low level bits should be considered part of the operating system as well, but it never amounted to anything close to the software included with 'Windows' or "MacOS" or even "DOS" all being considered part of the operating system itself. Those distributions all include an operating system that is unique but the rest of the package is not the operating system and would not function without the operating system.
Actually its get confusion that is the problem. Geeks used to know that the kernel IS the operating system. Then windows and macos came along and started calling their entire distro an operating system. Now geeks coming from the windows world have adopted that terminology leaving most people (including geeks) with an individual definition of just what an operating system is.
Children who grow up with the web should read incredibly well. The web is a massive library and without being able to read you won't be able to do much in internet and computer land. It solves a huge problem for parents and that problem is getting children interested in reading in the first place.
That said, a child growing up on the internet will be exposed to improper punctuation and grammar more frequently than a child growing up reading proofread and edited printed materials. That is probably a good thing. Those children will be less pedantic, and have less difficulty discerning intent and meaning from written text.
This is no different than the gamer generation versus their parents. The problem was not merely that the parents had difficulty with electronic interfaces, the problem was they had difficulty adapting to varied interfaces. The gamer generation can hope between operating systems, not to mention individual applications for the same purpose without too much difficulty. Their parents could learn and master an OS or application but when confronted with something different had/have a great deal of difficulty.
Why? Because every console video game has a unique and non-standard interface. Instead of learning the interfaces themselves, gamers learn the common elements that need to be and should be present in all video game interfaces. When they pick up a new game they don't stare at the foreign interface confused they start by figuring out how to navigate and then immediately proceed to look for the elements they know should be there and take note of extras found along the way.
That difference in how a new (insert almost anything here) is viewed while minor gives amazing flexibility when presented with tasks and arguably is the difference between genius and ignorance.
'We've seen what the USSR could accomplish as a go-it-alone economy, and it wasn't enough. Having a nominally capitalist system will help, but Putin needs to stop with the saber rattling and the blind nationalism.'
No we've seen what the USSR could accomplish as a go-it-alone economy in a constant state of keeping up with the jones and war. The USSR didn't bankrupt itself, the US bankrupted the USSR.
'but the rest of my family has normal vision and generally doesn't use much more than 60W bulbs to read by. For overhead lighting, especially for a larger room, sure, you need more than that,'
Actually a 60-100w in an overhead bulb will nicely blanket a room. You need much brighter lighting in a kitchen, a reading lamp, or anywhere you perform fine work. Age shouldn't impact the light you need to read. The only thing that happens is that as you age your eye muscles weaken and lose the ability to refocus, that affects your need for reading glasses and to strain in low light. You shouldn't be reading under low light and causing your eye muscles to work in the first place.
'However, it would make more sense to use one 100W halogen over three 35W halogens because incandescent lights are less efficient in smaller wattages.'
The reason argon bulbs and not halogen are used for typical indoor lighting are twofold. First they are incredibly hot and while the lumen per dollar rating might be better it would be seriously offset in A/C and comfort costs. Second they require a ballast which is expensive.
I pretty much live in the dark too but I would never strain my eyes trying to read by 40w bulbs. I usually read by backlit display but for paper books a 150w is required. Anything short of that is hurting your eyes.
'In this particular room I have one of those lamps with the 300 watt halogen bulbs when I actually sit in that room and do stuff (rare).'
Seriously? Doesn't it catch on fire? Halogen lighting is what is used for spotlights or a 75 watt is used to deter thieves as an outside floodlight. It's extremely hot, you would need active cooling for a 300 watt halogen.
'An incandescant dimmer is simply a rheostat (variable resistor), but Light Emitting Diodes are binary - either all the way on or all the way off.'
Spoken like someone who has never actually used an LED before. Get yourself a battery, an led, and a number of various sizes of resistor. Report back when you are ready to recant your story.
I don't trust lumens either. The lumen output of CFL lighting halves every foot or so from the light source.
I don't know the nitty gritty details about why CFL's have no penetrating power and other lights do, only that it is true. I've heard the explanation once but it was long ago.
'A 25W incandescent is easily bright enough to illuminate a fair-sized room.'
If you consider 'bright enough' to be just enough illumination to keep you from stumbling over things. A 60 watt incandescent will still leave shadows in a completely empty living room painted white. I know, I've stuck them in lamps while moving in.
'The only sense in which you are correct is that the 'latest and greatest' thing you can buy is old tech relative to things then under development. That's because there's typically a year give or take (usually give) between receiving the first silicon from the fab in the transistor node the product was designed for and all the validation, bug fixes, and spins on the product before it's ready to be sold. That means the fab tech has to be done and mostly stable by the time you start this process, so go roughly six months back before that where they're making test chips in the new fab to make sure it's working. And development of that fab tech before it's ready to run its first test chip wafer is two or more years before that, with R&D going on for years before that.'
Everything you are describing is the production stage. The technology waiting in the wings would not be in any stage of production, it would be in the lab phase.
I don't think I've seen anyone actually talking about what they were getting at. The idea was that you could use improvements in technology to double transistors on the chip or you could use the improve technology to make a chip for half the price.
I'm with the crowd, I don't care so much these days to see a $50 processor, I want to see that $500 video card drop to $5 and the baddest alienware systems scaled to cost $50.
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'I'm curious what the actual hardware was. I've never seen that happen on any of dozens of Vista installs. '
I'm a technician and I see new problems on XP installs on a fairly regular basis that I haven't see on hundreds of previous installs. Including problems that others run into regularly.
'This perception exists because Vista had a particularly rocky launch.'
That and a buggy security model (even with UAC off), network printing issues, being slow compared to its predecessor on the same hardware, and generally sucking. ;)
'If you use suitable hardware, and don't depend on shitty legacy software,'
Shitty legacy software, like Nero 9, or Quickbooks 2006, MagicISO/MagicDisk (current release) or any other fancy ancient software like that. As for suitable hardware, the definition of suitable for Vista is a large part of the problem. It wouldn't even be as bad if Vista performed better than XP if you just gave it enough muscle but it doesn't, your quad-core with 8gb of ram will still run better on XP than vista.
'The security situation with it out of the box is significantly improved over previous versions.'
In what way? UAC certainly isn't an improvement and in my experience the bugs in the security model will get in the user (or at least their tech's) way repeatedly.
'Microsoft's made several blunders with Vista, but failing to realize that consumers even today in this malware cesspool that XP is still don't view security as a feature was one of them.'
I might buy this line if vista were an improvement. In my experience vista equates to serious software incompatibility and massive inundation with useless UAC prompts. Even if there is a prompt when it counts the user clicks through it anyway because there are thousands for obviously benign behavior and users don't know what the prompts mean!
I guess its tough for users to appreciate security when their software doesn't run, they get a thousand useless prompts that mean nothing to them each day, they can't print to the network printer consistently, and flaws in the new 'security' model cause permission errors like not being able to delete files from your desktop... as administrator... with explicitly set permissions.
'And worse, that everytime a user ran into shitty software that copied its dll's into the system32 folder everytime it launched, re-registered its COM components evertime you accessed a menu item, stored its user settings in the program files folder, and violated every other bit of security common sense and windows developer guideline you can imagine'
New guidelines that contradict previously given information to developers. Further, tools like Visual X have intentionally brought up a generation of developers who wouldn't recognize or understand the use of a best practice if it slapped them in the face.
Microsoft has nobody but Microsoft to blame for the inept mainstay windows developer.
As for security, it can be seen on non-windows systems and it doesn't need to be the nightmare that is windows vista.
If Microsoft wants to fix visa security I would applaud it. Do away with senseless UAC prompts and just block behavior that never makes sense. Issue new developer and partner guidelines and release their operating system and DON'T push the new system. Instead, give people time to gradually and slowly port their applications and new hardware over a several year period. Discontinuing XP OEM's should be a decade down the road and the start of the vista compatibility push shouldn't even happen until all the major applications work.
I suspect Windows 7 'speed' is smoke and mirrors. I saw a benchmark I trust that said it was as fast as vista and a couple from traditional MS apologizer sites that said it was faster than vista.
I'm going with
3) It's slow and your anecdotal evidence doesn't amount to much.
Most people I know who don't find vista slow
1) haven't tried xp or any other OS on their hardware.
2) have insanely fast computers that would run anything quickly.
'Joe Enduser is leading the charge in the anti-Vista crusades, and Joe sees that the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.'
Not really. Joe Enduser's tech is leading the crusades and making the decisions and making Joe feel like the boss by telling him what choice to make and then asking for Joe's decision (which will be entirely based on what his tech just said).
Joe doesn't know if he has a good system or not. In fact, if Joe has too many problems he will assume its the tech and not the system that is defective.
'The problem with Vista -now- really is primarily PR.'
That and the buggy security model, incompatible major software issues, numerous issues with network printing, and the fact that even on 'suitable hardware' it is outperformed by its predecessor in almost all areas. And lets not forget the marketing screwup of releasing it in 200 flavors when two confused the userbase.
Vista still remains a downgrade from XP with no clear advantages (except video previews on the taskbar... ooo... ahhh...) and plenty of shortcomings.
'The only major obstacle in the face of Microsoft really is public perception that "Vista sucks"; and most of the people who think it sucks haven't even tried it, and won't.'
The public doesn't know. The public won't even know after having Vista on their computer for a few years. Their techs know, and the techs have tried vista and have found it lacking compared with XP. The service pack didn't even fix much of anything, it actually just added a new array of problems.
I'm speaking as a technician who has been running vista for the past few months just in case I didn't give it enough of a chance the first time I loaded it. The first time I ran the system for about a week before declaring it to be of alpha quality. That is bad, MS usually releases with beta quality.
'I hear that the developers for Windows 7SP1 will include a natively-built grep-like utility.'
OMG OMFG, EVERYONE SHUTUP!!!! Windows 7 will include the first release of an application with the power and utility of grep. It only took them 20 years to manage it even with BSD sources to steal... err utilize. Truly, windows + grep is worthy of being considered a new name. Next up, text based configuration that would actually make text utils like grep useful!.
'Does that mean Windows 98 was just Windows 95 rebranded? No, but it's hardly surprising that they are based on the same code.'
Windows 98 WAS Win95c rebranded with Internet Explorer + Active Desktop installed.
'1. I use Vista, I'm an IT professional, and I don't think it's that great. It's not horrible, but it's not worth paying money for.'
I have Vista loaded at the moment. I'm an IT professional, and I don't think it's that great either. It IS pretty horrible, and its certainly not worth paying money for.
The entire system is plagued with permissions and security problems (whether you have UAC on or not). Nero is trashed. Network printing may or may not work depending on the day of the week. Backwards compatibility simply didn't exist, and the resource requirements are well within the realm of insane.
A typical new off the shelf vista system is a quad core with 8gb of ram and a half tb of storage. That box will run vista fairly well (such as it is), that box will run XP with insane speed, combine that with a decent video card and you can max out settings on any game on the market. Those are the specs of systems being sold for general desktop vista systems!
Actually he is 100% correct. The confusion has simply spread into the technical community as well. I suspect it is windows programmers and techs who bring the idea that an operating system is something the user interact with to the table.
Some CS courses have been updated to reflect those misplaced ideas and perhaps the term in changing but 10-15yrs ago any book or course teaching operating system design meant kernel design. There has been debate on whether certain low level bits should be considered part of the operating system as well, but it never amounted to anything close to the software included with 'Windows' or "MacOS" or even "DOS" all being considered part of the operating system itself. Those distributions all include an operating system that is unique but the rest of the package is not the operating system and would not function without the operating system.
Actually its get confusion that is the problem. Geeks used to know that the kernel IS the operating system. Then windows and macos came along and started calling their entire distro an operating system. Now geeks coming from the windows world have adopted that terminology leaving most people (including geeks) with an individual definition of just what an operating system is.
And the millions who compile their own kernel are what, chopped liver?
Children who grow up with the web should read incredibly well. The web is a massive library and without being able to read you won't be able to do much in internet and computer land. It solves a huge problem for parents and that problem is getting children interested in reading in the first place.
That said, a child growing up on the internet will be exposed to improper punctuation and grammar more frequently than a child growing up reading proofread and edited printed materials. That is probably a good thing. Those children will be less pedantic, and have less difficulty discerning intent and meaning from written text.
This is no different than the gamer generation versus their parents. The problem was not merely that the parents had difficulty with electronic interfaces, the problem was they had difficulty adapting to varied interfaces. The gamer generation can hope between operating systems, not to mention individual applications for the same purpose without too much difficulty. Their parents could learn and master an OS or application but when confronted with something different had/have a great deal of difficulty.
Why? Because every console video game has a unique and non-standard interface. Instead of learning the interfaces themselves, gamers learn the common elements that need to be and should be present in all video game interfaces. When they pick up a new game they don't stare at the foreign interface confused they start by figuring out how to navigate and then immediately proceed to look for the elements they know should be there and take note of extras found along the way.
That difference in how a new (insert almost anything here) is viewed while minor gives amazing flexibility when presented with tasks and arguably is the difference between genius and ignorance.
'We've seen what the USSR could accomplish as a go-it-alone economy, and it wasn't enough. Having a nominally capitalist system will help, but Putin needs to stop with the saber rattling and the blind nationalism.'
No we've seen what the USSR could accomplish as a go-it-alone economy in a constant state of keeping up with the jones and war. The USSR didn't bankrupt itself, the US bankrupted the USSR.
'but the rest of my family has normal vision and generally doesn't use much more than 60W bulbs to read by. For overhead lighting, especially for a larger room, sure, you need more than that,'
Actually a 60-100w in an overhead bulb will nicely blanket a room. You need much brighter lighting in a kitchen, a reading lamp, or anywhere you perform fine work. Age shouldn't impact the light you need to read. The only thing that happens is that as you age your eye muscles weaken and lose the ability to refocus, that affects your need for reading glasses and to strain in low light. You shouldn't be reading under low light and causing your eye muscles to work in the first place.
'However, it would make more sense to use one 100W halogen over three 35W halogens because incandescent lights are less efficient in smaller wattages.'
The reason argon bulbs and not halogen are used for typical indoor lighting are twofold. First they are incredibly hot and while the lumen per dollar rating might be better it would be seriously offset in A/C and comfort costs. Second they require a ballast which is expensive.
I pretty much live in the dark too but I would never strain my eyes trying to read by 40w bulbs. I usually read by backlit display but for paper books a 150w is required. Anything short of that is hurting your eyes.
'In this particular room I have one of those lamps with the 300 watt halogen bulbs when I actually sit in that room and do stuff (rare).'
Seriously? Doesn't it catch on fire? Halogen lighting is what is used for spotlights or a 75 watt is used to deter thieves as an outside floodlight. It's extremely hot, you would need active cooling for a 300 watt halogen.
i replied to the other guy
'If you use the crappy rheostat dimmers LEDs won't work with them'
Why not? Adjusting resistance dims and brightens LED's just fine on a breadboard.
'An incandescant dimmer is simply a rheostat (variable resistor), but Light Emitting Diodes are binary - either all the way on or all the way off.'
Spoken like someone who has never actually used an LED before. Get yourself a battery, an led, and a number of various sizes of resistor. Report back when you are ready to recant your story.
I don't trust lumens either. The lumen output of CFL lighting halves every foot or so from the light source.
I don't know the nitty gritty details about why CFL's have no penetrating power and other lights do, only that it is true. I've heard the explanation once but it was long ago.
'A 40W incandescent is an excellent light source - brighter than a pretty big fire or the largest candle known to man.'
In home lighting isn't rated against candles or big fires (unless you are looking for mood lighting) its compared to daylight.
'a typical domestic living room is nicely illuminated by 3-4 35W tungsten halogen lamps'
Yeah, I'm sure 110w of HALOGEN would be reasonably bright. But we were referring to indoor lighting. The gas in the bulb would be argon.
'A 25W incandescent is easily bright enough to illuminate a fair-sized room.'
If you consider 'bright enough' to be just enough illumination to keep you from stumbling over things. A 60 watt incandescent will still leave shadows in a completely empty living room painted white. I know, I've stuck them in lamps while moving in.
'The only sense in which you are correct is that the 'latest and greatest' thing you can buy is old tech relative to things then under development. That's because there's typically a year give or take (usually give) between receiving the first silicon from the fab in the transistor node the product was designed for and all the validation, bug fixes, and spins on the product before it's ready to be sold. That means the fab tech has to be done and mostly stable by the time you start this process, so go roughly six months back before that where they're making test chips in the new fab to make sure it's working. And development of that fab tech before it's ready to run its first test chip wafer is two or more years before that, with R&D going on for years before that.'
Everything you are describing is the production stage. The technology waiting in the wings would not be in any stage of production, it would be in the lab phase.
I don't think I've seen anyone actually talking about what they were getting at. The idea was that you could use improvements in technology to double transistors on the chip or you could use the improve technology to make a chip for half the price.
I'm with the crowd, I don't care so much these days to see a $50 processor, I want to see that $500 video card drop to $5 and the baddest alienware systems scaled to cost $50.