No kidding? Google sees value in a format they themselves developed? Next you're going to try to tell me Microsoft sees a lot of value in OOXML.
I guess they don't see a lot of value in it, since Microsoft still don't fully support OOXML yet!
But you are right, that was a bit of an unnecessarily trollish wording in the summary. It is hardly surprising that a program that is designed for working with images might have more file format support than a program that just uses images to spruce up a web page.
One thing that I will not be doing is playing Duke Nukem Forever! Maybe that explains why it got delayed by a month. Or maybe that it what caused the Rapture; it's God's final joke.
When a PC exclusive title comes out, you don't see scores of console gamers spamming the game's message boards complaining that it isn't coming to consoles (and there are *WAY* more PC exclusives than console exclusives).
I'm not sure that I would quite agree that there are more PC exclusives (unless you include indie titles), but I don't really have any numbers to back this up. All I can say is that on the game review TV shows I watch, only a minority of games reviewed are available for the PC and only a handful are PC exclusives.
However, I have no problems with console exclusives because a lot of games suit the controllers better. My point about this game is that it does appear to be one that would work well on the PC, and is one that I think suits the stereotypical PC gamer mindset (adult action/adventure). Perhaps if it didn't have such a massive advertising campaign (where none of the posters I have seen have mentioned what platform it runs on) then I would not have been so interested in it and had assumed that it would be available on all platforms.
As for your "WAAAAAAHHH, I'M GONNA TELL MOMMY!!" line, it seems to me that you were the only one who said that, and carried on like a cry-baby. Perhaps it is you who should get over yourself. At time of writing there are 120 other comments on this story for you to read. If you don't want to read mine then just skip right past it, and have a nice day.
This would not be a problem for Rockstar if they had developed this title for the PC platform. Gaming PCs have much better ventilation than consoles.
I would argue that this is exactly the type of game that PC gamers would love, so it would have made a natural home for the title. (As you can guess, I'm rather miffed at not being able to play this one.)
Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.
To be fair, Microsoft have had quite a bit of experience with replacing defective Xbox consoles. This is probably the second item on their customer service checklist after turning the unit off and on again fails.
Windows XP also uses more memory than Windows 3.1. Going on memory alone isn't enough to compare the two.
And yet Windows 7 runs better on low-spec PC than Vista. The former is loved while the latter is reviled. Sometimes using fewer system resources does matter.
But that said, any benchmark is really immaterial when compared to the user interface of a window manager.
But didn't their VP in charge of open source quit in disgust a while ago?
I don't know. I guess we should find out for sure before judging. As for Microsoft's open source, there are plenty of projects that they have done. They have also supported external projects too.
I've never programmed in VB (due to MS loathing and distrust), but it always looked like a nice way to build macros for office, and quickly build prototypes.
The Office macros (Visual Basic for Applications) was one of Microsoft's big failures as it was responsible for a massive security hole on Windows. People who were smart enough not to open executables emailed to them would happily open a DOC file from any unknown source which was just as insecure.
It would be great if they open sourced VB6 without their normal strings attached, like it can only be used in projects for Windows platforms after MS has "thoroughly inspected" the project. If they really do use an OSI approved license, I might actually use it on Linux.
Well they do have MS-PL and MS-RL listed as OSI approved licences. I searched the text, but neither of them mention any Windows platform requirement.
I don't harbour any animosity towards NATO. I was just indicating that citing NATO codes while everyone I know in the civilized world uses the ISO standard or the Vehicle codes.
I guess it was the "NATO can kiss my ass" that gave the impression of animosity, but it is no big drama. I have seen SZ used for Switzerland before. A simple Google search will bring up many examples. But I do not know why anybody uses any codes to signify country names, let alone why they would choose one standard over another. It seems that it would save more time for people to use the full country names than to cause the problems that this example has demonstrated.
The reaction that said "superfluous punctuation" is a display of being a besserwisser.
It is interesting that you would focus on that phrase, because I deliberately added the word "superfluous" to prevent any comedians from saying that httpenwikipediaorgwikisz was not a valid URL. I also deliberately chose the generic term "punctuation" to avoid having to specifically name it due to the various terms to describe it in difference regions (period, dot, full stop).
It seems my attempts to prevent any off-topic discussion resulting in exactly that.
Yeah, and we all live by NATO codes here on the continent. Right?
Actually, I don't care what you personally use as I am not making any advocacy statements here regarding country codes. Suffice it to say that the original poster does use that particular system, and they were not incorrect to do so (as the Anonymous Coward who responded had assumed).
You seem to be taking such a trivial matter rather personally. Your animosity towards NATO should not dictate how other people must express themselves.
And yet if you remove the superfluous punctuation from your Wikipedia search you find that SZ is the "the NATO country code for Switzerland". Swaziland would then be WZ in that system.
It does not work that way. In absolute numbers the XP infection rate went down from 18 to 14 PCs per 1000, while Windows 7 went up from 3 to 4 PCs per 1000. If you say it in percentages then it seems like the infection rate went up more than it went down, but look at the actual figures and you find the reverse. This is a bit of a misleading article really, because a drop of 3 PCs per 1000 does not equal an increase of 10%.
Also, when you read the security report you see that the most commonly detected threat family was JS/Pornpop, which is the javascript trickery to get porn advertising to pop-under you other windows. Including that sort of vulnerability is a bit silly really.
Probably the most notable finding (to me at least) was this good news story about Adobe security:
The number of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader exploits dropped by more than half after the first quarter and remained near this reduced level throughout the remainder of the year.
Why for data backup and restore do you use two different control panels?
They are in the one "Backup and Restore Center" in Vista. I found that by pressing the Windows key and typing "backup". Easy. (Actually, I didn't need to type more than "b" before I saw the option on the start menu.)
I don't have access to an XP system at the moment to test it. I guess you were referring to that version.
You started off so well with "no need to defrag", but you list quickly went downhill. I mean seriously? You think Linux is easier to administer because:
My filesystems are an open published standard. Good luck with reverse engineering M$ garbage.
I can audit the code and make updates myself. Yes I am a programmer.
If you are having to care about your filesystem or read source code then your system is NOT easy to use. Nor is it anything in the realms of what ordinary people can do (or would care about). How can you possibly claim that you "just use the computer" (if it is not Windows) just after saying that you have to audit the source code?
Currently popular viruses aren't even detected by MSE and the ones that are usually aren't removable.
All the comparisons that I have seen have placed MSE in the middle if the pack. Not the best, but by no means the worst. I am not aware of any reports of any major viruses slipping by Microsoft's solution.
UAC was a good idea, but it doesn't work and it's not enough alone.
I find that the UAC works fine, but you are right that it is not enough alone. It is not an excuse to keep running as an administrator account. Using a standard account, it provides for easy elevation without having to plan ahead with "Run As Administrator" to manually gain higher permissions.
The first time I ever came across complaints about an operating system ruining somebody's market by bundling the functionality in an update was back on the Amiga. Whenever an OS gets more features then you are bound to negatively impact someone. But is that a good reason not to do it?
Vista introduced a much improved firewall that previously required the purchase of a third party solution. Sucks for the likes of ZoneAlarm, but shouldn't a good OS have a firewall as standard? It is the same for anti-virus technology. Security is something that is entirely appropriate to be handled by the operating system.
As long as they keep the API for the other AV solutions to hook into, then there is nothing wrong with providing a default option. Sure it is essential to have competition to spur things on, but Microsoft do have an incentive to not let MSE stagnate: the more viruses that slip through, the less secure it make the entire operating system seem.
Yeah, because marrying Internet Explorer to Windows was a real winner in the security arena.
That is not a valid comparison. Internet Explorer (with its addition of Active-X controls) was an obvious security nightmare by design. On the other hand, Microsoft Security Essentials has been well received as a good, lightweight AV solution. Unlike IE, its inclusion in Windows would definitely increased security of the OS.
Actually RTFS and you'll see that the links go to two separate lists, one of failures and one of successes.
Did you actually click on those two links? Click on the first link and you find the text of the summary in the first paragraph, along with the second link. So that means we have a choice between a blog entry about the Buxton collection and the Buxton collection itself.
So yes, the headline is wrong. This is not a list of failures, but of notable devices - some of which were commercially successful, but that was not the criteria for the collection.
Basically, once skype is carefully accidentally closed to all but win7, and MS is the monopoly provider of win7, skype will be tied to it.
I don't think the problem would be that they would make it Windows 7 only, but the could reimplement the client using Silverlight which would add OS restrictions.
But I don't see the point for Microsoft in buying Skype just to then disconnect a percentage of the people who you might want to call. If they wanted to make a system that was restricted to Windows users only then they might as well save their money and implement their own solution.
Apple and Google both delay. Apple is evil, Google gets off scott-free because they use the word "open" with all their crap.
If you read the article you will see that they explain the reason for this. Google actually explained what was going on and why they were holding back the code. It gives us some confidence that they haven't abandoned their open source license.
I think that Google does do some evil at times, but this is not an example of that.
If 75% of people were 'cultists', as you call those who follow an organized religion (of which are not all zealots), then when it comes to politics, their brainwashed masses would pretty well dictate the political discourse with relative ease.
There is more than one cult, so there is no reason to think that all cultists would be told to think the same thing. For example, some are told to help their fellow man while others are told that God helps those who help themselves. That pretty much sums up the spectrum of politics.
I think that you will find that this would be called a mouse!
But seriously, I had an old Microsoft gamepad with sensors to detect movement. It wasn't terribly good for most games, although it was fun for Descent and excellent for motorbike games. This goes back quite a number of years, so it was nowhere near as sophisticated as the modern controllers.
If you 'already' own an Xbox/PS3 then you can't buy a PC for the same price.
If you can read this sentence, then you probably own a PC already too.
I use a PC for gaming rather than a console for exactly that reason - I already needed to own one. I have an old, very cheap Dual Core system with a Radeon 5750 which I got to be cheap and quiet (and not heat my whole house up like my last PC). Even with such a low spec system I don't have any worries playing games because I use a low resolution monitor (1680x1050) and just use the mainstream default game settings. Games happily work fine on it and look about the same as a current gen console. If I play a game that is a few years old, I know I can turn up the graphic settings to max and get much improved picture quality.
This is particularly useful when revisiting old titles. If you do that on a console (assuming that your next console can actually play your old games) you will get exactly the same quality as you saw when you first played. When I upgrade my computer, all my old games get upgraded too.
Finally, I like PC gaming for the same reason that you prefer console gaming. It doesn't connect my TV. That means I can play my games without interrupting anyone else in the house from watching TV or a DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
No kidding? Google sees value in a format they themselves developed? Next you're going to try to tell me Microsoft sees a lot of value in OOXML.
I guess they don't see a lot of value in it, since Microsoft still don't fully support OOXML yet!
But you are right, that was a bit of an unnecessarily trollish wording in the summary. It is hardly surprising that a program that is designed for working with images might have more file format support than a program that just uses images to spruce up a web page.
I find that Wikipedia is good at giving a few people's opinions of terms, but not actually backing up the vernacular definition.
As opposed to a single poster on slashdot? At least Wikipedia insist on citations.
So in what way are your definitions superior to those on the linked Wikipedia page? What did the wiki get wrong?
One thing that I will not be doing is playing Duke Nukem Forever! Maybe that explains why it got delayed by a month. Or maybe that it what caused the Rapture; it's God's final joke.
When a PC exclusive title comes out, you don't see scores of console gamers spamming the game's message boards complaining that it isn't coming to consoles (and there are *WAY* more PC exclusives than console exclusives).
I'm not sure that I would quite agree that there are more PC exclusives (unless you include indie titles), but I don't really have any numbers to back this up. All I can say is that on the game review TV shows I watch, only a minority of games reviewed are available for the PC and only a handful are PC exclusives.
However, I have no problems with console exclusives because a lot of games suit the controllers better. My point about this game is that it does appear to be one that would work well on the PC, and is one that I think suits the stereotypical PC gamer mindset (adult action/adventure). Perhaps if it didn't have such a massive advertising campaign (where none of the posters I have seen have mentioned what platform it runs on) then I would not have been so interested in it and had assumed that it would be available on all platforms.
As for your "WAAAAAAHHH, I'M GONNA TELL MOMMY!!" line, it seems to me that you were the only one who said that, and carried on like a cry-baby. Perhaps it is you who should get over yourself. At time of writing there are 120 other comments on this story for you to read. If you don't want to read mine then just skip right past it, and have a nice day.
This would not be a problem for Rockstar if they had developed this title for the PC platform. Gaming PCs have much better ventilation than consoles.
I would argue that this is exactly the type of game that PC gamers would love, so it would have made a natural home for the title. (As you can guess, I'm rather miffed at not being able to play this one.)
Acknowledge the problem, fix it (or replace it in this case with a superior model), and give compensation.
To be fair, Microsoft have had quite a bit of experience with replacing defective Xbox consoles. This is probably the second item on their customer service checklist after turning the unit off and on again fails.
Windows XP also uses more memory than Windows 3.1. Going on memory alone isn't enough to compare the two.
And yet Windows 7 runs better on low-spec PC than Vista. The former is loved while the latter is reviled. Sometimes using fewer system resources does matter.
But that said, any benchmark is really immaterial when compared to the user interface of a window manager.
but unlike good old Windows, the entire system doesn't fall apart when something crashes
How about we all chip in together and buy this Anonymous Coward an upgrade to Windows 2000. It sounds like we have found the last Window ME user!
But didn't their VP in charge of open source quit in disgust a while ago?
I don't know. I guess we should find out for sure before judging. As for Microsoft's open source, there are plenty of projects that they have done. They have also supported external projects too.
I've never programmed in VB (due to MS loathing and distrust), but it always looked like a nice way to build macros for office, and quickly build prototypes.
The Office macros (Visual Basic for Applications) was one of Microsoft's big failures as it was responsible for a massive security hole on Windows. People who were smart enough not to open executables emailed to them would happily open a DOC file from any unknown source which was just as insecure.
It would be great if they open sourced VB6 without their normal strings attached, like it can only be used in projects for Windows platforms after MS has "thoroughly inspected" the project. If they really do use an OSI approved license, I might actually use it on Linux.
Well they do have MS-PL and MS-RL listed as OSI approved licences. I searched the text, but neither of them mention any Windows platform requirement.
I don't harbour any animosity towards NATO. I was just indicating that citing NATO codes while everyone I know in the civilized world uses the ISO standard or the Vehicle codes.
I guess it was the "NATO can kiss my ass" that gave the impression of animosity, but it is no big drama. I have seen SZ used for Switzerland before. A simple Google search will bring up many examples. But I do not know why anybody uses any codes to signify country names, let alone why they would choose one standard over another. It seems that it would save more time for people to use the full country names than to cause the problems that this example has demonstrated.
The reaction that said "superfluous punctuation" is a display of being a besserwisser.
It is interesting that you would focus on that phrase, because I deliberately added the word "superfluous" to prevent any comedians from saying that httpenwikipediaorgwikisz was not a valid URL. I also deliberately chose the generic term "punctuation" to avoid having to specifically name it due to the various terms to describe it in difference regions (period, dot, full stop).
It seems my attempts to prevent any off-topic discussion resulting in exactly that.
Yeah, and we all live by NATO codes here on the continent. Right?
Actually, I don't care what you personally use as I am not making any advocacy statements here regarding country codes. Suffice it to say that the original poster does use that particular system, and they were not incorrect to do so (as the Anonymous Coward who responded had assumed).
You seem to be taking such a trivial matter rather personally. Your animosity towards NATO should not dictate how other people must express themselves.
SZ? Wow, Swaziland to Belgium is quite a hike.
And yet if you remove the superfluous punctuation from your Wikipedia search you find that SZ is the "the NATO country code for Switzerland". Swaziland would then be WZ in that system.
I would shell out 100 Euro for a _proper_ remake of either without a blink.
If you could manage to shell out $148 million for a remake then they would probably do it for you. :-)
Wouldn't 30% - 20% == 10% ?
It does not work that way. In absolute numbers the XP infection rate went down from 18 to 14 PCs per 1000, while Windows 7 went up from 3 to 4 PCs per 1000. If you say it in percentages then it seems like the infection rate went up more than it went down, but look at the actual figures and you find the reverse. This is a bit of a misleading article really, because a drop of 3 PCs per 1000 does not equal an increase of 10%.
Also, when you read the security report you see that the most commonly detected threat family was JS/Pornpop, which is the javascript trickery to get porn advertising to pop-under you other windows. Including that sort of vulnerability is a bit silly really.
Probably the most notable finding (to me at least) was this good news story about Adobe security:
The number of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader exploits dropped by more than half after the first quarter and remained near this reduced level throughout the remainder of the year.
Why for data backup and restore do you use two different control panels?
They are in the one "Backup and Restore Center" in Vista. I found that by pressing the Windows key and typing "backup". Easy. (Actually, I didn't need to type more than "b" before I saw the option on the start menu.)
I don't have access to an XP system at the moment to test it. I guess you were referring to that version.
You started off so well with "no need to defrag", but you list quickly went downhill. I mean seriously? You think Linux is easier to administer because:
My filesystems are an open published standard. Good luck with reverse engineering M$ garbage.
I can audit the code and make updates myself. Yes I am a programmer.
If you are having to care about your filesystem or read source code then your system is NOT easy to use. Nor is it anything in the realms of what ordinary people can do (or would care about). How can you possibly claim that you "just use the computer" (if it is not Windows) just after saying that you have to audit the source code?
Currently popular viruses aren't even detected by MSE and the ones that are usually aren't removable.
All the comparisons that I have seen have placed MSE in the middle if the pack. Not the best, but by no means the worst. I am not aware of any reports of any major viruses slipping by Microsoft's solution.
UAC was a good idea, but it doesn't work and it's not enough alone.
I find that the UAC works fine, but you are right that it is not enough alone. It is not an excuse to keep running as an administrator account. Using a standard account, it provides for easy elevation without having to plan ahead with "Run As Administrator" to manually gain higher permissions.
The first time I ever came across complaints about an operating system ruining somebody's market by bundling the functionality in an update was back on the Amiga. Whenever an OS gets more features then you are bound to negatively impact someone. But is that a good reason not to do it?
Vista introduced a much improved firewall that previously required the purchase of a third party solution. Sucks for the likes of ZoneAlarm, but shouldn't a good OS have a firewall as standard? It is the same for anti-virus technology. Security is something that is entirely appropriate to be handled by the operating system.
As long as they keep the API for the other AV solutions to hook into, then there is nothing wrong with providing a default option. Sure it is essential to have competition to spur things on, but Microsoft do have an incentive to not let MSE stagnate: the more viruses that slip through, the less secure it make the entire operating system seem.
Yeah, because marrying Internet Explorer to Windows was a real winner in the security arena.
That is not a valid comparison. Internet Explorer (with its addition of Active-X controls) was an obvious security nightmare by design. On the other hand, Microsoft Security Essentials has been well received as a good, lightweight AV solution. Unlike IE, its inclusion in Windows would definitely increased security of the OS.
Actually RTFS and you'll see that the links go to two separate lists, one of failures and one of successes.
Did you actually click on those two links? Click on the first link and you find the text of the summary in the first paragraph, along with the second link. So that means we have a choice between a blog entry about the Buxton collection and the Buxton collection itself.
So yes, the headline is wrong. This is not a list of failures, but of notable devices - some of which were commercially successful, but that was not the criteria for the collection.
Basically, once skype is carefully accidentally closed to all but win7, and MS is the monopoly provider of win7, skype will be tied to it.
I don't think the problem would be that they would make it Windows 7 only, but the could reimplement the client using Silverlight which would add OS restrictions.
But I don't see the point for Microsoft in buying Skype just to then disconnect a percentage of the people who you might want to call. If they wanted to make a system that was restricted to Windows users only then they might as well save their money and implement their own solution.
Apple and Google both delay. Apple is evil, Google gets off scott-free because they use the word "open" with all their crap.
If you read the article you will see that they explain the reason for this. Google actually explained what was going on and why they were holding back the code. It gives us some confidence that they haven't abandoned their open source license.
I think that Google does do some evil at times, but this is not an example of that.
If 75% of people were 'cultists', as you call those who follow an organized religion (of which are not all zealots), then when it comes to politics, their brainwashed masses would pretty well dictate the political discourse with relative ease.
There is more than one cult, so there is no reason to think that all cultists would be told to think the same thing. For example, some are told to help their fellow man while others are told that God helps those who help themselves. That pretty much sums up the spectrum of politics.
Haven't seen motion controllers (yet)...
I think that you will find that this would be called a mouse!
But seriously, I had an old Microsoft gamepad with sensors to detect movement. It wasn't terribly good for most games, although it was fun for Descent and excellent for motorbike games. This goes back quite a number of years, so it was nowhere near as sophisticated as the modern controllers.
If you 'already' own an Xbox/PS3 then you can't buy a PC for the same price.
If you can read this sentence, then you probably own a PC already too.
I use a PC for gaming rather than a console for exactly that reason - I already needed to own one. I have an old, very cheap Dual Core system with a Radeon 5750 which I got to be cheap and quiet (and not heat my whole house up like my last PC). Even with such a low spec system I don't have any worries playing games because I use a low resolution monitor (1680x1050) and just use the mainstream default game settings. Games happily work fine on it and look about the same as a current gen console. If I play a game that is a few years old, I know I can turn up the graphic settings to max and get much improved picture quality.
This is particularly useful when revisiting old titles. If you do that on a console (assuming that your next console can actually play your old games) you will get exactly the same quality as you saw when you first played. When I upgrade my computer, all my old games get upgraded too.
Finally, I like PC gaming for the same reason that you prefer console gaming. It doesn't connect my TV. That means I can play my games without interrupting anyone else in the house from watching TV or a DVD.