Nice try. Suspend/Resume works, but like a lot of things in Windows, terribly.
Nice try? It seems to work pretty well for me. If I had a lot of stuff open when I suspended it, it might sit there 15-30 seconds or so before it turns the screen on (hopefully upgrading it to 512MB will help that issue). Maybe if it does the same thing for other people, they might get impatient and reset it. But suspend/resume does work, though not as quick as Apple's laptops, but better than what I have seen in Linux (disclaimer: I have not tried Linux on a laptop in a while).
I recently shutdown my Pentium 4M laptop. Prior to doing this it had 46 days of uptime. And it was always being suspended/resumed (yes, suspend does work in Windows XP). The reason I shut it down? I figured it was about time to install that memory upgrade that had been sitting on my desk the last few days.
Yeah, I know 46 days is not all that impressive. But I once did get a Windows 95b system all the way to the mysical 49.7 day limit, then it bluescreened.
So, he was installing it on a laptop. Slow harddrive, slow CD (DVD?) drive. And if it's hands off, who really cares anyway? Just get it going and grab a sandwitch or something. Atleast it's not like other versions of Windows which like to stop in the middle of the install and ask some questions. Don't forget that it's a beta too (though I doubt it'll really get much faster).
Oh, and another thing about Vista's install, do you still need that bloody F6 floppy?
Windows 2000 and XP can do transparency, and I once downloaded a little program that enabled it on bits of the operating system. After a short while I determined it's nothing more than a gimmick (much along the the same lines as fading menus and mouse cursor shadows) and disabled it.
Unless Microsoft really came up with something mindblowing with regards to transparency (unlikely), or is really subtle about it (like later versions of OSX), I'll probably disable it right away.
Of course, once MacOSX moves to x86, it should become possible to run Wine on it. This doesn't work for everything, but it's a start.
If anything, that's going to hurt Apple. If OSX can run Windows applications, why bother developing for the Mac? The Apple users can just run it under WINE, or dual boot into Windows. It's one of the things that killed OS/2, and it could take OSX down too.
Real solution would be to fix his Dad's computer. I've cruised the internet on much less than 1Ghz and Windows XP and it ran perfectly fine. First thing would be to get the right video drivers installed, the default VGA ones are really sluggish.
Though he does have a point, IE is faster than Firefox on low end machines. Mostly because IE is more or less the same browser now as it was back when the Pentium 233MMX was king and a high end system had 64MB of ram.
When nearly every player you have supports this format, how is this a problem? The only player I have that doesn't handle AAC is an old Rio Volt SP90. My Palm, my iPod, and all of my computers (the reasonably-modern ones, anyway, running a mix of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X...my Apple IIs and such don't count) play AAC without difficulty.
Most portable music players can't handle mp4 files though.
Or the fact that some people have apparently tried to install Steam on old Pentiums with less than 64MB of ram. I wonder what kind of FPH (frames per hour) those old systems get?
I think he meant you can install it on 3 computers sequentially. As in you install it on computer one, then replace that with computer two, then computer three, before Windows activation throws a fit. Whether or not activation actually works like this I don't know (never dealt with it). However, the OEM copies are generally only good for the computer it came installed with.
Wrong again. They come with PCI slots, and they still do make PCI video cards (I have seen an nVidia FX5600 with 256MB for PCI). Granted, it's not an ideal solution, but it sure beats no solution.
Atleast the Dell comes standard with expansion slots that allow you to upgrade the video card at any time. With the Mac Mini, you are stuck with that weak video card for the life of the machine.
How are people leaping to the conclusion that when the x86 Macs come out that everything that's come before will all-of-a-sudden become obsolete?
Because they will be obsolete. Here it is as simple as possible: PPC = Old Intel = New
While it is certainly true that you can buy a PPC Mac today, and it may be useful for many years and still be worth every penny - that doesn't change the fact that you are still buying into an obsolete platform that is being phased out (atleast for desktop computing).
Apple's core home-user base only really use the built-in apps and things like MS Office, all of which will be available for years on PPC. It's not like a Windows machne where the ending of support leaves you virus-prone and vulnerable.
Yeah, because Microsoft isn't releasing updates for old operating systems like Windows 2000. Oh wait, they still are. Can you even get updates for anything Apple older than OSX 10.2? (which was released about 3 years ago)
On another note, am I the only crazy one or is there someone else who liked Windows 3.1 better than Windows 95?
Windows 3.1 was a decent OS, atleast for the time. With stable drivers and good hardware, it didn't crash that much so long as you were able to avoid DLL hell. Also, it didn't have the registry from Windows 95 - which would get bloated and randomly corrupt requiring a reinstall. Windows 3.1 had plain text config files like win.ini, system.ini, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and others I'm forgetting. I don't think I ever had to reinstall Windows 3.1, as there wasn't anything I couldn't fix by hacking the config files. In may ways, it was like Linux is now, just very crude.
Of course, Windows 3.1 had its problems. The biggest was DLL hell. Installation programs could write anywhere, and back then it was the norm to just go into c:\windows and c:\windows\system and silently write over existing files with your own, often breaking other programs. I always had my install disks handy so I could restore DLL files that had been overwritten. Towards the end of the 3.1 days, drives were big enough (400MB+) that I just copied the install disks the HDD.
Windows 95 pretty much took over though. It got hard to run 3.1 after about 1996 or so with its lack of a built in network stack and all the new software requiring 95.
Oh yeah, this is pretty offtopic. Hey! I wonder if a Pentium M system could run Windows 3.1?
There's a page with instructions about this. Its quite involved and you need to have a Mac. Apparently that particular leak was incomplete. Anyway if you look I'm sure you can find it. Its pretty complex and you need multiple hard drives to play around with, a genuine mac computer and an intel.
But people have it working? That would seem more newsworthy than someone figuring out how to make a machine dual boot. I don't have a genuine Apple Mac so I can't try it myself.
Hate to break it to you, but those things had the short lived Pentium 4-M mobile chips in them. They make nice space heaters.
Actually, the P4-M is still around, unfortunently. Seen mostly in bottom of the line budget notebooks, where it is still barely cheaper than the Celeron-M, or in those big gamers notebooks that can heat a small house.
But the 50mm fans are very noisy and induce a lot of case vibration because they have to turn so fast. These are usually on the chip set. I have been unable to find a solution. Does anyone else have one?
My solution is to just shop around until you find a motherboard without the little chipset fan. I hate them - not only are they noisy but those little chipset and graphics card fans seem to be the most unreliable too.
For how long batteries last for this thing? Most people are not interested in notebook without 4h+ battery work.
I would say a good fraction (possibly even a majority) of notebook users just want a small computer they can grab and move around easily. Most of these users really don't care about battery life at all.
Yeah, but do I need to have all that crap available at a single glance? Talk about information overload. Some things I can just leave a tab open, like slashdot or the weather page (both of which are a lot more useful as a webpage than a widget if you ask me). For things like gas prices, I might want to look at it once every couple of weeks, so why do I need that cluttering up my computer chewing up resources all the time?
I can see why some people would like it, but just because some people don't like it doesn't mean they "don't get it".
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Nice try. Suspend/Resume works, but like a lot of things in Windows, terribly.
Nice try? It seems to work pretty well for me. If I had a lot of stuff open when I suspended it, it might sit there 15-30 seconds or so before it turns the screen on (hopefully upgrading it to 512MB will help that issue). Maybe if it does the same thing for other people, they might get impatient and reset it. But suspend/resume does work, though not as quick as Apple's laptops, but better than what I have seen in Linux (disclaimer: I have not tried Linux on a laptop in a while).
I find it more interesting that such a stripped down system can run IE, as opposed to FireFox, because IE is so tied into the OS.
I recently shutdown my Pentium 4M laptop. Prior to doing this it had 46 days of uptime. And it was always being suspended/resumed (yes, suspend does work in Windows XP). The reason I shut it down? I figured it was about time to install that memory upgrade that had been sitting on my desk the last few days.
Yeah, I know 46 days is not all that impressive. But I once did get a Windows 95b system all the way to the mysical 49.7 day limit, then it bluescreened.
Well, that's not a Microsoft problem, that's a DELL problem. A clean install of Windows will not have any spyware in it.
Maybe this can help you.
So, he was installing it on a laptop. Slow harddrive, slow CD (DVD?) drive. And if it's hands off, who really cares anyway? Just get it going and grab a sandwitch or something. Atleast it's not like other versions of Windows which like to stop in the middle of the install and ask some questions. Don't forget that it's a beta too (though I doubt it'll really get much faster).
Oh, and another thing about Vista's install, do you still need that bloody F6 floppy?
Any other views on overuse of transparency?
Windows 2000 and XP can do transparency, and I once downloaded a little program that enabled it on bits of the operating system. After a short while I determined it's nothing more than a gimmick (much along the the same lines as fading menus and mouse cursor shadows) and disabled it.
Unless Microsoft really came up with something mindblowing with regards to transparency (unlikely), or is really subtle about it (like later versions of OSX), I'll probably disable it right away.
Of course, once MacOSX moves to x86, it should become possible to run Wine on it. This doesn't work for everything, but it's a start.
If anything, that's going to hurt Apple. If OSX can run Windows applications, why bother developing for the Mac? The Apple users can just run it under WINE, or dual boot into Windows. It's one of the things that killed OS/2, and it could take OSX down too.
Real solution would be to fix his Dad's computer. I've cruised the internet on much less than 1Ghz and Windows XP and it ran perfectly fine. First thing would be to get the right video drivers installed, the default VGA ones are really sluggish.
Though he does have a point, IE is faster than Firefox on low end machines. Mostly because IE is more or less the same browser now as it was back when the Pentium 233MMX was king and a high end system had 64MB of ram.
When nearly every player you have supports this format, how is this a problem? The only player I have that doesn't handle AAC is an old Rio Volt SP90. My Palm, my iPod, and all of my computers (the reasonably-modern ones, anyway, running a mix of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X...my Apple IIs and such don't count) play AAC without difficulty.
Most portable music players can't handle mp4 files though.
I don't get Hymn. If you're going to break the law by cracking the DRM, why not just download the album for free at a much higher quality?
The solution to protesting DRM'd CDs is to buy music from an online music store with DRM? Wait, what are we fighting again?
I would suggest sticking to non-DRM'd CDs. Or just download illegally.
Or the fact that some people have apparently tried to install Steam on old Pentiums with less than 64MB of ram. I wonder what kind of FPH (frames per hour) those old systems get?
I'd love to see this elusive 3 install version.
I think he meant you can install it on 3 computers sequentially. As in you install it on computer one, then replace that with computer two, then computer three, before Windows activation throws a fit. Whether or not activation actually works like this I don't know (never dealt with it). However, the OEM copies are generally only good for the computer it came installed with.
Wrong again. They come with PCI slots, and they still do make PCI video cards (I have seen an nVidia FX5600 with 256MB for PCI). Granted, it's not an ideal solution, but it sure beats no solution.
Atleast the Dell comes standard with expansion slots that allow you to upgrade the video card at any time. With the Mac Mini, you are stuck with that weak video card for the life of the machine.
How are people leaping to the conclusion that when the x86 Macs come out that everything that's come before will all-of-a-sudden become obsolete?
Because they will be obsolete. Here it is as simple as possible:
PPC = Old
Intel = New
While it is certainly true that you can buy a PPC Mac today, and it may be useful for many years and still be worth every penny - that doesn't change the fact that you are still buying into an obsolete platform that is being phased out (atleast for desktop computing).
Apple's core home-user base only really use the built-in apps and things like MS Office, all of which will be available for years on PPC. It's not like a Windows machne where the ending of support leaves you virus-prone and vulnerable.
Yeah, because Microsoft isn't releasing updates for old operating systems like Windows 2000. Oh wait, they still are. Can you even get updates for anything Apple older than OSX 10.2? (which was released about 3 years ago)
On another note, am I the only crazy one or is there someone else who liked Windows 3.1 better than Windows 95?
Windows 3.1 was a decent OS, atleast for the time. With stable drivers and good hardware, it didn't crash that much so long as you were able to avoid DLL hell. Also, it didn't have the registry from Windows 95 - which would get bloated and randomly corrupt requiring a reinstall. Windows 3.1 had plain text config files like win.ini, system.ini, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and others I'm forgetting. I don't think I ever had to reinstall Windows 3.1, as there wasn't anything I couldn't fix by hacking the config files. In may ways, it was like Linux is now, just very crude.
Of course, Windows 3.1 had its problems. The biggest was DLL hell. Installation programs could write anywhere, and back then it was the norm to just go into c:\windows and c:\windows\system and silently write over existing files with your own, often breaking other programs. I always had my install disks handy so I could restore DLL files that had been overwritten. Towards the end of the 3.1 days, drives were big enough (400MB+) that I just copied the install disks the HDD.
Windows 95 pretty much took over though. It got hard to run 3.1 after about 1996 or so with its lack of a built in network stack and all the new software requiring 95.
Oh yeah, this is pretty offtopic. Hey! I wonder if a Pentium M system could run Windows 3.1?
There's a page with instructions about this. Its quite involved and you need to have a Mac. Apparently that particular leak was incomplete. Anyway if you look I'm sure you can find it. Its pretty complex and you need multiple hard drives to play around with, a genuine mac computer and an intel.
But people have it working? That would seem more newsworthy than someone figuring out how to make a machine dual boot. I don't have a genuine Apple Mac so I can't try it myself.
Hate to break it to you, but those things had the short lived Pentium 4-M mobile chips in them. They make nice space heaters.
Actually, the P4-M is still around, unfortunently. Seen mostly in bottom of the line budget notebooks, where it is still barely cheaper than the Celeron-M, or in those big gamers notebooks that can heat a small house.
But the 50mm fans are very noisy and induce a lot of case vibration because they have to turn so fast. These are usually on the chip set. I have been unable to find a solution. Does anyone else have one?
My solution is to just shop around until you find a motherboard without the little chipset fan. I hate them - not only are they noisy but those little chipset and graphics card fans seem to be the most unreliable too.
A high resolution display? Full numeric keypad? A powerful processor? Current Apple Powerbooks have none of that.
For how long batteries last for this thing? Most people are not interested in notebook without 4h+ battery work.
I would say a good fraction (possibly even a majority) of notebook users just want a small computer they can grab and move around easily. Most of these users really don't care about battery life at all.
Yeah, but do I need to have all that crap available at a single glance? Talk about information overload. Some things I can just leave a tab open, like slashdot or the weather page (both of which are a lot more useful as a webpage than a widget if you ask me). For things like gas prices, I might want to look at it once every couple of weeks, so why do I need that cluttering up my computer chewing up resources all the time?
I can see why some people would like it, but just because some people don't like it doesn't mean they "don't get it".