It's not about hassles, it's about cost, compactness and efficiency. Were we to have lightweight systems then they could be largely embedded, instant boot up devices, cheap, nearly disposable.
Moreover - with dual or quad core processors why is it it hasn't occurred to anyone to take one of those cores and dedicate it to all the bullshit break fix and security hassles that consume everyone's time? For instance the Via C7 has a strong onboard encryption engine. Why is it Intel and Microsoft can't make one of those cores an engine that collects patches, runs a firewall, malware scanner, port scanner, system health checker and so on? I'm sure we could do w/o 1 of those 4 cores and be even happier with our shiny new desktop if it were doing all those chores efficiently quietly on its own.
So it's one or the other - either make the machines cheaper lighter faster by using compact software, or, take all that brute force and do something truly useful with it.
I don't do anything materially different with my machine now that I couldn't do on an older machine. Realistically the only gap surfing the web with an old win95 machine is the supported version of Java, multimedia plugins etc. But other than that, for the vast majority of users, it's not really a different set of functions now versus years ago. I do find myself cursing websites that are slow to load up on old machines but otherwise they work the same - same dancing bears, rotating sparkly widgets and so on. Same office apps, same word processor same Limewire same iTunes and on and on and on. I fail to see the value-add of Vista, 1GB of RAM and a dual core E6600 desktop to do that. I mean I would hope it would be a lot faster but if that's it then it's mostly a waste.
It sounds trite but any 10 year old PC worth $100 today will run but it wont run Windows, at least not a current version.
And, in ensuing 10 years, that old clunky desktop could EASILY be miniaturized down to a laptop size or smaller. Doesn't anyone remember that the Timex Sinclair digital watch had more compute power than early System 360 mainframes, the Apollo onboard computers etc etc???
Maybe I'm an extreme case but until a few years ago I had an old IBM PC750 desktop I had upgraded all the way up to a whopping 114MB RAM and an Evergreen Pentium (1)400. I still have a P-3 450 with 324MB RAM supporting my digital scanner and drawing tablet on Win95 and yes I had an even older (circa 1991) DX4-100 32MB RAM, 2x540MB Disk, ISA mobo minitower running Win95 for a specialised app as well. I junked it oh maybe 6 years ago?
My work machine is an 'old' Thinkpad t40 with a Centrino 1.5Ghz, 512MB RAM and an 80GB drive. How much is this machine worth? $300?
The point is, bloat costs a LOT of money. Even Redmond estimates that Vista will obsolete more than 85% of the PC's out there. To do what, exactly? The OLPC project relies on compact software to fit on a small machine and Marvell Xscale class processors are specifically designed to take advantage of embedded OS's like the OLPC. So all the pieces are there - all we need do is leverage a lightweight OS and Applications model to exploit it.
Since when has Microsoft ever done anything specifically to make your life easier, your migration easier or your overall cost of ownership cheaper?
Seriously when did that happen? When has anything Microsoft done as regards any of those points been undertaken as a panicked reaction to market complaints and screaming after the fact? Every single time.
You know they will. And eventually the 'big' targets will stand alone and they will cave too. I kind of hope that in the end the RIAA figures out a sufficiently robust DRM that coupled with their legal tactics just drives people away from their content and no one pays it any attention at all. Then maybe Jay-Z and the RIAA can sue each other. Because really your only weapon is to stop paying them for anything at any time for any of their 'content'.
Until last year I had a P-3 slot 1 550 (upgraded from a 400-500-550-750 then the 750 died went back to the 550) with 224MB RAM running W2KSP5 and Netscape 7.2 and it ran fine. If I were doing the same thing today I'd just replace NS7.2 with Seamonkey 1.1.3 which is what I have running today on all the other machines. I am typing this on a homemade slot 370 P-3 1200Mhz machine with 512MB RAM and Seamonkey. A little slower to start than new machines but entirely usable.
Seamonkey is a bit lighter and quicker than FF, it handles multiuser profiles a bit better than FF and most of the useful xpi extensions run on it.
I mean who the hell is going to watch game shows and reality shows on their laptop? If anything, leveraging MySpace means that TV eventually turns into YouTube length 'segments' e.g. the average television show will now be 10 minutes long and sponsored by one ad, just like TV was in the late 1940's early 50's
And this is all good because it's not trying to reinvent something. Rail transport is uniquely European in the sense that rail in the US will never reach the levels it does in Western Europe. But another Google, specifically targeted at Google? Seems to be a waste of effort that could be better spent making some other web tool.
That whatever is developed publically or privately in the US they have to develop a competitor? What about Galileo - the EU's competition to GPS? Yeah that's crashed and burned and it barely got off the ground. Andy why again? Seems that if you want to play along you should cooperate instead of wasting money trying to catch up with dubious projects of questionable benefit.
Because that is what it will take to run it. And 16GB RAM, minimum. And you will need a new UltraMegaPCI spec to run a graphics supercomputer for the "NitroXtreme" interface. And security will still be for shit.
I have a better idea - why don't they morph whatever it is they run on Xbox360 into a full blown OS?
Of course I'm not offtopic employers are not going to stand for increased fees, taxes and duties after they spent 5 years unburdening themselves of overhead. If telco's think they can simply snap their fingers and ratchet up prices w/o a fight they are wrong.
Most people with a home computer rarely have a desire to power down and go to Border's Books or the Bagel shop to do exactly the same thing.
Gamerz are still Gamerz and they only want the fastest biggest gear.
Laptops still have a 2x price premium for the same performance of the corresponding desktop.
Cheap laptops are much lower end machines than cheap desktops.
Desktops are upgradeable, laptops are not.
People like larger screens than the usual 15.4" laptop screen. And 17-19" monitors are pretty cheap.
But I will give you this - what the home user needs is a much smaller machine, like an all in one form factor of an iMac or miniMac or an ITX form factor, small fanless design with enough power to make it cost effective.
Google need only hire as many wonks as it needs in the Great White North. Canada has very liberal immigration policies compared to the US. All you really need is a job offer, English and French language skills, no criminal record. Weighted salaries are about the same as the US but you needed worry about bottlenecks and shortages either.
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It's too late to buy or rent office space for the millions of people they 'homesourced' and who now rely on broadband for their jobs and for their employers profits. If they charge me twice as much for half the service then my employer will just have to pick up the slack. The only alternative is to go out and rent or build millions of feet of office space.
All these government agencies that are endlessly switching in and out of MS Office. Don't they ever get sick of eating the transition costs over and over. Isn't the goal of Office Productivity Software to be productive?
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A Vista enabled quad core 2GB machine is not more versatile than a machine that's half that. It cant do more it can the same somewhat faster.
Giant bloated slow expensive machines for everyone !!!!!!
It's not about hassles, it's about cost, compactness and efficiency. Were we to have lightweight systems then they could be largely embedded, instant boot up devices, cheap, nearly disposable.
Moreover - with dual or quad core processors why is it it hasn't occurred to anyone to take one of those cores and dedicate it to all the bullshit break fix and security hassles that consume everyone's time? For instance the Via C7 has a strong onboard encryption engine. Why is it Intel and Microsoft can't make one of those cores an engine that collects patches, runs a firewall, malware scanner, port scanner, system health checker and so on? I'm sure we could do w/o 1 of those 4 cores and be even happier with our shiny new desktop if it were doing all those chores efficiently quietly on its own.
So it's one or the other - either make the machines cheaper lighter faster by using compact software, or, take all that brute force and do something truly useful with it.
I don't do anything materially different with my machine now that I couldn't do on an older machine. Realistically the only gap surfing the web with an old win95 machine is the supported version of Java, multimedia plugins etc. But other than that, for the vast majority of users, it's not really a different set of functions now versus years ago. I do find myself cursing websites that are slow to load up on old machines but otherwise they work the same - same dancing bears, rotating sparkly widgets and so on. Same office apps, same word processor same Limewire same iTunes and on and on and on. I fail to see the value-add of Vista, 1GB of RAM and a dual core E6600 desktop to do that. I mean I would hope it would be a lot faster but if that's it then it's mostly a waste.
It sounds trite but any 10 year old PC worth $100 today will run but it wont run Windows, at least not a current version.
And, in ensuing 10 years, that old clunky desktop could EASILY be miniaturized down to a laptop size or smaller. Doesn't anyone remember that the Timex Sinclair digital watch had more compute power than early System 360 mainframes, the Apollo onboard computers etc etc???
Maybe I'm an extreme case but until a few years ago I had an old IBM PC750 desktop I had upgraded all the way up to a whopping 114MB RAM and an Evergreen Pentium (1)400. I still have a P-3 450 with 324MB RAM supporting my digital scanner and drawing tablet on Win95 and yes I had an even older (circa 1991) DX4-100 32MB RAM, 2x540MB Disk, ISA mobo minitower running Win95 for a specialised app as well. I junked it oh maybe 6 years ago?
My work machine is an 'old' Thinkpad t40 with a Centrino 1.5Ghz, 512MB RAM and an 80GB drive. How much is this machine worth? $300?
The point is, bloat costs a LOT of money. Even Redmond estimates that Vista will obsolete more than 85% of the PC's out there. To do what, exactly? The OLPC project relies on compact software to fit on a small machine and Marvell Xscale class processors are specifically designed to take advantage of embedded OS's like the OLPC. So all the pieces are there - all we need do is leverage a lightweight OS and Applications model to exploit it.
If /. can't locally cache all the articles it refers to then I quit. I just can't take take it anymore.
Since when has Microsoft ever done anything specifically to make your life easier, your migration easier or your overall cost of ownership cheaper?
Seriously when did that happen? When has anything Microsoft done as regards any of those points been undertaken as a panicked reaction to market complaints and screaming after the fact? Every single time.
Isn't this the same Safari exploit that's been known for a while?
You know they will. And eventually the 'big' targets will stand alone and they will cave too. I kind of hope that in the end the RIAA figures out a sufficiently robust DRM that coupled with their legal tactics just drives people away from their content and no one pays it any attention at all. Then maybe Jay-Z and the RIAA can sue each other. Because really your only weapon is to stop paying them for anything at any time for any of their 'content'.
At 10 cents per SMS for every one over I feel MY pain, deeply. A few other observations:
Teens don't use voicemail. At all. They neither pick up their own nor do they leave messages.
Teens rarely answer their phone except for people they actually want to speak to. Answering mom or dad only under duress or threat.
I keep AIM on
Until last year I had a P-3 slot 1 550 (upgraded from a 400-500-550-750 then the 750 died went back to the 550) with 224MB RAM running W2KSP5 and Netscape 7.2 and it ran fine. If I were doing the same thing today I'd just replace NS7.2 with Seamonkey 1.1.3 which is what I have running today on all the other machines. I am typing this on a homemade slot 370 P-3 1200Mhz machine with 512MB RAM and Seamonkey. A little slower to start than new machines but entirely usable.
Seamonkey is a bit lighter and quicker than FF, it handles multiuser profiles a bit better than FF and most of the useful xpi extensions run on it.
I mean who the hell is going to watch game shows and reality shows on their laptop? If anything, leveraging MySpace means that TV eventually turns into YouTube length 'segments' e.g. the average television show will now be 10 minutes long and sponsored by one ad, just like TV was in the late 1940's early 50's
And this is all good because it's not trying to reinvent something. Rail transport is uniquely European in the sense that rail in the US will never reach the levels it does in Western Europe. But another Google, specifically targeted at Google? Seems to be a waste of effort that could be better spent making some other web tool.
That whatever is developed publically or privately in the US they have to develop a competitor? What about Galileo - the EU's competition to GPS? Yeah that's crashed and burned and it barely got off the ground. Andy why again? Seems that if you want to play along you should cooperate instead of wasting money trying to catch up with dubious projects of questionable benefit.
Because that is what it will take to run it. And 16GB RAM, minimum. And you will need a new UltraMegaPCI spec to run a graphics supercomputer for the "NitroXtreme" interface. And security will still be for shit.
I have a better idea - why don't they morph whatever it is they run on Xbox360 into a full blown OS?
and electricity too and the damn horseless buggy. you kids get off my lawn
Of course I'm not offtopic employers are not going to stand for increased fees, taxes and duties after they spent 5 years unburdening themselves of overhead. If telco's think they can simply snap their fingers and ratchet up prices w/o a fight they are wrong.
Now? do you get it?
Most people with a home computer rarely have a desire to power down and go to Border's Books or the Bagel shop to do exactly the same thing.
Gamerz are still Gamerz and they only want the fastest biggest gear.
Laptops still have a 2x price premium for the same performance of the corresponding desktop.
Cheap laptops are much lower end machines than cheap desktops.
Desktops are upgradeable, laptops are not.
People like larger screens than the usual 15.4" laptop screen. And 17-19" monitors are pretty cheap.
But I will give you this - what the home user needs is a much smaller machine, like an all in one form factor of an iMac or miniMac or an ITX form factor, small fanless design with enough power to make it cost effective.
Google need only hire as many wonks as it needs in the Great White North. Canada has very liberal immigration policies compared to the US. All you really need is a job offer, English and French language skills, no criminal record. Weighted salaries are about the same as the US but you needed worry about bottlenecks and shortages either.
Shit piss fuck fuck asslick blowjob buttsex pearl necklace golden shower midget anal sucking horsecock man on man mutual masturbation lesbian analingus fuck fuck fuck grandma sex leather chains nipple clips gerbils gerbils gerbils wang bang come in your eye fuck fuck fuck fuck.
It's too late to buy or rent office space for the millions of people they 'homesourced' and who now rely on broadband for their jobs and for their employers profits. If they charge me twice as much for half the service then my employer will just have to pick up the slack. The only alternative is to go out and rent or build millions of feet of office space.
Because that's what it would come to. Y'all better duck because your motherfucking copywrited material is coming back at your head at about 60mph.
It's an executive order not a bill. It is therefore automatically a law and is not subject to appeal, expiration or judicial review
It refers to anyone who knowingly or unknowningly so much as giving money to an organization that 'threatens the stability of Iraq' as a terrorist
The mechanics of the order are such that they are by decree without due process, judicial review or approval nor are they subject to post hoc review.
Have fun, America. It's getting, oh, a little cloudy our there.
It's not on their website. So when does this happen? What you can get today is an Everex GC3500 with a monitor for $348 + tax&shipping.
All these government agencies that are endlessly switching in and out of MS Office. Don't they ever get sick of eating the transition costs over and over. Isn't the goal of Office Productivity Software to be productive?