The questions of security and reliability are a really big deal. Microsoft has had enough problems, but has been saying for a while "... but Longhorn/Vista".
If this blows up, if the OS is no more stable or secure than XP, then it's going to be very embarrassing for Microsoft.
Although £20 is about the normal price for a DVD in UK shops on original release. You can, however, find mail order deals much cheaper (King Kong is £12.99).
But often, doing a pre-order can mean you'll get the DVD on the day, or even before the release date - I've heard this in forums. DVD mail order companies just want to free the stock in their warehouses.
A made-for-Disney-Channel movie? Yeah, because Disney have been making such great movies for the cinema recently. I'm sure that they've saved all the good stuff for made-for-Disney-Channel.
I bet this is even worse than their "Exclusive to DVD" releases.
A lot of corporations just won't bother for a very long time.
If people are on XP now, I doubt they'll upgrade. They'll upgrade to the next OS after Vista.
Rolling out an OS is a big job and is risky. Staying on the existing OS generally isn't.
And there are very few benefits of an OS upgrade now. What's in Vista that isn't in XP? Not enough to justify an upgrade for a lot of companies. I still know companies running Windows 2000 more than happily.
Windows has reached a plateau now. Where upgrades from Windows 3 to WFW to Windows NT4 to Windows 2000 gave a lot of extras in terms of functions, security or added hardware compatibility, they're running out of useful stuff to add.
Well you are wrong because I do. What I was referring to was people building their own ActiveX controls, or using applications with ActiveX controls as part of deployment.
I suspect this is one reason that companies like IBM want more open source software over Windows.
If you are running Windows, and it goes wrong, you are at the mercy of Microsoft to fix it. They may decide that your problem isn't worth the bother.
It's often said here "with OSS, you can change the code", which is laughed at as impossible for Joe Average. What it ignores is that companies like IBM and HP have the sort of guys who can edit OS code and make it dance to their tune.
Companies like these like to deliver a fully working solution, not be telling their customers that there's a service pack around the corner.
Mostly, ActiveX on the corporate desktop is just because someone's taking a short cut.
There are very few good reasons for using ActiveX on pages. You've got Java, Flash and AJAX for interactivity, all of which are safer and more cross-platform.
It really had no soul about it. Wargames was a better movie.
I was a teenager and playing with home computers, and I didn't think much of it, beyond the lifecycle sequence.
I really hope that Disney remake it sometime. It's a movie that's got a great idea behind it, but was flabby and dull in execution and script. Keep the Wendy Carlos soundtrack, though;)
Every successful Linux/OpenOffice.org install is a threat to Microsoft.
Not only does it take away revenue, but it's someone else increasing the Linux mindshare.
I tried out Ubuntu live the other day, and was really impressed and offered it to two friends, one of whom has already tried it and is also impressed with where it's at.
I remember when the first PC clones came out, how people were highly skeptical of them. How companies were paying much more for similar machines from their mainframe supplier out of fear that the clones were just not good enough. Over time, people met friends who showed them that the fears were unfounded.
The thing with Windows and Office now, is that the cost of the software is a big cost as a proportion of the PC cost. I had a laptop ad arrive in my inbox for a machine running Linux. Because they can basically take off the price of the software license, and it makes quite a large difference in percentage terms on the price.
12-24 months from now, we'll see the first major PCs selling Linux with a price discount.
On an even more off-topic note you can blame Mrs. Thatcher for pretty much every problem facing British politics today, if you can be bothered to do the research.
I'd like to hear your "research" in more detail.
Mrs Thatcher made some mistakes, but that's a pretty wild assertion you are making there.
The problem is that the moment public transport doesn't work for people, they need a car. Once they have a car, the economics of train travel (which seems to be pitched against costs including running costs, not petrol costs) fall apart.
Also, cars are generally a lot more convenient, unless you are travelling at peak times, when the speed of the train is better. I actually prefer trains, because I can read or have a coffee, but too often the door-to-door time is easily beaten by a car. On some lines into London, the price is ridiculous. A return journey that costs about £14 by car costs over £50 by train, and that doesn't include my extra costs in taxis/buses.
The ironic thing is that the Oscars rarely give credit to films that I'd see at the cinema. They shun comedy and big action movies in favour of drama and romance.
Drama and Romance films, I'll wait for DVD. They don't gain a whole lot at the cinema, where action is enhanced by it.
Oh, and animation. And as Oscar has now treated animation movies as 2nd rate, they're missing out on some of the best cinema out there.
Why should you? Because you don't have a choice. The world moves on.
I spent my first 10 years working on mainframes. That market died, and I moved on. The traditional contracting market is less than it was 5 years ago, because any large team project gets shipped to India. So, I do a lot more small client work that isn't just coding, but I've had to learn more about negotiation, pricing, marketing and so forth.
In the 1980s, there used to be a lot of work for typesetters, people who put together newspapers, and it was actually very well paid work. The word processor came along, and the unions in the UK fought the change. If I'd have been a phototypsetter, the moment I saw the word processor, I'd have been going to college to find something else to do, because I'd have realised I was toast.
I'm not sure it is just movies. After all, people are quick to attack terrible, lifeless cover versions of old songs.
Also, performance is a different thing. Then again, I've heard a criticism in classical circles that every new conductor is expected to turn out a Beethoven's 5th. The classical industry is turning into the pop industry.
The problem is about "why". In nearly all cases, it seems like cynical crap. If you are going to remake a movie, do something with it that's interesting, or look at a failed movie and improve it (I like the idea of Tron being remade - interesting idea that was poorly executed).
I tried a live CD on my machine, and was completely bowled over how much it just detected everything. It got the HP printer slightly wrong, but it was easy to fix.
I'm cleaning up my machine ready for a dual boot of it.
Maybe the people in those countries are just glad to have the work.
Resisting global free markets is like pissing in the wind. If you can organise to stop your company outsourcing jobs, the result is that your company's products will cost more than the company in that country producing things, and the company will hit the wall.
The real answers are: reskill, live in a cheaper country or accept that your salary is not going to get the sort of rises you had before. I doubt you'll hear a trade union offering these up as solutions.
Unions absolutely are part of socialism. The labour movement has always gone hand in hand with trade unions. Look at party affiliations between trade unions. Is it low-tax parties supporting them? No.
I'm a libertarian, and my view on unions is simple - I don't need you. If I don't like the deal the company is offering me, I'll go elsewhere. Simple as that. If a boss is giving me a hard time, I'll escalate it. If it's still a problem, I'll walk.
I don't have a problem if people want to be a member of a union to help with certain issues, that's their choice. Unfortunately, the story of many trade unions in the UK in the 1970s and in certain other places is that what they like to do is to gain enough power to control whether a business can function or not. The history of unions is not exactly great in terms of where they yielded strong power, in what then eventually happened to those businesses.
I've always judged a company based on share price, market cap, previous returns, the state of the market they are in, and what their products and services are like now.
I'd never bother with quarterly statements, or most of what is written in a company report. It's all designed to show the best picture, to keep people like analysts stating that a stock is worth buying. You can't hide staff being unhelpful and a horrible new clothes range in a store.
however if Google needs to survive in Wall Street, they may need to do both, since not giving quarterly statement introduces a lot of uncertainty.
Maybe they just don't want the Wall Street investors. Perhaps that's the whole idea. That instead of being at the mercy of large pension companies who will, at a will expect one of two actions - acquire or reorganise, they want to be owned by people who take a view based on good fundamentals, like whether they are making good products.
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The questions of security and reliability are a really big deal. Microsoft has had enough problems, but has been saying for a while "... but Longhorn/Vista".
If this blows up, if the OS is no more stable or secure than XP, then it's going to be very embarrassing for Microsoft.
But often, doing a pre-order can mean you'll get the DVD on the day, or even before the release date - I've heard this in forums. DVD mail order companies just want to free the stock in their warehouses.
I bet this is even worse than their "Exclusive to DVD" releases.
I think that stuff like the Pixar short films (like For the Birds) might be quite good, but who wants to watch something for an hour or so?
can you tell us how much Microsoft paid, if anything for this?
If people are on XP now, I doubt they'll upgrade. They'll upgrade to the next OS after Vista.
Rolling out an OS is a big job and is risky. Staying on the existing OS generally isn't.
And there are very few benefits of an OS upgrade now. What's in Vista that isn't in XP? Not enough to justify an upgrade for a lot of companies. I still know companies running Windows 2000 more than happily.
Windows has reached a plateau now. Where upgrades from Windows 3 to WFW to Windows NT4 to Windows 2000 gave a lot of extras in terms of functions, security or added hardware compatibility, they're running out of useful stuff to add.
Well you are wrong because I do. What I was referring to was people building their own ActiveX controls, or using applications with ActiveX controls as part of deployment.
If you are running Windows, and it goes wrong, you are at the mercy of Microsoft to fix it. They may decide that your problem isn't worth the bother.
It's often said here "with OSS, you can change the code", which is laughed at as impossible for Joe Average. What it ignores is that companies like IBM and HP have the sort of guys who can edit OS code and make it dance to their tune.
Companies like these like to deliver a fully working solution, not be telling their customers that there's a service pack around the corner.
There are very few good reasons for using ActiveX on pages. You've got Java, Flash and AJAX for interactivity, all of which are safer and more cross-platform.
I was a teenager and playing with home computers, and I didn't think much of it, beyond the lifecycle sequence.
I really hope that Disney remake it sometime. It's a movie that's got a great idea behind it, but was flabby and dull in execution and script. Keep the Wendy Carlos soundtrack, though ;)
We don't even know if Microsoft will survive in that arena. Apple are the premium product right now.
Not only does it take away revenue, but it's someone else increasing the Linux mindshare.
I tried out Ubuntu live the other day, and was really impressed and offered it to two friends, one of whom has already tried it and is also impressed with where it's at.
I remember when the first PC clones came out, how people were highly skeptical of them. How companies were paying much more for similar machines from their mainframe supplier out of fear that the clones were just not good enough. Over time, people met friends who showed them that the fears were unfounded.
The thing with Windows and Office now, is that the cost of the software is a big cost as a proportion of the PC cost. I had a laptop ad arrive in my inbox for a machine running Linux. Because they can basically take off the price of the software license, and it makes quite a large difference in percentage terms on the price.
12-24 months from now, we'll see the first major PCs selling Linux with a price discount.
I'd like to hear your "research" in more detail.
Mrs Thatcher made some mistakes, but that's a pretty wild assertion you are making there.
Also, cars are generally a lot more convenient, unless you are travelling at peak times, when the speed of the train is better. I actually prefer trains, because I can read or have a coffee, but too often the door-to-door time is easily beaten by a car. On some lines into London, the price is ridiculous. A return journey that costs about £14 by car costs over £50 by train, and that doesn't include my extra costs in taxis/buses.
I hope that Google buying Writely and building a Calendar is part of this - disconnecting "office" functions from the OS.
Drama and Romance films, I'll wait for DVD. They don't gain a whole lot at the cinema, where action is enhanced by it.
Oh, and animation. And as Oscar has now treated animation movies as 2nd rate, they're missing out on some of the best cinema out there.
I spent my first 10 years working on mainframes. That market died, and I moved on. The traditional contracting market is less than it was 5 years ago, because any large team project gets shipped to India. So, I do a lot more small client work that isn't just coding, but I've had to learn more about negotiation, pricing, marketing and so forth.
In the 1980s, there used to be a lot of work for typesetters, people who put together newspapers, and it was actually very well paid work. The word processor came along, and the unions in the UK fought the change. If I'd have been a phototypsetter, the moment I saw the word processor, I'd have been going to college to find something else to do, because I'd have realised I was toast.
Also, performance is a different thing. Then again, I've heard a criticism in classical circles that every new conductor is expected to turn out a Beethoven's 5th. The classical industry is turning into the pop industry.
The problem is about "why". In nearly all cases, it seems like cynical crap. If you are going to remake a movie, do something with it that's interesting, or look at a failed movie and improve it (I like the idea of Tron being remade - interesting idea that was poorly executed).
I'm cleaning up my machine ready for a dual boot of it.
Resisting global free markets is like pissing in the wind. If you can organise to stop your company outsourcing jobs, the result is that your company's products will cost more than the company in that country producing things, and the company will hit the wall.
The real answers are: reskill, live in a cheaper country or accept that your salary is not going to get the sort of rises you had before. I doubt you'll hear a trade union offering these up as solutions.
I'm a libertarian, and my view on unions is simple - I don't need you. If I don't like the deal the company is offering me, I'll go elsewhere. Simple as that. If a boss is giving me a hard time, I'll escalate it. If it's still a problem, I'll walk.
I don't have a problem if people want to be a member of a union to help with certain issues, that's their choice. Unfortunately, the story of many trade unions in the UK in the 1970s and in certain other places is that what they like to do is to gain enough power to control whether a business can function or not. The history of unions is not exactly great in terms of where they yielded strong power, in what then eventually happened to those businesses.
Have you read a blog, beyond Microsoft fanboys saying how great live.com?
I get recommended all sorts of sites by word-of-mouth from friends, and no-one has even mentioned live.com.
Except Pixar, who make trails that suck for really excellent movies.
I'd never bother with quarterly statements, or most of what is written in a company report. It's all designed to show the best picture, to keep people like analysts stating that a stock is worth buying. You can't hide staff being unhelpful and a horrible new clothes range in a store.
Maybe they just don't want the Wall Street investors. Perhaps that's the whole idea. That instead of being at the mercy of large pension companies who will, at a will expect one of two actions - acquire or reorganise, they want to be owned by people who take a view based on good fundamentals, like whether they are making good products.