Actually given my job (system design/implementation/project management), it's an exciting proposition, because of how I can scale out some of my other projects. We are skipping Vista for 7 here, though we don't have a timeline and the proposition for a standard imaging format, better lockdown and securing people's laptops via hardware encryption, etc.. they are all appealing.
I have to laugh in agreement, listening to all the "power" users at Slashdot cry because Microsoft created the Ribbon in Office 2007 so people could be more productive, and then want "the old way back".
It's lose-lose for Microsoft at this site, I guess I'm in the minority that will actually compliment them, and then get labelled a fanboy. *shrug*
Seriously though, have you even bothered using the RC? I won't make my comments on it, but generally the critics don't even know how to use, or haven't used the product in question so I'll leave it there.
Because Slashdot has an inherent Microsoft bias, and since I work with *nix systems on a relative level that I do with Windows systems, I find much of the FUD here to be ridiculous and that of uneducated users of the Windows platform.
Read some other comments of mine, I've talked about the Click n Run technology Linux was supposed to debut that I thought was great, and other things as well -- just in recent history I suppose they've been more MS centric but then again, Windows 7 finally got me excited about Microsoft OSes again. Server 2008 did also.
I never compared Linux or OSX as the competition for 7, I just mentioned them in passing, since they are spoken of in rather complimentary terms, I think Windows 7 will also be as the future comes around.
XP took 7 or 8 years to have the share that it has. Windows 7 in that amount of time may have a similar share. My outlook is favorable to Windows 7, and that's pretty much all I was saying.
The 'big picture' is an enterprise benefit, not just "what is the feature I need from Windows 7?"
That's plain and simple, idiocy. If you don't understand the ecosystem around Windows that's fine and dandy, and I deploy *nix systems regularly but also understand the Windows ecosystem enough to know that in the desktop realm there are distinct benefits. Vista has the same general benefits as 7, but 7 is cleaner and faster, so I'll lump 7 in with Vista for now.
There are a LOT of advantages that may not benefit you, but do give good ROI. Standard imaging format with driver injections, so we can have a 'standard' image is one. Group policy that lets us lock down more stuff and change more settings for applications and the like. Better support for our network stack, because believe it or not, Windows XP actually is not great at communicating with Cisco Switches with spanning tree protocol enabled. Especially if they are Dells (yuck). Windows 7 solves that too.
We have other benefits too, like what we can build AROUND the Windows 7 environment, things we can do in Sharepoint, or within Office itself, or deploying software, etc etc.
The simple fact that you are waiting for the 'one killer feature' that will make you switch from XP, really shows how big haters you are -- I'm glad there's a lot of competition because Microsoft has stepped up the game with 7 and with other applications in its ensemble, and yet in the Slashdot crowd, they keep getting shit for it. Change the UI for better utility in Office? Get screamed at. Keep the UI in Windows the same? Get yelled at.
There's just no pleasing haters, and there's certainly no pleasing haters that don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
Skill systems can work, so can level systems... it depends a lot of game mechanics.
UO back in the day had a system that incorporated twitch skill, combo skill (ie, street fighter), tactics, teamwork, etc to make the game interesting. Everybody would max out eventually and then the game would have balance amongst EVERYBODY.
The thing in level based games, there are also 'classes', so one class may not be well balanced against another class. For example in WOW, a rogue generally can own a mage pretty fast, while a mage can own large swaths of players too. It's balanced overall, but not balanced for 1v1. UO was balanced for 1v1 as well as team fighting for tactics.
Either way though, I am looking forward to Mortal Online which is supposed to have balance for individuals like UO did, but we'll see how that works out.
As a 'businessperson' who actually implements *nix and Windows systems (I do system design/architecture) it's generally a factor of productivity.
While people can argue the better points of Linux or Unix all they want, the simple fact is that there are higher costs associated with *nix than Windows as well. They don't apply to "viruses or malware" which is an impossible thing to measure. Honestly, if you look at the Secunia.org reports, Windows fares pretty well actually. Imagine if somebody used a DNS attack that was patched two years ago in every Linux distro -- who is to blame? The OS, or the admins?
That said, *nix has a high cost due to administration. It costs me more to bill a *nix SA than a Windows SA. That's how big enterprises work folks, you bill each department for the respective cost back to the business unit. When the business unit sees that the cost of labor for a *nix SA is say, $100/hour and a Windows SA is $70/hour, with a minimum of 200 working hours to implement, plus ongoing support costs -- they generally choose the Windows platform.
Sorry to the geeks out there, but my job is to inform business units on their options, potential benefits and downfalls. There are things Windows does great -- specifically we can build off Office APIs and deploy enterprise applications in a lightning quick manner, that complement the systems we are building or buying. *nix doesn't have that ability, almost everything we build is from the ground up, totally from scratch. That's a LOT of man hours, a LOT of code management, and oddly enough -- a higher cost.
You can do what you want in *nix, but it generally takes longer and costs more. The recurring costs are kind of pushed aside because if you are profiting from that system it pays for itself. However if you spend 2 or 3 months longer to get it off the ground for a *nix system, you've lost 2 or 3 months of PROFIT. That profit generally pays for the recurring costs and keeps your TCO much lower.
The inherent problem here is that people who are techies always look at the technology of *nix as superior -- and in many cases it is -- but forget the whole picture. It's not just about attack vector, or market penetration, or whatever else. We've never had an outbreak (17,000 desktops/laptops) once, because we maintain a strict change control methodology, don't give admin rights to people who don't need them, and ensure we are patching and deploying definitions in a timely manner.
If you fail to implement a proper security policy, fail to adhere to that policy, you are going to have disasters whether you have a *nix system or a Windows system. And for the Windows vs *nix arguments well... they are idiotic. Use the best tool for the job that you feel gives you the best TCO. Until *nix steps up its game and comes out with something better than OpenOffice for enterprise application deployment (want to know how fast we can deploy something to Sharepoint, have it integrate with Office 2007, and everybody be productive, versus *nix?) then this argument will relegate *nix as what I normally deploy to the backend (Oracle for us, generally), and Windows to the frontend.
Businesses work in dollars, not technical arguments. I'll use *nix tomorrow if I think that it will be more profitable in the long term. But when most of you here dismiss profit and turnaround, plus support costs, then the argument you're making is pointless.
Coal isn't renewable. That's kind of the point. We will just be down the same path and the same ultimate consequences at a more accelerated rate. You are thiinking on the span of what, maybe 50, 100 years? I am thinking a bit longer term.
Because now the political "we don't cause GW" arguments will begin, and the bickering....
It shouldn't even be about global warming. It should be about national security. If you have no renewable resources, and rely on other (enemy) nations to provide that stuff to you and your way of life, you have a severe problem.
Let's get off oil if for nothing else, to bankrupt every middle eastern country out there. We won't bother maintaining a presence there if there's nothing to take advantage of.
Who aren't famous or interesting (I guess), it's a good way to 'follow' those people whom interest you.
I follow the twitter updates of Kevin Rose (Digg), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Paul Thurrott (WinSuperSite) and a handful of others. Often I'll get information that is kind of '0-day', rather than wait for the blogs or media to pick up on it, so it's nice to get that kind of realtime update.
That, and if you do tweet them something interesting, you actually can have a dialogue with them that would otherwise never exist.
It's not just Windows and Office that make money for MS, but they are definitely some of the most reliable money makers.
And while the public deemed Vista a failure, their sales don't seem too bad considering most of it is from OEMs. They needed to break the enterprise market and they are doing that with Windows 7. We'll see how that turns out, but I am enjoying the RC build.
If you can see the future that well... can you tell me the lotto numbers too?
I think the Zune is actually a good MP3 player, even compared to the iPod. The iPod is just the standard. I have several, to make that point.
If MS offers everything the iPod does in terms of 3rd party tools like car integration, boomboxes and stereo systems, etc... then I don't see why it can't be a hit also. People don't buy iPods only because they are from Apple, but because they can plug it into their car, or because they can plug it into a stereo dock, or whatever.
Time will tell either way, but I think this Zune is better than the past ones and that's a good thing for the sake of competition. I'm not going to bring Windows into this (since that's where you're headed) since it's kind of irrelevant, but since I've already commented I can't mod you troll.
No, if you read the stuff from people like Carmack and others, it was just easier to develop for MS's platform. The fact they released it first is kind of ancillary.
Look at how the Xbox 360 unceremoniously unseated Playstation as the console of choice.
MS is playing for keeps -- if they keep at it, they will do well. I actually think their Zune Pass is one of the best things out there, even though I don't have a Zune. If they got a few 3rd parties to do a car integration kit (ala Dice) I'd be on board and buy one.
"Drop to the terminal", you've already lost most users.
I appreciate the power of the terminal, and many of the folks on this site also do, but users simply don't care about the "power" of it, they care about simplicity, straightforwardness, and software.
Linux isn't yet simple, especially when people are used to doing things in Windows or even Mac (a bit), those two platforms work surprisingly alike for installing software (double click!), for finding software (go to some website, download it), etc. When a user is used to going to Mozilla.org and downloading the latest Firefox, and then tries doing that in Linux only to find that they have to drop to the terminal and do a install, they already are ready to wipe and format and put Windows back on so they can play their games and surf the web.
Windows has taken years to get a cohesive (and still not quite there yet) and unified GUI. Mac took a long time too, and it's pretty darned good. Linux is a compilation of GUI, and while it's pretty good LOOKING, it's not unified across every window, every application, etc. Plus, breaking the habit of people downloading apps from the web and going to repositories is counter intuitive for a lot of people.
If you want to make a dent where Windows is king, you have to adopt some of the peculiarities of the OS in order to adopt. You give them training wheels and the rest they learn on their own. If you fail to provide that, then they just give up and say it sucks -- like the returns OEMs show from getting *nix laptops. Even with distros that work out of the box from OEMs, people are returning them. Sure the distro can be done better, but the odds of that happening are slim, so my thought is that Linux itself needs to change at its core to help the users bridge the gap.
But I've been hearing "Linux on the desktop" for so many years now I just laugh about it now. Given the treatment of non-Linux users by Linux users (berating, combative, defensive, angry, etc), there's good reason why it never catches on, and it's because the userbase for Linux are a bunch of assholes.
Agreed, but if *nix is the one fighting for desktop market share, the Windows users on *nix is kind of irrelevant since that's the market you're trying to reach.
That said, not *everyone* on Haiku is clueless... I've used BeOS since version 2, so I hope that I have *some* understanding.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Try powershell for your CLI stuff. Works wonders, we automate our entire infrastructure with it.
They have that already in Windows 7.
Gotta read up.
Actually given my job (system design/implementation/project management), it's an exciting proposition, because of how I can scale out some of my other projects. We are skipping Vista for 7 here, though we don't have a timeline and the proposition for a standard imaging format, better lockdown and securing people's laptops via hardware encryption, etc.. they are all appealing.
I have to laugh in agreement, listening to all the "power" users at Slashdot cry because Microsoft created the Ribbon in Office 2007 so people could be more productive, and then want "the old way back".
It's lose-lose for Microsoft at this site, I guess I'm in the minority that will actually compliment them, and then get labelled a fanboy. *shrug*
Seriously though, have you even bothered using the RC? I won't make my comments on it, but generally the critics don't even know how to use, or haven't used the product in question so I'll leave it there.
Because Slashdot has an inherent Microsoft bias, and since I work with *nix systems on a relative level that I do with Windows systems, I find much of the FUD here to be ridiculous and that of uneducated users of the Windows platform.
Read some other comments of mine, I've talked about the Click n Run technology Linux was supposed to debut that I thought was great, and other things as well -- just in recent history I suppose they've been more MS centric but then again, Windows 7 finally got me excited about Microsoft OSes again. Server 2008 did also.
I never compared Linux or OSX as the competition for 7, I just mentioned them in passing, since they are spoken of in rather complimentary terms, I think Windows 7 will also be as the future comes around.
XP took 7 or 8 years to have the share that it has. Windows 7 in that amount of time may have a similar share. My outlook is favorable to Windows 7, and that's pretty much all I was saying.
Way to miss the forest for the trees.
It's not too expensive, it's a great piece of software, and the best OS Microsoft has put out yet.
Say what you will about Linux or OSX, but I honestly think that Windows 7 is going to have a good future.
The 'big picture' is an enterprise benefit, not just "what is the feature I need from Windows 7?"
That's plain and simple, idiocy. If you don't understand the ecosystem around Windows that's fine and dandy, and I deploy *nix systems regularly but also understand the Windows ecosystem enough to know that in the desktop realm there are distinct benefits. Vista has the same general benefits as 7, but 7 is cleaner and faster, so I'll lump 7 in with Vista for now.
There are a LOT of advantages that may not benefit you, but do give good ROI. Standard imaging format with driver injections, so we can have a 'standard' image is one. Group policy that lets us lock down more stuff and change more settings for applications and the like. Better support for our network stack, because believe it or not, Windows XP actually is not great at communicating with Cisco Switches with spanning tree protocol enabled. Especially if they are Dells (yuck). Windows 7 solves that too.
We have other benefits too, like what we can build AROUND the Windows 7 environment, things we can do in Sharepoint, or within Office itself, or deploying software, etc etc.
The simple fact that you are waiting for the 'one killer feature' that will make you switch from XP, really shows how big haters you are -- I'm glad there's a lot of competition because Microsoft has stepped up the game with 7 and with other applications in its ensemble, and yet in the Slashdot crowd, they keep getting shit for it. Change the UI for better utility in Office? Get screamed at. Keep the UI in Windows the same? Get yelled at.
There's just no pleasing haters, and there's certainly no pleasing haters that don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
They are spending money to show where they are spending money, and still keeping the Fed and the way it handles monetary policy under wraps?
If they aren't showing us how they are creating inflation, they aren't showing us anything important.
Nobody's going to buy Windows 7 off the shelf other than nerds or gamers, and everybody else will upgrade when they upgrade their PC.
Skill systems can work, so can level systems... it depends a lot of game mechanics.
UO back in the day had a system that incorporated twitch skill, combo skill (ie, street fighter), tactics, teamwork, etc to make the game interesting. Everybody would max out eventually and then the game would have balance amongst EVERYBODY.
The thing in level based games, there are also 'classes', so one class may not be well balanced against another class. For example in WOW, a rogue generally can own a mage pretty fast, while a mage can own large swaths of players too. It's balanced overall, but not balanced for 1v1. UO was balanced for 1v1 as well as team fighting for tactics.
Either way though, I am looking forward to Mortal Online which is supposed to have balance for individuals like UO did, but we'll see how that works out.
As a 'businessperson' who actually implements *nix and Windows systems (I do system design/architecture) it's generally a factor of productivity.
While people can argue the better points of Linux or Unix all they want, the simple fact is that there are higher costs associated with *nix than Windows as well. They don't apply to "viruses or malware" which is an impossible thing to measure. Honestly, if you look at the Secunia.org reports, Windows fares pretty well actually. Imagine if somebody used a DNS attack that was patched two years ago in every Linux distro -- who is to blame? The OS, or the admins?
That said, *nix has a high cost due to administration. It costs me more to bill a *nix SA than a Windows SA. That's how big enterprises work folks, you bill each department for the respective cost back to the business unit. When the business unit sees that the cost of labor for a *nix SA is say, $100/hour and a Windows SA is $70/hour, with a minimum of 200 working hours to implement, plus ongoing support costs -- they generally choose the Windows platform.
Sorry to the geeks out there, but my job is to inform business units on their options, potential benefits and downfalls. There are things Windows does great -- specifically we can build off Office APIs and deploy enterprise applications in a lightning quick manner, that complement the systems we are building or buying. *nix doesn't have that ability, almost everything we build is from the ground up, totally from scratch. That's a LOT of man hours, a LOT of code management, and oddly enough -- a higher cost.
You can do what you want in *nix, but it generally takes longer and costs more. The recurring costs are kind of pushed aside because if you are profiting from that system it pays for itself. However if you spend 2 or 3 months longer to get it off the ground for a *nix system, you've lost 2 or 3 months of PROFIT. That profit generally pays for the recurring costs and keeps your TCO much lower.
The inherent problem here is that people who are techies always look at the technology of *nix as superior -- and in many cases it is -- but forget the whole picture. It's not just about attack vector, or market penetration, or whatever else. We've never had an outbreak (17,000 desktops/laptops) once, because we maintain a strict change control methodology, don't give admin rights to people who don't need them, and ensure we are patching and deploying definitions in a timely manner.
If you fail to implement a proper security policy, fail to adhere to that policy, you are going to have disasters whether you have a *nix system or a Windows system. And for the Windows vs *nix arguments well... they are idiotic. Use the best tool for the job that you feel gives you the best TCO. Until *nix steps up its game and comes out with something better than OpenOffice for enterprise application deployment (want to know how fast we can deploy something to Sharepoint, have it integrate with Office 2007, and everybody be productive, versus *nix?) then this argument will relegate *nix as what I normally deploy to the backend (Oracle for us, generally), and Windows to the frontend.
Businesses work in dollars, not technical arguments. I'll use *nix tomorrow if I think that it will be more profitable in the long term. But when most of you here dismiss profit and turnaround, plus support costs, then the argument you're making is pointless.
Again, FINITE RESOURCE.
Coal isn't renewable. That's kind of the point. We will just be down the same path and the same ultimate consequences at a more accelerated rate. You are thiinking on the span of what, maybe 50, 100 years? I am thinking a bit longer term.
Yes, but your analogies suck.
Uhm, the countries that have oil and we buy it from them don't want to nuke us.
The ones we take oil from do want to nuke us.
Either way, if we remove oil from the picture, it's a win-win.
Because now the political "we don't cause GW" arguments will begin, and the bickering....
It shouldn't even be about global warming. It should be about national security. If you have no renewable resources, and rely on other (enemy) nations to provide that stuff to you and your way of life, you have a severe problem.
Let's get off oil if for nothing else, to bankrupt every middle eastern country out there. We won't bother maintaining a presence there if there's nothing to take advantage of.
Who aren't famous or interesting (I guess), it's a good way to 'follow' those people whom interest you.
I follow the twitter updates of Kevin Rose (Digg), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Paul Thurrott (WinSuperSite) and a handful of others. Often I'll get information that is kind of '0-day', rather than wait for the blogs or media to pick up on it, so it's nice to get that kind of realtime update.
That, and if you do tweet them something interesting, you actually can have a dialogue with them that would otherwise never exist.
LOL you beat me to it :)
It's not just Windows and Office that make money for MS, but they are definitely some of the most reliable money makers.
And while the public deemed Vista a failure, their sales don't seem too bad considering most of it is from OEMs. They needed to break the enterprise market and they are doing that with Windows 7. We'll see how that turns out, but I am enjoying the RC build.
If you can see the future that well... can you tell me the lotto numbers too?
I think the Zune is actually a good MP3 player, even compared to the iPod. The iPod is just the standard. I have several, to make that point.
If MS offers everything the iPod does in terms of 3rd party tools like car integration, boomboxes and stereo systems, etc... then I don't see why it can't be a hit also. People don't buy iPods only because they are from Apple, but because they can plug it into their car, or because they can plug it into a stereo dock, or whatever.
Time will tell either way, but I think this Zune is better than the past ones and that's a good thing for the sake of competition. I'm not going to bring Windows into this (since that's where you're headed) since it's kind of irrelevant, but since I've already commented I can't mod you troll.
No, if you read the stuff from people like Carmack and others, it was just easier to develop for MS's platform. The fact they released it first is kind of ancillary.
Look at how the Xbox 360 unceremoniously unseated Playstation as the console of choice.
MS is playing for keeps -- if they keep at it, they will do well. I actually think their Zune Pass is one of the best things out there, even though I don't have a Zune. If they got a few 3rd parties to do a car integration kit (ala Dice) I'd be on board and buy one.
"Drop to the terminal", you've already lost most users.
I appreciate the power of the terminal, and many of the folks on this site also do, but users simply don't care about the "power" of it, they care about simplicity, straightforwardness, and software.
Linux isn't yet simple, especially when people are used to doing things in Windows or even Mac (a bit), those two platforms work surprisingly alike for installing software (double click!), for finding software (go to some website, download it), etc. When a user is used to going to Mozilla.org and downloading the latest Firefox, and then tries doing that in Linux only to find that they have to drop to the terminal and do a install, they already are ready to wipe and format and put Windows back on so they can play their games and surf the web.
Windows has taken years to get a cohesive (and still not quite there yet) and unified GUI. Mac took a long time too, and it's pretty darned good. Linux is a compilation of GUI, and while it's pretty good LOOKING, it's not unified across every window, every application, etc. Plus, breaking the habit of people downloading apps from the web and going to repositories is counter intuitive for a lot of people.
If you want to make a dent where Windows is king, you have to adopt some of the peculiarities of the OS in order to adopt. You give them training wheels and the rest they learn on their own. If you fail to provide that, then they just give up and say it sucks -- like the returns OEMs show from getting *nix laptops. Even with distros that work out of the box from OEMs, people are returning them. Sure the distro can be done better, but the odds of that happening are slim, so my thought is that Linux itself needs to change at its core to help the users bridge the gap.
But I've been hearing "Linux on the desktop" for so many years now I just laugh about it now. Given the treatment of non-Linux users by Linux users (berating, combative, defensive, angry, etc), there's good reason why it never catches on, and it's because the userbase for Linux are a bunch of assholes.
Agreed, but if *nix is the one fighting for desktop market share, the Windows users on *nix is kind of irrelevant since that's the market you're trying to reach.
That said, not *everyone* on Haiku is clueless... I've used BeOS since version 2, so I hope that I have *some* understanding. :)