Now I just have to wait and see if Apple/Mac will finally be validated by the geek community before I can get one.
Dude, it's been geek-ready ever since OS 10.1.5 and/or the dual G5 PowerMac, depending on if software or hardware are more important to you.
Where the hell have you been?
Actually, don't you think that Apple as a company just got a little less geek credibility, since they actually do a little less hardware engineering than they used to?
I know I shouldn't bitch about it, and I think I understand why, but it's a real bummer that Apple was unable to announce a low-end Intel machine today.
Why not package the new iMac guts in a case without a monitor? I understand the desire to use their allotment of Yonah processors in the machines that will give them the highest markup, but all the PC fanboys are going to complain now that they don't want to pay for a monitor just to upgrade their machines... and even Mac fanboys aren't going to buy PowerMacs, iBooks, or Mac minis when iMacs and this ( IMHO poorly named ) "Mac Book Pro" are so far ahead of them and clearly on the way out, if not already gone.
Anyone have thoughts on why there were no Mac mini, iBook, or eMac updates ( or Intel conversions ) today ? What is going to happen there ?
we sold 14 million iPod...... and most of them are obsolete as of today!
Nice to see you've been properly modded as flamebait. That wasn't said because that was 14 million iPods sold this holdiday season. So those are all completely new iPods, nanos or video. Since "only" 42 million iPods total have been sold, then less than 70% of all iPods sold up to this point are "obsolete" where "obsolete" means 'are not the same as the current model'. Which is of course a stupid definition that only a troll would use in this case; all iPods work just fine and are fully supported by iTunes, what's obsolete about even a first generation iPod? They play music and work with a Firewire-capable computer just fine.
Actually, since sales have been taking off so dramatically, it's likely that nearly half of all iPod sales were in the past year, making your comment look even more lame, which is pretty difficult...
Who's got the money to buy expensive luxury items now? It's buyer's market, hence lower prices.
Still, we're talking about an item which is not actually available at retail... you'd think that if it was in really high demand, you'd be paying a decent premium to obtain one when you normally couldn't. The fact seems to be that even among people who do have the money, there isn't a feeling that the luxury item in question is extremely valuable, and the need for it isn't extremely urgent. Nobody needs one by some gift-giving day, so if it's more expensive to buy it this week, we'll wait until next week.
It would appear that anyone *really* excited to have an Xbox 360 who can afford one already has one... and that's not near as many people as MSFT would like, even if they are having production problems ( which they are )... they'd rather have that eBay price higher, as it would indicate pent-up demand for the product.
I could be wrong, but I'm guessing there isn't actually a lot of unsatisfied demand for the Xbox 360. A little, maybe, since it is selling out, but not a lot; it's only selling out because there aren't many units hitting the stores. Again, I could easily be wrong, but it's hard for me to look at this and think it's good for MSFT.
Maybe they'll get lucky, and the whole Blu-ray thing will push the PS3 back really far... maybe not...
eBay listings for the 360, if they are any indication, seem to show that folks aren't willing anymore to pay much, if any, of a premium beyond the suggested retail price anymore. Which is pretty shocking, when you consider that retail outlets do seem to be completely sold out... wouldn't you expect these things to be selling for more on eBay if the demand was really there?
Certainly putting a high horsepower engine in that Swift would be FAR more silly than painting a racing stripe down the middle.
Only if you're never going to race it.
Which I guess sums up my feeling on the matter; if you're not going to race your car, making it *look* like a race car just makes you a poser, which is silly.
Buying a multi-passenger off-road-capable vehicle which you only ever drive by yourself on nicely paved roads is equally silly, but, obviously, people are silly, and buy cars not as transportation but as status symbols. I guess I should have restricted my previous comment to the world of after-market modification, but you're right that it applies at time of purchase as well, so the majority involves themselves in the sillyness. Most people just don't take the effort and time to do much after-market customization, not because we don't care about asthetics, but because it's a pain and we've already put the spoiler on our Honda ( well, my wife put it there, really... dumbest thing ever, but what are you going to do ) before we drove it off the lot.
We also wear ties and silly dresses, and mod computers ( or needlessly spend extra to buy stylish ones ) and, well, that's people for you... we're silly. If you got the cash, someone will sell you the bling, even if someone thinks all that bling makes you look silly... which was my real point, going back. This hard drive with a window is just a company selling the bling that the market clearly demands, silly as many of us may find it to be.
No, he wasn't. First of all OS X has a what, 5% market share? Hasn't exactly caught on.
An interesting way of looking at things, but by the same metrics, BMW hasn't exactly caught on, either.
It might be more correct to notice that the Mac computer market share has more than doubled since the introduction of OS X. 5% doesn't look to impressive until you look back a few years at 2.3%...
Thirdly, let's see how many elements the next Windows borrows from THE NeXT-SPECIFIC aspects of OS X. That's the discussion we're having.
Are you going to ignore the NeXT-like elements of the *current* version of Windows? OK, but still... why ignore the fact that Windows is trying to catch up to OS X in many ways? Oh, and yea, OS X often borrows from Windows as well ( user switching as the only example I can think of, but there must be others ).
I'm missing the appeal. Why do I have to pay a subscription to use a recording device and deal with "broadcast flags"?
I can't believe I'm still needing to say this to people years later, but here goes...
The reason for your TiVo subscription and the reason why TiVo is so great boils down to ONE feature, called "Season Pass". You select or punch in the name of a show. After that, *every* episode ( with the option of not recording repeats ) is recorded- with nothing more for you to do except watch.
Sure, you could program your VCR to come on at some given time, and make sure you have a blank tape in the machine, and do so repeatedly, but do you? Would you? How much of a pain in the ass would it be? Would it be worth $14/mo for someone to do that for you, for all of your favorite shows? As an added benefit, if you happen to just sit down and watch whatever is on, you can decide to hit pause, go do whatever, come back a few minutes later, start watching where you left off, then skip the next batch of commercials...
but it's really all about the machine knowing the programming schedule and getting you the shows you want, even if their aired at some unusual time, without you ever knowing what time it is. I'm watching "Everybody hates Chris", "Scrubs", "My Name is Earl", and really, I'm not even sure what *channel* or *day* they're on, much less what time, but it doesn't matter. I sit down, look at my list of recorded shows, *all* of which interest me, and pick one I want to watch.
There's also a similar "Wish list" feature where you punch in a keyword ( or name ) and every show with that in the description is recorded, as well as a 'suggestion' feature where shows 'like' the ones you record are also recorded. I don't use those, because I don't have time to watch even the shows I Season Pass, but with a big enough hard drive ( and enough viewing time ) it might be neat.
Oh, and so far, broadcast flags don't exist. Reported problems with commercials not being skippable and programs disappearing early have been *extremely* limited in scope, and the backlash has already been big enough that TiVo seems to have backed off on these areas completely. They'll take my TiVo from my cold, dead hands... I'd be willing to accept some sort of superior replacement, but I haven't seen or heard of one yet.
It's pretty easy to check on fan operations with a quick glance without taking the cover off and going in with a flashlight.
Man, and I thought I was wasting time posting on slashdot...
But seriously, you must be talking about processor or GPU fans, right? Because whenever I'm wondering about my fans, I stick my hand over the exaust port... not that I'm often wondering...
Really, how many cars have you ever seen in your entire life that could not be mechanically upgraded? 0? Now, how many have you seen where money was spent on asthetics? Every single one? This is definitly a case of 'My shade of gray is better than your shade of gray'.
Let's put it this way : after original purchase, I've never spent money making any of my cars prettier, unless you count actual repairs. Probably the *majority* of people do the same, unless you count bumper stickers and antenna balls ( meh not so much what we're talking about, huh? )
Then again, my car to me is a form of transportation, not a point of prestige or an extension of my manhood. It's not a matter of what color paint you like so much as a matter of lifestyle and what is important to you. There is a certain subculture, a portion of the population where a great deal of value is placed on how your car looks, but not so much on how it runs. There's a different group where those priorites are reversed. To everyone else, it's transportation, and neither thing is such a big deal.
I hope yours is a Civic Si because the base ones pretty well suck. The top engine choice in a 2005 Civic is 127hp out of a engine of less than 1700cc. They might be okay cars, but the engines are not that powerful or fast. Even the Si with its 200hp has little torque, and it's all the way up in the rev range.
Wow, we're pretty far off topic here, but my current car is actually the EX model, VTech bla bla lots of valves all that yadda yadda. The specs I just looked up say 127hp, but the car is damn light so that gets you on the freeway real quick, I've never found myself lacking acceleration when I wanted it. I used to have a little CX, and I was glad it was manual 'cuz boy, did it have a tiny engine. Sipped the petrol, though, I wish I had it now... I don't need a high-performance engine. Unless you're racing with it ( or driving a truck ), I honestly don't understand all you guys who say you need a 6 or 8 cylinder engine. What the heck for ? I wouldn't want to have an automatic transmission in that CX, but my EX is automatic and I have power to spare, really...
Sometimes with that CX I'd have to really work at it to keep my speed up hills and get onto the freeway fast enough, but hey, I like a little challenge, that kind of thing helps you be a better driver since you have to pay attention and know when to change gears;-)
We should be able to find the person that signed of on this wmf code and promote him to head of software development at MS.
I'm not saying they're that good, I don't know them... but we probably could find the project manager, product manager, engineering and QA managers who worked on this patch, if we really had enough clout to shake that information out of Microsoft. And they might actually be that good.
Honestly, I'm going to guess that in this case, some QA manager basically had to sign off on the patch after a bare minimum of planned testing because everyone from the CEO on down ( and everyone in every IT department using MSFT products everywhere ) were jumping up and down demanding this patch ASAP. But I do think that it was probably 'ready' several days before it's release was announced, and that the difference between the third-party security expert's patch and the MSFT patch in terms of delivery boils down to having had that "minimum" amount of testing performed ( and maybe one rev of the patch to fix a bug that was found... maybe... )
However, I'm going to assume that many of the 'QA monkeys' at Microsoft do deserve the title 'engineer', and do designs and make real test plans and take pride in their work, even if their effort isn't recongnized as valuable by the managers and developers around them. After many, many years in the software industry, I've found that software is not released with bugs because of the engineers- they've usually found most of the bugs and know what needs to be worked on- it's released anyway because the company has marketing and sales obligations to push a new product before the end of some arbitrary market-based ( often end-of-quarter financials based ) point in time.
Has anyone sucessfully sued a software vendor for a defect in their product, in any jurisdiction?
It depends on your definition of "successful". In many cases where it really matters, the software vendor issues a patch and everyone is ( relatively ) happy. Lawsuits seem to happen a ( bit ) more often when there is a contract between two parties- not really your shrink-wrap software case. And, of course, in situations where the software is contained in a physical device, like a car or router or printer, there is usually a recall involved to fix the problem ( or there would be a lawsuit, to be sure ).
However, there have been several lawsuits against companies for what amount to software issues ( sometimes even if they aren't bugs ) - for example, if you look at the wikipedia page on AOL you'll notice that they were sued ( and settled ) because of problems users had with the 5.0 client installation. So... if the vendor pays $15 million to settle a claim due to problems with their software, is that a 'successful' lawsuit? I'd tend to think so, even if it might not be legally a loss, strictly speaking.
What is clear is that even with a strong EULA, software products are not immune to product liability lawsuits; you are still selling a product, and if it harms your customer or doesn't work as advertised, you are open to lawsuits just like any other manufacturer.
Why is it silly to decorate inexpensive stuff, but not expensive stuff. Racing stripes and spinny hubcaps are no more or less silly on a $12k car than they are on a $120K car.
You may think so, but I'm going to have to disagree. I'll tell you why. If you have a low-end car, and you're thinking of spending money on it, guess what? You can upgrade your suspension. Or you could upgrade your exaust system. Or you could replace the engine with a higher horsepower model. Or you could upgrade your stereo or interior, even, or make any number of alterations which actually improve the performance and utility of your car.
Same goes for your computer. I'd upgrade the CPU, add memory, get better graphics, sound, I/O cards, whatever...
Of course, that's me, and probably JCR, and that's why we think it's silly; the money could be better spent, in our opinion. Of course, if asthetics are your #1 concern and you're just trying to impress someone who might not ask to look under the hood... by all means, paint racing stripes on your stock Civic. But there is a *real* reason to think doing so is silly- that money could actually go into performance enhancements. Once your car is all tricked out and you can't think of what else you'd spend money on, then sure, your car has earned it's racing stripes. Until then, it's sort of silly, isn't it?
In terms of the windowed hard drive, that money could go to, I don't know, extra memory. How about I buy a backup hard drive with the money I save on a regular hard drive and a more boring, but nice case? If you have all the money in the world, sure, I guess... why not... but I'd still rather stick that cash into a bank account or do *something* with it besides buy a windowed hard drive, really... to each his own I suppose...
And he says "Nothing..." I look inside and it was true: there was nothing there -- no back seat, no carpet, no headliner, and half the dashboard was gone. From ten feet away, it looked bone stock.
yea, it's my experience that the more beat-up and stock a car looks, the more likely the guy owning it has been putting money under the hood, not into the chrome. If they guy has any money or is into cars, of course.
I'm pretty sure the fastest Honda Civic I've ever heard tell of was a very plain-looking white hatchback model... with a full nitro kit. It's the kind of car you buy because it's cheap, so you have money left over for the kits you'll be installing...
Yes, but let's stop there. Please no case modding of women...
That's a HUGE industry,over 12 billion dollars in 2004 in the U.S., and you know it's a bigger market now... of course, that counts not only women, but still... lots of case modding of women going on.
Which version of Windows (or any other shrink-wrapped software) allows you to sue the vendor?
That depends entirely on your jurisdiction... and your ability to fund a lawsuit against Microsoft, of course... but that license that says you can't sue the maker of that software no matter what ? It may not be binding where you live. IANAL, of course, but product liability laws aren't nullified because you placed a shrink-wrap license in with your product.
This is for the type of dude who has a transparent case and internal lighting. I'm sure the dude would work out a way to make the HD window clearly visible from the outside.
Did I mention they missed the boat by not including an LED light on the internals? The case mod dudes almost always do stuff like that! They're going to be pissed that the option isn't offered, so they'll have to dismantle the drive to mod it anyway!!
I've actually seen the HL2 casemod before... it pales ( IMHO ) in comparison to the Doom 3 case mod. That guy is in a pretty special class of his own due to his expertise with plastics molding and airbrushing. He's something of a pro, it seems... but, yea, some of these dudes are unbelievably serious, as are some of the dudes in the Honda Civic riceburner moding community... some of them build really nice, fancy Hondas with real race engines, like some guys build really nice gaming machines that look like a scene out of Doom 3. But there are also the guys who modify cases for machines that need better graphic cards and motherboards, or who screw up their cooling for some cool lighting, just as there are guys who spend money first on spinny hubcaps and mufflers withou improving the engine. Both communities are large, and have small industrial empires serving their desires. I picked the two to compare quite deliberately...
Frankly, I'm a bit puzzled that larger companies have so far left the gamer/mod community almost entirely to companies like AlienWare and such. It has to be a pretty big market, judging from all the case mod-community web sites...
Except this is no low-end Honda Civic hard drive. 150 GB, 10K RPM, NCQ.
Hey, Honda Civics are *great* cars. Mine ( though not really low-end as Civics go ) actually has a pretty kicking engine. I'd still feel silly putting racing gear on it though, and *anyone* putting spinny hubcaps on *any* car should feel silly no matter what... as should someone who puts a window in a hard drive. It serves no purpose. You shouldn't be seeing the hard drive at all, really.
The iPod looks good because it is actually quite plain and designed for it's function... you can't see inside it and the only light involved is so you can see the screen at night. Sure, it's a pretty blue light...
Make the case to the computer look good. Unless it's an external component, though, the extra money spent on asthetics is truly silly. Of course, that's just MHO, I'm not spending extra on a clear-case hard drive, but if someone else wants to... I'll not laugh at them until their back is turned. It'll be interesting to see how well these sell, and if they fail more often than non-clear-case ones.
Forgetting for a moment the BS factor here and the fact that I just *hate* this kind of article on slashdot...
if the magnetic fields they're talking about are anything like what I think they're talking about, that ought to wipe out any information stored on magnetic media anywhere in the vicinity, not to mention do some fun stuff with any power delivery systems, metal structures, electronic equipment, or nearby plumbing.
Yea, you go first. I'll be home playing video games. Let me know when you get back from Mars.
Of course it's not just you. Of course this idea is silly. So is putting a light inside your PC, or most case modding in general.
Then again, decorating your low-end Honda Civic with big mufflers, racing stripes, and spinny hubcaps is silly, too, but that doesn't stop a huge multi-million-dollar industry from springing up around providing those accessories for people who want to do something silly like that.
It's silly, sure. But it's nowhere as silly as a necktie. I mean, have you seen those things ? What sort of fool would spend money on those, much less actually wear one ?!?
Don't even get me started on women's fashions...
I mean, there are businesses that would sell you a hard drive with a window in it, or at least take your hard drive and put at window in it already, aren't there? The news here is that an OEM has decided that the market ( or at least press marketing opportunity ) is big enough to sell a windowed hard drive, right?
Dude, if it doesn't have a little blue LED light, all you've done is saved some case modder a little time with a Dremel tool. They really need to get on the ball an offer these with your choice of lighting styles and colors if they want to spark real interest.
If an application error allows an attacker to gain root (Admin on windos) on the vulnerable system, the problem becomes an OS vulnerability.
I'll agree to that. Privilege escalation should only be possible via system calls, and there shouldn't be holes that allow arbitrary escalation.
I'll still hold that I'm not terribly interested in counting some linux-specific IMAP server's security issues as a 'possible' OS X security issue when nobody is known to even have built that IMAP server on OS X, though, and vice versa. My main point is that the whole concept of grouping "Unix/Linux/MacOS" together stinks, as surely not all of those flaws affect all of those systems.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, it's been geek-ready ever since OS 10.1.5 and/or the dual G5 PowerMac, depending on if software or hardware are more important to you.
Where the hell have you been?
Actually, don't you think that Apple as a company just got a little less geek credibility, since they actually do a little less hardware engineering than they used to?
Why not package the new iMac guts in a case without a monitor? I understand the desire to use their allotment of Yonah processors in the machines that will give them the highest markup, but all the PC fanboys are going to complain now that they don't want to pay for a monitor just to upgrade their machines... and even Mac fanboys aren't going to buy PowerMacs, iBooks, or Mac minis when iMacs and this ( IMHO poorly named ) "Mac Book Pro" are so far ahead of them and clearly on the way out, if not already gone.
Anyone have thoughts on why there were no Mac mini, iBook, or eMac updates ( or Intel conversions ) today ? What is going to happen there ?
Nice to see you've been properly modded as flamebait. That wasn't said because that was 14 million iPods sold this holdiday season. So those are all completely new iPods, nanos or video. Since "only" 42 million iPods total have been sold, then less than 70% of all iPods sold up to this point are "obsolete" where "obsolete" means 'are not the same as the current model'. Which is of course a stupid definition that only a troll would use in this case; all iPods work just fine and are fully supported by iTunes, what's obsolete about even a first generation iPod? They play music and work with a Firewire-capable computer just fine.
Actually, since sales have been taking off so dramatically, it's likely that nearly half of all iPod sales were in the past year, making your comment look even more lame, which is pretty difficult...
I'm just relieved that they actually included a Firewire 400 port...
Still, we're talking about an item which is not actually available at retail... you'd think that if it was in really high demand, you'd be paying a decent premium to obtain one when you normally couldn't. The fact seems to be that even among people who do have the money, there isn't a feeling that the luxury item in question is extremely valuable, and the need for it isn't extremely urgent. Nobody needs one by some gift-giving day, so if it's more expensive to buy it this week, we'll wait until next week.
It would appear that anyone *really* excited to have an Xbox 360 who can afford one already has one... and that's not near as many people as MSFT would like, even if they are having production problems ( which they are )... they'd rather have that eBay price higher, as it would indicate pent-up demand for the product.
I could be wrong, but I'm guessing there isn't actually a lot of unsatisfied demand for the Xbox 360. A little, maybe, since it is selling out, but not a lot; it's only selling out because there aren't many units hitting the stores. Again, I could easily be wrong, but it's hard for me to look at this and think it's good for MSFT.
Maybe they'll get lucky, and the whole Blu-ray thing will push the PS3 back really far... maybe not...
eBay listings for the 360, if they are any indication, seem to show that folks aren't willing anymore to pay much, if any, of a premium beyond the suggested retail price anymore. Which is pretty shocking, when you consider that retail outlets do seem to be completely sold out... wouldn't you expect these things to be selling for more on eBay if the demand was really there?
Only if you're never going to race it.
Which I guess sums up my feeling on the matter; if you're not going to race your car, making it *look* like a race car just makes you a poser, which is silly.
Buying a multi-passenger off-road-capable vehicle which you only ever drive by yourself on nicely paved roads is equally silly, but, obviously, people are silly, and buy cars not as transportation but as status symbols. I guess I should have restricted my previous comment to the world of after-market modification, but you're right that it applies at time of purchase as well, so the majority involves themselves in the sillyness. Most people just don't take the effort and time to do much after-market customization, not because we don't care about asthetics, but because it's a pain and we've already put the spoiler on our Honda ( well, my wife put it there, really... dumbest thing ever, but what are you going to do ) before we drove it off the lot.
We also wear ties and silly dresses, and mod computers ( or needlessly spend extra to buy stylish ones ) and, well, that's people for you... we're silly. If you got the cash, someone will sell you the bling, even if someone thinks all that bling makes you look silly... which was my real point, going back. This hard drive with a window is just a company selling the bling that the market clearly demands, silly as many of us may find it to be.
An interesting way of looking at things, but by the same metrics, BMW hasn't exactly caught on, either.
It might be more correct to notice that the Mac computer market share has more than doubled since the introduction of OS X. 5% doesn't look to impressive until you look back a few years at 2.3%...
Thirdly, let's see how many elements the next Windows borrows from THE NeXT-SPECIFIC aspects of OS X. That's the discussion we're having.
Are you going to ignore the NeXT-like elements of the *current* version of Windows? OK, but still... why ignore the fact that Windows is trying to catch up to OS X in many ways? Oh, and yea, OS X often borrows from Windows as well ( user switching as the only example I can think of, but there must be others ).
I can't believe I'm still needing to say this to people years later, but here goes...
The reason for your TiVo subscription and the reason why TiVo is so great boils down to ONE feature, called "Season Pass". You select or punch in the name of a show. After that, *every* episode ( with the option of not recording repeats ) is recorded- with nothing more for you to do except watch.
Sure, you could program your VCR to come on at some given time, and make sure you have a blank tape in the machine, and do so repeatedly, but do you? Would you? How much of a pain in the ass would it be? Would it be worth $14/mo for someone to do that for you, for all of your favorite shows? As an added benefit, if you happen to just sit down and watch whatever is on, you can decide to hit pause, go do whatever, come back a few minutes later, start watching where you left off, then skip the next batch of commercials...
but it's really all about the machine knowing the programming schedule and getting you the shows you want, even if their aired at some unusual time, without you ever knowing what time it is. I'm watching "Everybody hates Chris", "Scrubs", "My Name is Earl", and really, I'm not even sure what *channel* or *day* they're on, much less what time, but it doesn't matter. I sit down, look at my list of recorded shows, *all* of which interest me, and pick one I want to watch.
There's also a similar "Wish list" feature where you punch in a keyword ( or name ) and every show with that in the description is recorded, as well as a 'suggestion' feature where shows 'like' the ones you record are also recorded. I don't use those, because I don't have time to watch even the shows I Season Pass, but with a big enough hard drive ( and enough viewing time ) it might be neat.
Oh, and so far, broadcast flags don't exist. Reported problems with commercials not being skippable and programs disappearing early have been *extremely* limited in scope, and the backlash has already been big enough that TiVo seems to have backed off on these areas completely. They'll take my TiVo from my cold, dead hands... I'd be willing to accept some sort of superior replacement, but I haven't seen or heard of one yet.
Man, and I thought I was wasting time posting on slashdot...
But seriously, you must be talking about processor or GPU fans, right? Because whenever I'm wondering about my fans, I stick my hand over the exaust port... not that I'm often wondering...
Let's put it this way : after original purchase, I've never spent money making any of my cars prettier, unless you count actual repairs. Probably the *majority* of people do the same, unless you count bumper stickers and antenna balls ( meh not so much what we're talking about, huh? )
Then again, my car to me is a form of transportation, not a point of prestige or an extension of my manhood. It's not a matter of what color paint you like so much as a matter of lifestyle and what is important to you. There is a certain subculture, a portion of the population where a great deal of value is placed on how your car looks, but not so much on how it runs. There's a different group where those priorites are reversed. To everyone else, it's transportation, and neither thing is such a big deal.
Wow, we're pretty far off topic here, but my current car is actually the EX model, VTech bla bla lots of valves all that yadda yadda. The specs I just looked up say 127hp, but the car is damn light so that gets you on the freeway real quick, I've never found myself lacking acceleration when I wanted it. I used to have a little CX, and I was glad it was manual 'cuz boy, did it have a tiny engine. Sipped the petrol, though, I wish I had it now... I don't need a high-performance engine. Unless you're racing with it ( or driving a truck ), I honestly don't understand all you guys who say you need a 6 or 8 cylinder engine. What the heck for ? I wouldn't want to have an automatic transmission in that CX, but my EX is automatic and I have power to spare, really...
Sometimes with that CX I'd have to really work at it to keep my speed up hills and get onto the freeway fast enough, but hey, I like a little challenge, that kind of thing helps you be a better driver since you have to pay attention and know when to change gears ;-)
I'm not saying they're that good, I don't know them... but we probably could find the project manager, product manager, engineering and QA managers who worked on this patch, if we really had enough clout to shake that information out of Microsoft. And they might actually be that good.
Honestly, I'm going to guess that in this case, some QA manager basically had to sign off on the patch after a bare minimum of planned testing because everyone from the CEO on down ( and everyone in every IT department using MSFT products everywhere ) were jumping up and down demanding this patch ASAP. But I do think that it was probably 'ready' several days before it's release was announced, and that the difference between the third-party security expert's patch and the MSFT patch in terms of delivery boils down to having had that "minimum" amount of testing performed ( and maybe one rev of the patch to fix a bug that was found... maybe... )
However, I'm going to assume that many of the 'QA monkeys' at Microsoft do deserve the title 'engineer', and do designs and make real test plans and take pride in their work, even if their effort isn't recongnized as valuable by the managers and developers around them. After many, many years in the software industry, I've found that software is not released with bugs because of the engineers- they've usually found most of the bugs and know what needs to be worked on- it's released anyway because the company has marketing and sales obligations to push a new product before the end of some arbitrary market-based ( often end-of-quarter financials based ) point in time.
It depends on your definition of "successful". In many cases where it really matters, the software vendor issues a patch and everyone is ( relatively ) happy. Lawsuits seem to happen a ( bit ) more often when there is a contract between two parties- not really your shrink-wrap software case. And, of course, in situations where the software is contained in a physical device, like a car or router or printer, there is usually a recall involved to fix the problem ( or there would be a lawsuit, to be sure ).
However, there have been several lawsuits against companies for what amount to software issues ( sometimes even if they aren't bugs ) - for example, if you look at the wikipedia page on AOL you'll notice that they were sued ( and settled ) because of problems users had with the 5.0 client installation. So... if the vendor pays $15 million to settle a claim due to problems with their software, is that a 'successful' lawsuit? I'd tend to think so, even if it might not be legally a loss, strictly speaking.
What is clear is that even with a strong EULA, software products are not immune to product liability lawsuits; you are still selling a product, and if it harms your customer or doesn't work as advertised, you are open to lawsuits just like any other manufacturer.
You may think so, but I'm going to have to disagree. I'll tell you why. If you have a low-end car, and you're thinking of spending money on it, guess what? You can upgrade your suspension. Or you could upgrade your exaust system. Or you could replace the engine with a higher horsepower model. Or you could upgrade your stereo or interior, even, or make any number of alterations which actually improve the performance and utility of your car.
Same goes for your computer. I'd upgrade the CPU, add memory, get better graphics, sound, I/O cards, whatever...
Of course, that's me, and probably JCR, and that's why we think it's silly; the money could be better spent, in our opinion. Of course, if asthetics are your #1 concern and you're just trying to impress someone who might not ask to look under the hood... by all means, paint racing stripes on your stock Civic. But there is a *real* reason to think doing so is silly- that money could actually go into performance enhancements. Once your car is all tricked out and you can't think of what else you'd spend money on, then sure, your car has earned it's racing stripes. Until then, it's sort of silly, isn't it?
In terms of the windowed hard drive, that money could go to, I don't know, extra memory. How about I buy a backup hard drive with the money I save on a regular hard drive and a more boring, but nice case? If you have all the money in the world, sure, I guess... why not... but I'd still rather stick that cash into a bank account or do *something* with it besides buy a windowed hard drive, really... to each his own I suppose...
yea, it's my experience that the more beat-up and stock a car looks, the more likely the guy owning it has been putting money under the hood, not into the chrome. If they guy has any money or is into cars, of course.
I'm pretty sure the fastest Honda Civic I've ever heard tell of was a very plain-looking white hatchback model... with a full nitro kit. It's the kind of car you buy because it's cheap, so you have money left over for the kits you'll be installing...
That's a HUGE industry,over 12 billion dollars in 2004 in the U.S., and you know it's a bigger market now... of course, that counts not only women, but still... lots of case modding of women going on.
A yes, the good old days of contracting. I don't miss the dressing up or the hours, but I do miss the pay :-)
That depends entirely on your jurisdiction... and your ability to fund a lawsuit against Microsoft, of course... but that license that says you can't sue the maker of that software no matter what ? It may not be binding where you live. IANAL, of course, but product liability laws aren't nullified because you placed a shrink-wrap license in with your product.
Did I mention they missed the boat by not including an LED light on the internals? The case mod dudes almost always do stuff like that! They're going to be pissed that the option isn't offered, so they'll have to dismantle the drive to mod it anyway!!
I've actually seen the HL2 casemod before... it pales ( IMHO ) in comparison to the Doom 3 case mod. That guy is in a pretty special class of his own due to his expertise with plastics molding and airbrushing. He's something of a pro, it seems... but, yea, some of these dudes are unbelievably serious, as are some of the dudes in the Honda Civic riceburner moding community... some of them build really nice, fancy Hondas with real race engines, like some guys build really nice gaming machines that look like a scene out of Doom 3. But there are also the guys who modify cases for machines that need better graphic cards and motherboards, or who screw up their cooling for some cool lighting, just as there are guys who spend money first on spinny hubcaps and mufflers withou improving the engine. Both communities are large, and have small industrial empires serving their desires. I picked the two to compare quite deliberately...
Frankly, I'm a bit puzzled that larger companies have so far left the gamer/mod community almost entirely to companies like AlienWare and such. It has to be a pretty big market, judging from all the case mod-community web sites...
Hey, Honda Civics are *great* cars. Mine ( though not really low-end as Civics go ) actually has a pretty kicking engine. I'd still feel silly putting racing gear on it though, and *anyone* putting spinny hubcaps on *any* car should feel silly no matter what... as should someone who puts a window in a hard drive. It serves no purpose. You shouldn't be seeing the hard drive at all, really.
The iPod looks good because it is actually quite plain and designed for it's function... you can't see inside it and the only light involved is so you can see the screen at night. Sure, it's a pretty blue light...
Make the case to the computer look good. Unless it's an external component, though, the extra money spent on asthetics is truly silly. Of course, that's just MHO, I'm not spending extra on a clear-case hard drive, but if someone else wants to... I'll not laugh at them until their back is turned. It'll be interesting to see how well these sell, and if they fail more often than non-clear-case ones.
if the magnetic fields they're talking about are anything like what I think they're talking about, that ought to wipe out any information stored on magnetic media anywhere in the vicinity, not to mention do some fun stuff with any power delivery systems, metal structures, electronic equipment, or nearby plumbing.
Yea, you go first. I'll be home playing video games. Let me know when you get back from Mars.
Of course it's not just you. Of course this idea is silly. So is putting a light inside your PC, or most case modding in general.
Then again, decorating your low-end Honda Civic with big mufflers, racing stripes, and spinny hubcaps is silly, too, but that doesn't stop a huge multi-million-dollar industry from springing up around providing those accessories for people who want to do something silly like that.
It's silly, sure. But it's nowhere as silly as a necktie. I mean, have you seen those things ? What sort of fool would spend money on those, much less actually wear one ?!?
Don't even get me started on women's fashions...
I mean, there are businesses that would sell you a hard drive with a window in it, or at least take your hard drive and put at window in it already, aren't there? The news here is that an OEM has decided that the market ( or at least press marketing opportunity ) is big enough to sell a windowed hard drive, right?
Dude, if it doesn't have a little blue LED light, all you've done is saved some case modder a little time with a Dremel tool. They really need to get on the ball an offer these with your choice of lighting styles and colors if they want to spark real interest.
I'll agree to that. Privilege escalation should only be possible via system calls, and there shouldn't be holes that allow arbitrary escalation.
I'll still hold that I'm not terribly interested in counting some linux-specific IMAP server's security issues as a 'possible' OS X security issue when nobody is known to even have built that IMAP server on OS X, though, and vice versa. My main point is that the whole concept of grouping "Unix/Linux/MacOS" together stinks, as surely not all of those flaws affect all of those systems.