Your problem is dealing with Sears at all. They are a bunch of scumbags.
If you disputed the charge, and they did not remove it, they have broken the law. You should have sued. You should also have reported the fradulent transaction to the police.
THAT I learned going through my own dispute process. The bank didn't really want to go that route it seemed, but once I did, and provided a case number to the bank, things went considerably better.
That would also help you go after the credit reporting agencies as well; they cannot hold ligitimate cases of fraud as black marks on your credit. You should probably look at getting a lawyer.
I did not ask you for a "complex system". Just for an example of 2 lines of code without a call to a DRM check and 2 same lines with a call to DRM subroutine insterted between to demonstrate the utter impossibility of adding optional code without incurring cost in instruction cycles or memory. Oh but then I get it, this is too "complex" for you.
I guess the concept I already posted about is too complex for you to understand, for if you understood semaphores or monitors you would be able to come up with the rest of the details yourself.
Which requires copious amounts of code to check if the machine is in a DRM "safe" state, thus increasing complexity and decreasing performance. This check has to occur continuously with assistance of tamper-resistant hardware, prior to activation of the playback, otherwise it is completely useless from the point of view of ensuring DRM security, as without it an attacker can set the machine to a "safe" state via a multitude of spoofing mechanisms, such as virtualization, amongst many others. This understanding of the integrity of the security environment (of which you are apparently completely, blissfully, comically ignorant) is the cornerstone of all advanced DRM designs, and the very foundation behind the TPM which computes a running, real-time, encrypted, securely remotely verifiable checksum of all instuctions executed by the CPU (and other system activities) since a given reset point, long prior to entering the actual service routine (a video playback in this case) in a secure environment.
No, stupid, it doesn't require constant checks unless something is being played back. One check is required when playback is started, and the next check would be when some relevent part of the state of the machine changes. Those changes can be signeled using semaphores or monitors.
Your inane incompetence makes me laugh. "Devices in the loop" involve things such as the... audio adapter drivers, which would have to "monitor their state" (by magical means you neglected to describe) with every sound sample (which is a state change at 44,000 times a second in a typical 2-channel audio stream) and would have to be able to do so in the "DRM mode" and also not do so outside of it, that is on demand, the code for all this being of course embedded in the said drivers. This of course ignores, with blissful ignorance you are so fond of, multiple encryption/decryption stages, requirements for which are part of all DRM schemes. Not to mention that the critical elements of this have to be implemented by the 3rd party developers of drivers for hardware designed in Taiwan, so widely known for quality, highly efficient and well behaved code...
Audio drives must be single threaded? They cannot send a message to another part of the system? Messages they are already likely sending? Is your mind locked in some kind of titanium box or something? You're under the asumption that drivers already AREN'T reporting various status of some kind. Something external to the drives can then do the monitoring, and that external thing can be told to start or stop.
Yes indeed. The program cannot miraculously, via psychic powers, jump from instruction A to B whenever you wish it to happen or from A to C when you do not. There has to be some condition check, which is also an instruction somewhere after A and before B and C (or the second instruction is a variation on an indirect jump via a memory location to C or B, which has its own overheads and problems). In our case that condition check has to be performed in multiple points, in multiple subsystems all over the OS and with a frequency corresponding to a frame of visual data or playback of each sound sample. Not to mention all of the other security considerations involved in DRM schemes which have to be met irrespective of playback being in progress. Something, you've spent a number of posts now trying to desperately wish away.
I'm not trying to wish anything away; I've already explai
I run Vista, with all the eye candy, very smoothly on my AMD 3800+ X2, 1GB ram, Chaintech FX 5700, with an older PATA 120GB drive. The MB is an Asus AV8 (or A8V...Abit use models #s that are too close to Asus). What MB did you have? I used to just get the cheapest MB I could that would run the chip I want, then I started buying Asus, and noticed things speeding up considerablely (my first Asus was to replace a dead abit board).
As am I. I now use it at work, and purchased a laptop with it pre-installed. The reason it was so buggy was all the crapware Sony installed on it.. wiping it clean, getting the latest updates installed fixed that right up.
Anyone that calls out someone is an MS astroturfer? Ever think there's so much pushback because of the irrational and often wrong views spouted by the linux zealots?
Fine, but that's not what the OP said; the OP claimed there was coercion.
OTOH, if you really want to look at it from a coercion angle, do you know what happens if you fail to pay a credit card charge, authorized or not?
Not true; legally, if you dispute the transaction, you are no longer required to pay the charge.
They report it to the credit card companies. The more they report it to the credit card companies, the more 'black' marks on your credit.
No, they don't report it to the credit card companies. Visa and MC don't care. The banks issuing the cards report it to the credit reporting agencies.
Yes, they can report it over and over, too.
No, they cannot. They can update the claim, for example if the amount has increased for whatever reason, but there's only so long since they originally reported it that it will stay on your record. Seven years, I believe.
Ever try to buy a house, or a car with a bad credit rating and no co-signer? It's damn near fscking impossible in this country, let me tell you.
Of course its going to be hard with a bad credit rating. But one card will not stop you; I have one I didn't pay, because the bank changed their terms as soon as I activated the card, and failed to send me anything. Yet I was able to get a mortgage, probably because I hold my accounts and have another card with the lender.
If the charges were illegally posted, he can dispute them, and suffer no adverse affects. Of course he'll have to prove he didn't actually sign up for the trial on his own and enter his own information. It sounds like he did agree to it though and forgot about it.. and now is trying to sue to get out of it.
Ok, what threat of legal or financial ruin did this guy suffer? I don't see anything that was threatening by either company. If true, its truly sleazy, but threatening? No.
Oh, for Pete's sake, name one. Show a code snippet, in any language of your choice, with and without DRM calls. Then explain how they are executed in the same number of machine instructions and how they occupy the same amount of memory.
Ya, right. I'm going to wipe up a quick code snippet on a complex DRM system. Get real. The concept is what's important. I'll give you a hint; it would involve knowing the machine is in a drm "safe" state when playback starts. Devices in the loop will invoke a monitor if their state changes (line single changes, etc.). When that happens, another check will be performed and if the check fails, stop playback.
Needles to say I am not holding by breath waiting for that Earth-shattering, space-time-continuum-defying demonstration.
Needless to say, you're a dolt.
Sure, that is because software does not execute on physical objects such as... let me think... a CPU, no? And naturally we are not discussing observable physical phenomena such as... oh I don't know... comparative time between events, certainly?
Ahh, so because software runs on a chip, it can't possibly not run certain code. Interesting theory.
Nice strawman. Now point me to a place where I claimed that DRM is the only reason for Vista being a hog.
You never once presented any other reason for poorer system performance. You don't even acknowledge it could be possible until I bring it up. You state, DRM is THE reason Vista has performance problems. You must be; otherwise, you'd be saying its those other things slowing the system down, and DRM becomes insignificant in comparison.
You do realize that the stuff you are spouting can be recalled just by scrolling up? Next thing you will be saying that it is possible for anything to officially come out of Microsoft that is not approved by the PR spin-meisters...
Ahh yes because developers at MS are all soul-less, mindless droids that can't do anything on their own. Sure. Especially those known personally by someone I know personally. Yup, sure.
Neither did I claim that you said that SuperFetch worked. I merely pointed out that you are listing it as a reason for Vista being slow, in direct contradiction to Microsoft who instist that SuperFetch is a "performance enhancing feature", and yet, in the same breath you are telling me how things are because Microsoft said so. That is the contradiction, although it appears that you are incapable of comprehending it.
Maybe you should re-read what I said about government and how your line of thinking leads to the Dept. of Forestry spying on our phone calls...
Seeing, in this exchange, all of your reasoning powers, I sincerely hope that I never have the grave misfortune of using any code you wrote. And I pity all the poor sods who do.
Right, because you know me really well from a whole three posts on a site I visit when I'm bored. Then you question MY reasoning ability? If you must know, my code is in health care software for use by radiologists, and is apparently written so well that in the years since I've left, they are now taking my code and internationalizing it (yes, they would like me to come back). My current employer is literally running their business off my software, and it will soon be managing their entire inventory.
I already explained how it is not only possible, but quite ordinary to be in that position in regards to the main topic of this discussion.
Typical/., bashing something from a company who's software they have not used in years, know nothing about MS' development processes, yet continue to say "Win95 was so much the suxor nothing they ever make could be good!!!111!!" Whatever. Get over it, Unix / Linux is the be all end all of OSes.
Disabling Automatic Updates is not foolish. Not installing updates at all is.
For a majority of users, disabling automatic updates is the equivalent of not installing updates at all.
And that's only slightly more foolish than blindly letting Microsoft handle your updates.
Foolish how? Because a very small minority of patches cause a very small minority of applications to "break?"
Personally, I set any computer I have to work on regularly to prompt me for updates. Windows or Linux. And I never set a computer to reboot without asking me first.
Good for you. Most people don't bother updating, so automatic updates is the best option. Who cares if your computer reboots?
And that "let it do it at 3 am when i'm not in front of it" argument is silly and it will eventually come back to haunt you. What if your working on an important project of some kind and your [significant other/offspring/parental unit] [goes into labor/wrecks his/her car/has a stroke]. Is saving what your doing and getting your computer ready for that 3am reboot at the top of your list of things to do? Or are you just hauling ass to the hospital?
Ahh right the great "what if" argument. Ya, well, what if a meteor hits my car right before I need to haul ass to the hospital? Please. If work really CANNOT be lost I think two seconds to have the computer hibernate is a good idea. If you can't take the time, then obviously your family member is more important than any project, so I wouldn't be worrying about it either way.
Well first, I remember reading the theory that CT comes from computer use around 1999... so this story is somewhat of an old dupe.
What you are feeling is not CT.. CT is permanent damage to your joints, caused by repetitive motion. My grandmother has it, from years of putting Merck pills into bottles.
What you ARE feeling is stressing of the elbow; I thought i had CT at one point too.. it turns out it was just from having my elbow on a wooden arm-rest. Also, it may simply be fatigue or a pulled ligiment (which also happened to me once as well). Yes, this is what a doctor told me when I went to get checked out.
The solution is ergonimics though; I find the best is to have my entire fore-arm resting on the desktop, with the legs on the keyboard raised. YMMV.
That is because, as a programmer with decades of experience, I do know, with absolute certainty, that it is how it must be built. I might not know the specific details (which are jealously guarded by MS) but the general principles are involatile and inescapable. Just like the laws of thermodynamics.
Not a very good one then. I am a programmer with decades of experience as well, and I thought out quite a few ways it could be done without a constant drain on resources. Maybe its time you retire?
Microsoft PR departament has claimed so many incorrect things over the years that it boggles one's mind. As to guessing, I am no more doing so then pointing out that 2+2=4. It is simply physically impossible to do what you (and the Microsoft PR flacks - if it is indeed what they are claiming, although I would think they would be much more vague and evasive then you are) claim has been done.
Well, good thing its not MS PR that has said the DRM doesn't affect your system if you're not playing back protected content then. I'd also like to hear of any PR department on any company of size the really knows what they are talking about.
As I already pointed out, my feelings on Microsoft are irrelevant to the fact that laws of physics prevent them from accomplishing miracles, such as insertion of large amount of any code into any computer program and not suffering the resulting consequences.
You seem to be confusing physics with building software. Again, just because your firmly in the box mind can't think of a way to acomplish such a task, doesn't mean its not possible.
Such as implementing DRM.
Bonus points for contradicting yourself within 3 posts.
Did you forget your glasses or something? You think that DRM is the only possible reason for a system to run more slowly? Surely other, non-DRM services running DO have an impact on performance? I never said that DRM hurt performace when nothing protected was being played, so I fail to see how I've contradicted myself.
No one has claimed that those too do not impact performance.
Fine. Then prove that its DRM causing problems when you're not playing protected content. Your logic is flawed; just because you can't think of anyway it couldn't interfere, doesn't mean that it does.
Also, additional bonus points for contradicting yourself in claiming that Microsoft PR is to be trusted while listing the supposedly "performance enhancing" Superfetch as a cause of performance problems. Do you actually pause to think before spewing this crap?
I never once brought up MS PR, or attributed anything to that department. They aren't the ones claiming that DRM doesn't affect anything unless you're playing back protected content.
I also never claimed SuperFetch worked (please, point out where I have). I'm sure it also doesn't work 100% of the time. Can it work? Sure, i haven't found a need to disable it yet, as my computers with Vista have all been performing very well. Even my old desktop with 1GB of ram and an old FX 5700 video card.
I noticed you never actually have claimed to even have used Vista either.. interesting that someone can make claims such as you, seemingly, without having used it.
You realize of course that if people did update frequently, things like SqlSlammer and such would have been avoided? Personally I think anyone disabling updates is a fool; at least with MS I can call and let them know something went wrong. That's better than having my computer infected with a virus or some such thing.
1) Didn't even think about rebooting my box by itself, regardless of configuration
Why? I rather like knowing my computer will have updates installed and the computer rebooted the next day when I get back to work. Why should this not be configurable?
2) Installed updates when I turned my computer on, not off - if I'm turning it off, then any second I'm going to be slinging the machine in my backpack, and jumping on my motorbike. Last I heard, Microsoft didn't possess the magical mystical powers required to ensure a hard drive works perfectly in these conditions.
Wonderful, now I have to wait 20 minutes while updates install BEFORE I can use my computer. Hopefully i don't need to get something done rather quickly. You of course must realize that you CAN tell Windows to shut down without installing any updates, right?
3) Fucked off when I press the "I don't want to reboot now" button, instead of pestering me every 30 seconds like a bloody 4 year old.
I believe its closer to every 10 minutes, although in Vista you do get what you want, or can even set a longer delay.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that you shouldn't be so arrogant to think that what defaults work best for you work best for everyone.
I totally agree with the tag that reads "editorsdontgetit". The problem with having this stealth update capability in the first place is that it's a clear and obvious vector for attack and p0wn4g3.
Exactly! All they need are the private keys MS uses to sign the updates.. oh wait.
Ahh, you mean the OSX with was started using BSD was it? The majority of the hard work being done form them? Sure, that will save some costs. Until you go to pay overprices x86 hardware from the same company to get the OSX. Oh, and then you still have to pay for OSX point releases.
Ya..cheaper indeed.
Maybe Linux should stop duplicating Unix. Or OpenOffice should stop duplicating MS Office.
Linux, or UNIX and Unix like OSes? I haven't heard of LINUX doing better on the server space than Windows, I have known that UNIX variants have typically dominated though.
I've also seen other reports that say that the Linux installations are replacing UNIX servers, not that they are replacing Windows. Its been a while though.
Your argument is that you know exactly how such a system MUST have been built. Anything else in your mind is excluded automatically.
The truth is you're only guessing, what you said is contrary to how MS said they built the system, and you claim that is proof that you are absolutely correct.
Its pretty easy to see the zealotry you are coming from; you paint the whole of MS with one brush, when the reality is that it is a large company, with many departments that actually DO have conflicting images. No different than saying "the government" is spying on you, when in fact the department of Forestry doesn't care about you at all unless you enter a national park, and even they, aren't spying on you.
You've proven nothing; you spout garbage out of your keyboard and expect everyone to accept it as fact. If Vista runs slower, its much more likely because its doing alot more than XP did. Things that have nothing to do with DRM, such as Superfetch, the new indexing server, sync center and a host of other new services. I don't expect you to know this, I don't think you've ever even booted Vista. Not suprising, since this is/. I guess.
I think it has more to do that if you sold 10 servers and next month sell 20, you have a 200% increase in sales for Linux. If Windows were selling 1,000 server and the next month it sells 1,005 servers, you can see that Linux is growing faster than Windows.. but that doesn't mean a whole lot.
Lets see some actual numbers first. It will be more interested to hear him say Linux has become 25% of our sales, or something like that. But anyone that claims product X is the fastest growing competitor, well it doesn't mean anything.
* Yes, my numbers are purely made up, and only serve to illustrate a point.
Are you insinuating that you know with any degree of assurance how Microsoft put together their secret-souce, non-disclosure agreement protected DRM system? Are you an employee in Microsoft's DRM division?
Or are you perheaps attempting to imply that Microsoft is widely known and praised for well behaved, frugal with resources and CPU time background processes?
I'm not the one making the extraordinary claims. You are; you need to prove your point, since its unlikely DRM affects you when you're not playing a movie. Especially considering MS has said as much. So PROVE them wrong, or shut it.
I never claimed to "know" how the system works, that is merely a strawman you contructed yourself. I only pointed out that there is a number of possibilities, some of them very likely due to the nature of such designs, which you are apparently due to some zealotry quite unwilling to consider out of hand. As to "backing up" my claims, isn't this whole discussion about empirically observable (in many ways by now) general user dissatisfaction with Vista, in major part because of performance problems?
No, you presented a single possibility, and made it sound as fact. Then you offer no proof to back up your claim, which is that its DRM slowing the system down, EVEN WHEN NOTHING IS BEING PLAYED. So please, back up your claim.
I "only" have a dual core system, and an older video card (NV FX 5700) to boot, and Vista is quite snappy for me. Even "only" have 1GB of RAM. Sounds like something is wrong with your Linux system..
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Your problem is dealing with Sears at all. They are a bunch of scumbags.
If you disputed the charge, and they did not remove it, they have broken the law. You should have sued. You should also have reported the fradulent transaction to the police.
THAT I learned going through my own dispute process. The bank didn't really want to go that route it seemed, but once I did, and provided a case number to the bank, things went considerably better.
That would also help you go after the credit reporting agencies as well; they cannot hold ligitimate cases of fraud as black marks on your credit. You should probably look at getting a lawyer.
I did not ask you for a "complex system". Just for an example of 2 lines of code without a call to a DRM check and 2 same lines with a call to DRM subroutine insterted between to demonstrate the utter impossibility of adding optional code without incurring cost in instruction cycles or memory. Oh but then I get it, this is too "complex" for you.
... audio adapter drivers, which would have to "monitor their state" (by magical means you neglected to describe) with every sound sample (which is a state change at 44,000 times a second in a typical 2-channel audio stream) and would have to be able to do so in the "DRM mode" and also not do so outside of it, that is on demand, the code for all this being of course embedded in the said drivers. This of course ignores, with blissful ignorance you are so fond of, multiple encryption/decryption stages, requirements for which are part of all DRM schemes. Not to mention that the critical elements of this have to be implemented by the 3rd party developers of drivers for hardware designed in Taiwan, so widely known for quality, highly efficient and well behaved code...
I guess the concept I already posted about is too complex for you to understand, for if you understood semaphores or monitors you would be able to come up with the rest of the details yourself.
Which requires copious amounts of code to check if the machine is in a DRM "safe" state, thus increasing complexity and decreasing performance. This check has to occur continuously with assistance of tamper-resistant hardware, prior to activation of the playback, otherwise it is completely useless from the point of view of ensuring DRM security, as without it an attacker can set the machine to a "safe" state via a multitude of spoofing mechanisms, such as virtualization, amongst many others. This understanding of the integrity of the security environment (of which you are apparently completely, blissfully, comically ignorant) is the cornerstone of all advanced DRM designs, and the very foundation behind the TPM which computes a running, real-time, encrypted, securely remotely verifiable checksum of all instuctions executed by the CPU (and other system activities) since a given reset point, long prior to entering the actual service routine (a video playback in this case) in a secure environment.
No, stupid, it doesn't require constant checks unless something is being played back. One check is required when playback is started, and the next check would be when some relevent part of the state of the machine changes. Those changes can be signeled using semaphores or monitors.
Your inane incompetence makes me laugh. "Devices in the loop" involve things such as the
Audio drives must be single threaded? They cannot send a message to another part of the system? Messages they are already likely sending? Is your mind locked in some kind of titanium box or something? You're under the asumption that drivers already AREN'T reporting various status of some kind. Something external to the drives can then do the monitoring, and that external thing can be told to start or stop.
Yes indeed. The program cannot miraculously, via psychic powers, jump from instruction A to B whenever you wish it to happen or from A to C when you do not. There has to be some condition check, which is also an instruction somewhere after A and before B and C (or the second instruction is a variation on an indirect jump via a memory location to C or B, which has its own overheads and problems). In our case that condition check has to be performed in multiple points, in multiple subsystems all over the OS and with a frequency corresponding to a frame of visual data or playback of each sound sample. Not to mention all of the other security considerations involved in DRM schemes which have to be met irrespective of playback being in progress. Something, you've spent a number of posts now trying to desperately wish away.
I'm not trying to wish anything away; I've already explai
I run Vista, with all the eye candy, very smoothly on my AMD 3800+ X2, 1GB ram, Chaintech FX 5700, with an older PATA 120GB drive. The MB is an Asus AV8 (or A8V...Abit use models #s that are too close to Asus). What MB did you have? I used to just get the cheapest MB I could that would run the chip I want, then I started buying Asus, and noticed things speeding up considerablely (my first Asus was to replace a dead abit board).
As am I. I now use it at work, and purchased a laptop with it pre-installed. The reason it was so buggy was all the crapware Sony installed on it.. wiping it clean, getting the latest updates installed fixed that right up.
Anyone that calls out someone is an MS astroturfer? Ever think there's so much pushback because of the irrational and often wrong views spouted by the linux zealots?
So one purchase of a desktop with linux costs MS two sales? Interesting figure.
Fine, but that's not what the OP said; the OP claimed there was coercion.
OTOH, if you really want to look at it from a coercion angle, do you know what happens if you fail to pay a credit card charge, authorized or not?
Not true; legally, if you dispute the transaction, you are no longer required to pay the charge.
They report it to the credit card companies. The more they report it to the credit card companies, the more 'black' marks on your credit.
No, they don't report it to the credit card companies. Visa and MC don't care. The banks issuing the cards report it to the credit reporting agencies.
Yes, they can report it over and over, too.
No, they cannot. They can update the claim, for example if the amount has increased for whatever reason, but there's only so long since they originally reported it that it will stay on your record. Seven years, I believe.
Ever try to buy a house, or a car with a bad credit rating and no co-signer? It's damn near fscking impossible in this country, let me tell you.
Of course its going to be hard with a bad credit rating. But one card will not stop you; I have one I didn't pay, because the bank changed their terms as soon as I activated the card, and failed to send me anything. Yet I was able to get a mortgage, probably because I hold my accounts and have another card with the lender.
If the charges were illegally posted, he can dispute them, and suffer no adverse affects. Of course he'll have to prove he didn't actually sign up for the trial on his own and enter his own information. It sounds like he did agree to it though and forgot about it.. and now is trying to sue to get out of it.
Ok, what threat of legal or financial ruin did this guy suffer? I don't see anything that was threatening by either company. If true, its truly sleazy, but threatening? No.
Oh, for Pete's sake, name one. Show a code snippet, in any language of your choice, with and without DRM calls. Then explain how they are executed in the same number of machine instructions and how they occupy the same amount of memory.
... let me think ... a CPU, no? And naturally we are not discussing observable physical phenomena such as ... oh I don't know ... comparative time between events, certainly?
/., bashing something from a company who's software they have not used in years, know nothing about MS' development processes, yet continue to say "Win95 was so much the suxor nothing they ever make could be good!!!111!!" Whatever. Get over it, Unix / Linux is the be all end all of OSes.
Ya, right. I'm going to wipe up a quick code snippet on a complex DRM system. Get real. The concept is what's important. I'll give you a hint; it would involve knowing the machine is in a drm "safe" state when playback starts. Devices in the loop will invoke a monitor if their state changes (line single changes, etc.). When that happens, another check will be performed and if the check fails, stop playback.
Needles to say I am not holding by breath waiting for that Earth-shattering, space-time-continuum-defying demonstration.
Needless to say, you're a dolt.
Sure, that is because software does not execute on physical objects such as
Ahh, so because software runs on a chip, it can't possibly not run certain code. Interesting theory.
Nice strawman. Now point me to a place where I claimed that DRM is the only reason for Vista being a hog.
You never once presented any other reason for poorer system performance. You don't even acknowledge it could be possible until I bring it up. You state, DRM is THE reason Vista has performance problems. You must be; otherwise, you'd be saying its those other things slowing the system down, and DRM becomes insignificant in comparison.
You do realize that the stuff you are spouting can be recalled just by scrolling up? Next thing you will be saying that it is possible for anything to officially come out of Microsoft that is not approved by the PR spin-meisters...
Ahh yes because developers at MS are all soul-less, mindless droids that can't do anything on their own. Sure. Especially those known personally by someone I know personally. Yup, sure.
Neither did I claim that you said that SuperFetch worked. I merely pointed out that you are listing it as a reason for Vista being slow, in direct contradiction to Microsoft who instist that SuperFetch is a "performance enhancing feature", and yet, in the same breath you are telling me how things are because Microsoft said so. That is the contradiction, although it appears that you are incapable of comprehending it.
Maybe you should re-read what I said about government and how your line of thinking leads to the Dept. of Forestry spying on our phone calls...
Seeing, in this exchange, all of your reasoning powers, I sincerely hope that I never have the grave misfortune of using any code you wrote. And I pity all the poor sods who do.
Right, because you know me really well from a whole three posts on a site I visit when I'm bored. Then you question MY reasoning ability? If you must know, my code is in health care software for use by radiologists, and is apparently written so well that in the years since I've left, they are now taking my code and internationalizing it (yes, they would like me to come back). My current employer is literally running their business off my software, and it will soon be managing their entire inventory.
I already explained how it is not only possible, but quite ordinary to be in that position in regards to the main topic of this discussion.
Typical
Disabling Automatic Updates is not foolish. Not installing updates at all is.
For a majority of users, disabling automatic updates is the equivalent of not installing updates at all.
And that's only slightly more foolish than blindly letting Microsoft handle your updates.
Foolish how? Because a very small minority of patches cause a very small minority of applications to "break?"
Personally, I set any computer I have to work on regularly to prompt me for updates. Windows or Linux. And I never set a computer to reboot without asking me first.
Good for you. Most people don't bother updating, so automatic updates is the best option. Who cares if your computer reboots?
And that "let it do it at 3 am when i'm not in front of it" argument is silly and it will eventually come back to haunt you. What if your working on an important project of some kind and your [significant other/offspring/parental unit] [goes into labor/wrecks his/her car/has a stroke]. Is saving what your doing and getting your computer ready for that 3am reboot at the top of your list of things to do? Or are you just hauling ass to the hospital?
Ahh right the great "what if" argument. Ya, well, what if a meteor hits my car right before I need to haul ass to the hospital? Please. If work really CANNOT be lost I think two seconds to have the computer hibernate is a good idea. If you can't take the time, then obviously your family member is more important than any project, so I wouldn't be worrying about it either way.
Right, because any code I can't personally audit MUST be insecure.
Windows update has been around for almost 10 years now; if someone were able to break in, I think it would have been done by now.
Well first, I remember reading the theory that CT comes from computer use around 1999... so this story is somewhat of an old dupe.
What you are feeling is not CT.. CT is permanent damage to your joints, caused by repetitive motion. My grandmother has it, from years of putting Merck pills into bottles.
What you ARE feeling is stressing of the elbow; I thought i had CT at one point too.. it turns out it was just from having my elbow on a wooden arm-rest. Also, it may simply be fatigue or a pulled ligiment (which also happened to me once as well). Yes, this is what a doctor told me when I went to get checked out.
The solution is ergonimics though; I find the best is to have my entire fore-arm resting on the desktop, with the legs on the keyboard raised. YMMV.
You got a letter? /. is the first I'm hearing of this.
That is because, as a programmer with decades of experience, I do know, with absolute certainty, that it is how it must be built. I might not know the specific details (which are jealously guarded by MS) but the general principles are involatile and inescapable. Just like the laws of thermodynamics.
Not a very good one then. I am a programmer with decades of experience as well, and I thought out quite a few ways it could be done without a constant drain on resources. Maybe its time you retire?
Microsoft PR departament has claimed so many incorrect things over the years that it boggles one's mind. As to guessing, I am no more doing so then pointing out that 2+2=4. It is simply physically impossible to do what you (and the Microsoft PR flacks - if it is indeed what they are claiming, although I would think they would be much more vague and evasive then you are) claim has been done.
Well, good thing its not MS PR that has said the DRM doesn't affect your system if you're not playing back protected content then. I'd also like to hear of any PR department on any company of size the really knows what they are talking about.
As I already pointed out, my feelings on Microsoft are irrelevant to the fact that laws of physics prevent them from accomplishing miracles, such as insertion of large amount of any code into any computer program and not suffering the resulting consequences.
You seem to be confusing physics with building software. Again, just because your firmly in the box mind can't think of a way to acomplish such a task, doesn't mean its not possible.
Such as implementing DRM.
Bonus points for contradicting yourself within 3 posts.
Did you forget your glasses or something? You think that DRM is the only possible reason for a system to run more slowly? Surely other, non-DRM services running DO have an impact on performance? I never said that DRM hurt performace when nothing protected was being played, so I fail to see how I've contradicted myself.
No one has claimed that those too do not impact performance.
Fine. Then prove that its DRM causing problems when you're not playing protected content. Your logic is flawed; just because you can't think of anyway it couldn't interfere, doesn't mean that it does.
Also, additional bonus points for contradicting yourself in claiming that Microsoft PR is to be trusted while listing the supposedly "performance enhancing" Superfetch as a cause of performance problems. Do you actually pause to think before spewing this crap?
I never once brought up MS PR, or attributed anything to that department. They aren't the ones claiming that DRM doesn't affect anything unless you're playing back protected content.
I also never claimed SuperFetch worked (please, point out where I have). I'm sure it also doesn't work 100% of the time. Can it work? Sure, i haven't found a need to disable it yet, as my computers with Vista have all been performing very well. Even my old desktop with 1GB of ram and an old FX 5700 video card.
I noticed you never actually have claimed to even have used Vista either.. interesting that someone can make claims such as you, seemingly, without having used it.
You realize of course that if people did update frequently, things like SqlSlammer and such would have been avoided? Personally I think anyone disabling updates is a fool; at least with MS I can call and let them know something went wrong. That's better than having my computer infected with a virus or some such thing.
1) Didn't even think about rebooting my box by itself, regardless of configuration
Why? I rather like knowing my computer will have updates installed and the computer rebooted the next day when I get back to work. Why should this not be configurable?
2) Installed updates when I turned my computer on, not off - if I'm turning it off, then any second I'm going to be slinging the machine in my backpack, and jumping on my motorbike. Last I heard, Microsoft didn't possess the magical mystical powers required to ensure a hard drive works perfectly in these conditions.
Wonderful, now I have to wait 20 minutes while updates install BEFORE I can use my computer. Hopefully i don't need to get something done rather quickly. You of course must realize that you CAN tell Windows to shut down without installing any updates, right?
3) Fucked off when I press the "I don't want to reboot now" button, instead of pestering me every 30 seconds like a bloody 4 year old.
I believe its closer to every 10 minutes, although in Vista you do get what you want, or can even set a longer delay.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that you shouldn't be so arrogant to think that what defaults work best for you work best for everyone.
I totally agree with the tag that reads "editorsdontgetit". The problem with having this stealth update capability in the first place is that it's a clear and obvious vector for attack and p0wn4g3.
Exactly! All they need are the private keys MS uses to sign the updates.. oh wait.
You also get a link to a more detailed explaintation of the problem and the fix.
Ahh, you mean the OSX with was started using BSD was it? The majority of the hard work being done form them? Sure, that will save some costs. Until you go to pay overprices x86 hardware from the same company to get the OSX. Oh, and then you still have to pay for OSX point releases.
Ya..cheaper indeed.
Maybe Linux should stop duplicating Unix. Or OpenOffice should stop duplicating MS Office.
Linux, or UNIX and Unix like OSes? I haven't heard of LINUX doing better on the server space than Windows, I have known that UNIX variants have typically dominated though.
I've also seen other reports that say that the Linux installations are replacing UNIX servers, not that they are replacing Windows. Its been a while though.
Your argument is that you know exactly how such a system MUST have been built. Anything else in your mind is excluded automatically.
/. I guess.
The truth is you're only guessing, what you said is contrary to how MS said they built the system, and you claim that is proof that you are absolutely correct.
Its pretty easy to see the zealotry you are coming from; you paint the whole of MS with one brush, when the reality is that it is a large company, with many departments that actually DO have conflicting images. No different than saying "the government" is spying on you, when in fact the department of Forestry doesn't care about you at all unless you enter a national park, and even they, aren't spying on you.
You've proven nothing; you spout garbage out of your keyboard and expect everyone to accept it as fact. If Vista runs slower, its much more likely because its doing alot more than XP did. Things that have nothing to do with DRM, such as Superfetch, the new indexing server, sync center and a host of other new services. I don't expect you to know this, I don't think you've ever even booted Vista. Not suprising, since this is
Cost as in price paid, or are you including time costs as well?
I think it has more to do that if you sold 10 servers and next month sell 20, you have a 200% increase in sales for Linux. If Windows were selling 1,000 server and the next month it sells 1,005 servers, you can see that Linux is growing faster than Windows.. but that doesn't mean a whole lot.
Lets see some actual numbers first. It will be more interested to hear him say Linux has become 25% of our sales, or something like that. But anyone that claims product X is the fastest growing competitor, well it doesn't mean anything.
* Yes, my numbers are purely made up, and only serve to illustrate a point.
Are you insinuating that you know with any degree of assurance how Microsoft put together their secret-souce, non-disclosure agreement protected DRM system? Are you an employee in Microsoft's DRM division?
Or are you perheaps attempting to imply that Microsoft is widely known and praised for well behaved, frugal with resources and CPU time background processes?
I'm not the one making the extraordinary claims. You are; you need to prove your point, since its unlikely DRM affects you when you're not playing a movie. Especially considering MS has said as much. So PROVE them wrong, or shut it.
I never claimed to "know" how the system works, that is merely a strawman you contructed yourself. I only pointed out that there is a number of possibilities, some of them very likely due to the nature of such designs, which you are apparently due to some zealotry quite unwilling to consider out of hand. As to "backing up" my claims, isn't this whole discussion about empirically observable (in many ways by now) general user dissatisfaction with Vista, in major part because of performance problems?
No, you presented a single possibility, and made it sound as fact. Then you offer no proof to back up your claim, which is that its DRM slowing the system down, EVEN WHEN NOTHING IS BEING PLAYED. So please, back up your claim.
I "only" have a dual core system, and an older video card (NV FX 5700) to boot, and Vista is quite snappy for me. Even "only" have 1GB of RAM. Sounds like something is wrong with your Linux system..