Why does "The Steve" need to bash M$ & Vista at every opportunity? Is it to pander to Apple fanbois?
Because it's an easy and slow moving target?
I don't recall how many versions of Vista exist, and have given up trying to keep track of what is wrong generally with Vista, but if late night talk show hosts were more technically inclined, I'd wager there would be as a steady stream of jokes about Vista, at least as many as there are about embarassing celebrity goofups and blunders of the day.
So laugh. It's funny. Hell, I don't even own a Mac, and I'm laughing. But I doubt I'm alone in saying that I am paying close attention in anticipation of my next computer purchase.
Interesting read, especially considering the "Comcast Confidential" footer at the bottom of every page. That said, it's informative only insofar as it states there's laws to be considered, and makes clear the folks at Comcast insist on following them. Nothing in that document is very different than a typical publically-available TOS. Here's an excerpt:
Generally, the following information, when available to Comcast, can be supplied in response to the types of requests listed below. Each request is evaluated and reviewed on a case by case basis in light of any special procedural or legal requirements and applicable laws. The following examples are for illustration only.
- Grand Jury, Trial, or Statutorily Authorized Administrative Subpoena - Judicial Summons - Court Order - Search Warrant - Preservation Request/ Backup Preservation Request - Pen Register / Trap and Trace Device - Foreign Intelligent Surveillance Act of 1978 - National Security Letter - Child Abuse - Emergency Disclosure
As for the email policies referred to in the summary, Comcast does not store emails any longer than the subscriber chooses keeps them.
Comcast's Webmail service permits customers to change their email deletion policies, but the current default settings are described below.
- Inbox (Read Mail No automatic deletion policy)
(Unread Mail 45 day retention period) - Trash (Read Mail 1 day retention period)
(Unread Mail 1 day retention period) - Sent Mail (Read Mail 30 day retention period)
(Unread Mail 30 day retention period) - Screened Mail (Read Mail 3 day retention period)
(Unread Mail 3 day retention period) - Personal Folders (Read/Unread No deletion policy) - Popped Mail (Deleted immediately from web mail servers)
Put another way, Comcast doesn't store your emails. You do.
I had been wondering when a tiny computer with 2 ethernet ports and decent CPU would come out.
Some years ago? The only advantage I see to this unit is that it's black (instead of green), and it offers video output, none of which may or not be useful or appropriate.
That said, it's good to see other product offerings in the market.
This is a game of two halves and four quarters right? Hope they stop for some entertainment mid-trial.
Admittedly there's an element of humour to this episode, but from the viewpoint of Red Hat, their employees and customers, among others, it's not funny at all.
Being sued incurs a metric sh*tload of time, money, and attention. And that's for a relatively simple claim, a category into which patent claims generally don't fall. For a business, any business, the risks are real even if there's no merit to the claims. Loss of reputation, lack of investor confidence, upset customers, new customers shying away from your products, and so on. The legal department gets overwhelmed, outside counsel and experts are hired, the bills start coming in and the ensuing meetings, conference calls, etc. consume your time until well after the case is settled.
So while you're sitting on the sidelines enjoying your chicken wings, just know there's a distinct possibility that a good number of other people have just lost their appetite along with their sense of humour.
XP was not finished when it came out and now it is the flagship operating system
Not sure that "XP was not finished" means anything, but to the extent it does, it's most likely redundant, and then, rather ironic given that XP (NT5.1) was a modest update to Windows 2000 (NT5.0) which *was* a substantial rewrite.
I take it you missed that bit of history, but the my recollection of events is that at the time Windows 2000 was released, there were issues with drivers, compatibility, changes, etc. Complaints were heard everywhere, but those complaints are nothing compared to what is happening now with Vista.
LOL. Looking at some of those old news stories (and the hot technology of the day) is almost as bad as looking at your high school yearbook. That said, it might be interesting to have someone to go through them and catalog some choice opinions, predictions, etc. held at a given point in time.
Then again, maybe we're still bitching about the same old stuff.
There was a thread recently on the FreeBSD mailing list concerning Open Office. The discussion, as expected, devolved from "It's too big and bloated" to "Nothing else will work for me but program X". The reason most cited for "not working" was "it's too hard" to learn, which invited this amusing observation.
Personally, I find Office packages fairly horrible to use or to maintain, and wordprocessors in general are inadequate by nearly every measure. It's a shame they've become such a fact of life, but here we are.
the rhetorical effort required to work God back into the model gets more tortured
Agreed, but removing [Hh](im|er) from the equation is regularly used to dismiss or otherwise obscure the fact that the religeous experience, along with the need or desire for it, is as real as it is universal.
We look to and expect science to provide insights, but it must remain silent on Really Big Questions. Put another way, science has no need or use for God, therefore in our modern world we're free to carry on as though only the observable and measurable play any role, and have ample justification for doing so. In fact, we're both eager and proud to explain everything in simple and understandable terms. Well, yeah, but how far does any of that get you, once you're past the mundane?
Take, for instance, the approaches used to explain away the motives of people who fly airplanes into buildings -- something between "Their nutty religeon told them to." and "They most certainly suffer from such and such personality disorder." Convenient, perhaps, but it's much easier to understand the act, however dramatic or destructive, as a religeous experience for those involved. At that point, all bets are off.
It's entirely possible that the universe isn't an entirely rational place. Ask anyone who's ever dated.;-)
No. The more reason to drop the laptop fetish. Laptops absolutely have their appropriate uses- but desktops work just fine for a huge percentage of people. Their components are cheaper, more easily replaced, and usually superior in performance. Nevermind that forcing you to sit in front of the computer, as opposed to being available to you in bed, on your couch, on your porch, etc- means you're more prone to wasting more time on the internet.
I used think along those lines before I got my first Thinkpad. While I still sit and work at a proper desk, I prefer doing everything possible on the laptop. The keyboard is better, no reaching for the mouse (for the click-and-point stuff), the noise doesn't get any lower, and the compact size allows me to to use my desk for "real-world" things, not to mention I can look out the window without having to turn my head. And, if needed, I can get up and take it elsewhere.
I think your objections have everything to do with the cost and engineering involved in making something so small so that it can function like a larger machine -- higher priced parts makes for higher price replacement parts, for example. That people tend more and more to prefer laptops (for whatever reason) should be expected. As for the goals of the OLPC project, the traditional desktop/keyboard/monitor approach is out of the question.
Windows easy to fix? You must mean, "Umm, where's that installation CD again?";) I've used Windows 10+ years, Linux 5+ years, and my experience is that Windows is difficult to fix. It's hard to find the root cause for problems, and it's difficult to figure out what can be done to fix the problems permanently. You just hack away and cross your fingers. And boot after every change in settings (okay, this has improved a lot lately.)
Can't you just run tcpdump to diagnose networking issues, or maybe grep the relevant logfiles for other kinds of problems? Maybe check the manpages for an explanation of...
Plural. It would require that _two_ people bought them.
I saw somewhere recently that the Zune is now available in white. That has the possibility of increasing market share by appealing to prospective iPod buyers, or generating sales by increasing the chances of error.
Let me clarify, bear with me- The man page for 'ping', for instance, is all-encompassing but rather intimidating when it comes to every-day use:
Perhaps, but it bears repeating that in most cases, man pages can be considered both authoritative and complete. Compare that with what you typically get with commerical vendor-supplied documentation. I'll agree that for casual use, reading a manpage can be overwhelming, but so is reading a manual of any sort. The more features there are, the more there is to read, and the more there is to learn. That benefits of standardisation exist, but become apparent only after you start reading.
As for your ping example, I don't know what version you're using, but typically the manpage would take the form of:
ping [option] [option] [option] [option] host
Even a novice or casual user should be able to determine that the stuff surrounded by square backets, no matter how numerous, are options (and are therefore, "optional"), and quickly conclude that the most basic usage is quite simply:
ping host
Wasn't so hard, was it? On the other hand, you may luck out on occasion and discover the "shortcut" you're looking for, but the underlying truth to "If all else fails, read the instructions." remains, and no amount of "La la la I can't hear you." won't convert a false economy into a real one.
Granted, certain manpages could use more "examples", but that's little different than saying "The documentation could be improved." I think that's true in all cases, and I doubt there's a documentation writer anywhere who would disagree with you. In any event, you could make use of (or suffer through, depending on your preferences) the info pages which are typically written to provide extensive example usage. Or, alternatively, write your own and put them in ~/man.
I watched a documentary or special of some sort on the subject of solar power, and I was surprised to learn that, according to the program, the first (and longest running) solar power plant in the U.S. was built by the Carter administration.
That's Jimmy Carter, the guy who was thrown up against an oil crisis and decided to do what any rational, thinking person would do: develop alternatives. And not start any wars.;-)
I lived through those days, but I don't remember reading any headlines on the subject of alternative energy sources, or any of Carter's initiatives in that regard; most of the talk concerned people having to trade in their gas-guzzlers (station wagons, in those days), the high price or unavailability of gas, and, of course, the unrest abroad. The rest of the talk concerned Carter's inistence on "doing nothing".
The power plant in this article, AFAICT, is the same plant referred to in the documentary.
Yeah, really... people sure ignored the hell out of The World is Flat. It was so irrelevant that Friedman's put out, what... three different editions so far?
Well, to be fair, the OP's point could be restated that the "pay wall" did nothing to increase their columnist's influence in the wider world, particularly with younger readers. Personally, I think Friedman is an astute observer but an overrated writer who suffers from being overly-excitable with respect to his own ideas.
The Times' decision is a good one. The irony, for me at least, is that I now have it delivered daily. I had high hopes for reading it on-line (this was in the days before the redesign when it was ugly to look at it ), but I shelved that idea. The Times is one of the few newspapers that's worth reading in its entirety, and reading it on-line interfered with that. The limitations of a computer screen are one thing, but cherry-picking articles seems to encourage a less informed, if not insular experience. It's like talking only to people who have the same ideas and opinions as you have -- comforting, perhaps, but uninteresting. I think it's much more valuable to take the time and sit down with and have discussions with people you don't agree with on subjects that have greater importance (or interest) than would appear to a casual observer.
I'm sure they will never be able to duplicate the fun of doing the crossword with a pen (or pencil) in one hand, and your morning coffee in the other, but for people elsewhere in the world who read the paper, I'm sure they don't mind.
I guess a company can still be listed on NASDAQ even though it's bankrupt!
Years ago I worked for a law firm that specialised in things like mergers and acquisitions. They also did a lot of bankruptcy work.
One of their clients was a large company that was mired in Chapter 11 proceedings and was, from the perspective of the general public, doomed to extinction. The attorneys came up with a plan for the company to raise money (and expand their business) by issuing new stock which, unsurprisingly, sounds as bizarre as it is illegal. A few months later (and many letters back and forth from the SEC), the company did just that. They ended up raising just under $40 million, and the law firm earned not only their own extravant fees, but bonuses for arranging that deal and the ones that followed.
The company no longer exists today, but if there's any lesson to be learned from this, it's that the subjects of law and finance are more complex than what you read in the newspapers. If there's money to be made, you can be sure someone will be walking away with some of it, even in SCO's case.
The article is obviously aimed at a less experienced audience - in which case it really should provide some tips on securing your network, rather than trying to scare people about wireless network technologies.
Human nature being what it is, my vote would be to do both, irrespective of the audience.
Yes, if your motherboard supports network boot and you have a computer to store the boot image and you are able to change the boot order of your computer.
First, motherboards don't need to support anything other than a NIC. Second, many NICs support PXE boot (I've never encountered a non-off-brand that doesn't going back more years than I count). And changing the "boot order of your computer" (which I assume means "selecting the device order from which to boot") is a function that's part of every BIOS. And lastly, how many users interested in trying Debian wouldn't already have a second or third computer? Hell, you could serve up a boot image from one of the ubiquitous little blue boxes.
If your point is that it's "easier" for certain degrees of easy for certain new users to employ a "click and run" method of installing something, then I get it. But what you wrote is overstated if not nonsensical. It's also worth nothing that "click and run" comes with it's own share of unique limitations, adminstrative burdens, and pitfalls. That said, booting across the network is, IMHO, preferrable on all counts. And as far as Debian is concerned, their boot-only ISO works rather nicely.
I'm going by memory here, but IIRC, disabling the update service (and BITS) works as expected, but I've seen these settings get "reset" when visiting Microsoft's site.
Similarly, I've seen lots of other settings get reset to their "defaults". Most were benign (the firewall is turned on, IE's home page is reset, etc.) but annoying nonetheless.
Given that there's a complete lack of documentation in this regard, and diagnosing what happens and when is as troublesome as it is time consuming, I just make it a point to check and recheck everything after any visit to Microsoft. For home users, it's a losing battle.
In this case, for instance, I'm willing to believe that the MS engineers joining this interoperability effort will genuinely do good work towards making MS products work with Linux in a smart and efficient way.
Not to be flippant, but wouldn't a "smart and efficient way" include a decision on the part of Microsoft to stop "not interoperating"? Seems to me that over the years they've actively and repeatedly pursued a course that was designed to maintain monopoly and thwart interoperability of any sort.
Then again, maybe this development is like the situation in the Middle East. Having members of the opposite sides in the same room talking with one another while everyone outside is fighting can be viewed as a positive step, even if shouts of "traitor" are heard through the windows.
Re:Back when people could actually code..
on
DOS 5 Upgrade Video
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· Score: 1
I'm certain that someone of my Dad's generation who wrote software in the olden days (1960s/70s/80s) would have a fit at some of the stuff I get away with.
Speaking as someone from those olden days, here's something else to consider. I don't know a single computer user from that era that doesn't have a good understanding of how computers work. That includes secretaries who, when not filing or painting their fingernails, spent their working hours in a command-line environment. And they liked it.;-)
What's to stop a company from using the same argument against whoever is providing the Usenet feed?
As a practical matter, it doesn't matter. The content, once accepted, will be distributed worldwide in short order, so if your ISP's news server or your premium server is carrying the group, the content will be there and subject to the control of that news server only. Such mechanisms as cancellation messages, have a tortured history and are typically ignored by all news server admins.
Personally, I think the usenet approach, aside from being traditional, is ideal for any number of reasons (proper threading, filtering, searching, etc.). Hell, even Microsoft make use of usenet for their support "forums". I guess people are having too much fun making websites with MySQL backends.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Why does "The Steve" need to bash M$ & Vista at every opportunity? Is it to pander to Apple fanbois?
Because it's an easy and slow moving target?
I don't recall how many versions of Vista exist, and have given up trying to keep track of what is wrong generally with Vista, but if late night talk show hosts were more technically inclined, I'd wager there would be as a steady stream of jokes about Vista, at least as many as there are about embarassing celebrity goofups and blunders of the day.
So laugh. It's funny. Hell, I don't even own a Mac, and I'm laughing. But I doubt I'm alone in saying that I am paying close attention in anticipation of my next computer purchase.
Interesting read, especially considering the "Comcast Confidential" footer at the bottom of every page. That said, it's informative only insofar as it states there's laws to be considered, and makes clear the folks at Comcast insist on following them. Nothing in that document is very different than a typical publically-available TOS. Here's an excerpt:
As for the email policies referred to in the summary, Comcast does not store emails any longer than the subscriber chooses keeps them.
Put another way, Comcast doesn't store your emails. You do.
Which means it'll cost you an arm, a leg, and a white-woman's nose.
Urban myth. There is no such thing as a a poor black child who wants to grow up to become a white woman.
It's a Dianna Ross nose.
I had been wondering when a tiny computer with 2 ethernet ports and decent CPU would come out.
Some years ago? The only advantage I see to this unit is that it's black (instead of green), and it offers video output, none of which may or not be useful or appropriate.
That said, it's good to see other product offerings in the market.
This is a game of two halves and four quarters right? Hope they stop for some entertainment mid-trial.
Admittedly there's an element of humour to this episode, but from the viewpoint of Red Hat, their employees and customers, among others, it's not funny at all.
Being sued incurs a metric sh*tload of time, money, and attention. And that's for a relatively simple claim, a category into which patent claims generally don't fall. For a business, any business, the risks are real even if there's no merit to the claims. Loss of reputation, lack of investor confidence, upset customers, new customers shying away from your products, and so on. The legal department gets overwhelmed, outside counsel and experts are hired, the bills start coming in and the ensuing meetings, conference calls, etc. consume your time until well after the case is settled.
So while you're sitting on the sidelines enjoying your chicken wings, just know there's a distinct possibility that a good number of other people have just lost their appetite along with their sense of humour.
XP was not finished when it came out and now it is the flagship operating system
Not sure that "XP was not finished" means anything, but to the extent it does, it's most likely redundant, and then, rather ironic given that XP (NT5.1) was a modest update to Windows 2000 (NT5.0) which *was* a substantial rewrite.
I take it you missed that bit of history, but the my recollection of events is that at the time Windows 2000 was released, there were issues with drivers, compatibility, changes, etc. Complaints were heard everywhere, but those complaints are nothing compared to what is happening now with Vista.
use the wayback machine. :) http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://slashdot.org
LOL. Looking at some of those old news stories (and the hot technology of the day) is almost as bad as looking at your high school yearbook. That said, it might be interesting to have someone to go through them and catalog some choice opinions, predictions, etc. held at a given point in time.
Then again, maybe we're still bitching about the same old stuff.
LaTeX is the one I would choose ...
There was a thread recently on the FreeBSD mailing list concerning Open Office. The discussion, as expected, devolved from "It's too big and bloated" to "Nothing else will work for me but program X". The reason most cited for "not working" was "it's too hard" to learn, which invited this amusing observation.
Personally, I find Office packages fairly horrible to use or to maintain, and wordprocessors in general are inadequate by nearly every measure. It's a shame they've become such a fact of life, but here we are.
the rhetorical effort required to work God back into the model gets more tortured
;-)
Agreed, but removing [Hh](im|er) from the equation is regularly used to dismiss or otherwise obscure the fact that the religeous experience, along with the need or desire for it, is as real as it is universal.
We look to and expect science to provide insights, but it must remain silent on Really Big Questions. Put another way, science has no need or use for God, therefore in our modern world we're free to carry on as though only the observable and measurable play any role, and have ample justification for doing so. In fact, we're both eager and proud to explain everything in simple and understandable terms. Well, yeah, but how far does any of that get you, once you're past the mundane?
Take, for instance, the approaches used to explain away the motives of people who fly airplanes into buildings -- something between "Their nutty religeon told them to." and "They most certainly suffer from such and such personality disorder." Convenient, perhaps, but it's much easier to understand the act, however dramatic or destructive, as a religeous experience for those involved. At that point, all bets are off.
It's entirely possible that the universe isn't an entirely rational place. Ask anyone who's ever dated.
No. The more reason to drop the laptop fetish. Laptops absolutely have their appropriate uses- but desktops work just fine for a huge percentage of people. Their components are cheaper, more easily replaced, and usually superior in performance. Nevermind that forcing you to sit in front of the computer, as opposed to being available to you in bed, on your couch, on your porch, etc- means you're more prone to wasting more time on the internet.
I used think along those lines before I got my first Thinkpad. While I still sit and work at a proper desk, I prefer doing everything possible on the laptop. The keyboard is better, no reaching for the mouse (for the click-and-point stuff), the noise doesn't get any lower, and the compact size allows me to to use my desk for "real-world" things, not to mention I can look out the window without having to turn my head. And, if needed, I can get up and take it elsewhere.
I think your objections have everything to do with the cost and engineering involved in making something so small so that it can function like a larger machine -- higher priced parts makes for higher price replacement parts, for example. That people tend more and more to prefer laptops (for whatever reason) should be expected. As for the goals of the OLPC project, the traditional desktop/keyboard/monitor approach is out of the question.
Windows easy to fix? You must mean, "Umm, where's that installation CD again?" ;) I've used Windows 10+ years, Linux 5+ years, and my experience is that Windows is difficult to fix. It's hard to find the root cause for problems, and it's difficult to figure out what can be done to fix the problems permanently. You just hack away and cross your fingers. And boot after every change in settings (okay, this has improved a lot lately.)
...
...
Can't you just run tcpdump to diagnose networking issues, or maybe grep the relevant logfiles for other kinds of problems? Maybe check the manpages for an explanation of
Oh, wait
Do you have a cite for this? (Not doubting you, just want to have something to convince the missus that curry is healthy
Not capsaicin, specifically, but here's a randomly selected link for the wonders of curcumin which has been all over the news in recent weeks.
Plural. It would require that _two_ people bought them.
I saw somewhere recently that the Zune is now available in white. That has the possibility of increasing market share by appealing to prospective iPod buyers, or generating sales by increasing the chances of error.
Let me clarify, bear with me- The man page for 'ping', for instance, is all-encompassing but rather intimidating when it comes to every-day use:
Perhaps, but it bears repeating that in most cases, man pages can be considered both authoritative and complete. Compare that with what you typically get with commerical vendor-supplied documentation. I'll agree that for casual use, reading a manpage can be overwhelming, but so is reading a manual of any sort. The more features there are, the more there is to read, and the more there is to learn. That benefits of standardisation exist, but become apparent only after you start reading.
As for your ping example, I don't know what version you're using, but typically the manpage would take the form of:
ping [option] [option] [option] [option] host
Even a novice or casual user should be able to determine that the stuff surrounded by square backets, no matter how numerous, are options (and are therefore, "optional"), and quickly conclude that the most basic usage is quite simply:
ping host
Wasn't so hard, was it? On the other hand, you may luck out on occasion and discover the "shortcut" you're looking for, but the underlying truth to "If all else fails, read the instructions." remains, and no amount of "La la la I can't hear you." won't convert a false economy into a real one.
Granted, certain manpages could use more "examples", but that's little different than saying "The documentation could be improved." I think that's true in all cases, and I doubt there's a documentation writer anywhere who would disagree with you. In any event, you could make use of (or suffer through, depending on your preferences) the info pages which are typically written to provide extensive example usage. Or, alternatively, write your own and put them in ~/man.
I watched a documentary or special of some sort on the subject of solar power, and I was surprised to learn that, according to the program, the first (and longest running) solar power plant in the U.S. was built by the Carter administration.
;-)
That's Jimmy Carter, the guy who was thrown up against an oil crisis and decided to do what any rational, thinking person would do: develop alternatives. And not start any wars.
I lived through those days, but I don't remember reading any headlines on the subject of alternative energy sources, or any of Carter's initiatives in that regard; most of the talk concerned people having to trade in their gas-guzzlers (station wagons, in those days), the high price or unavailability of gas, and, of course, the unrest abroad. The rest of the talk concerned Carter's inistence on "doing nothing".
The power plant in this article, AFAICT, is the same plant referred to in the documentary.
Even better
Aren't dangling participles fun?
Yeah, really... people sure ignored the hell out of The World is Flat. It was so irrelevant that Friedman's put out, what ... three different editions so far?
Well, to be fair, the OP's point could be restated that the "pay wall" did nothing to increase their columnist's influence in the wider world, particularly with younger readers. Personally, I think Friedman is an astute observer but an overrated writer who suffers from being overly-excitable with respect to his own ideas.
The Times' decision is a good one. The irony, for me at least, is that I now have it delivered daily. I had high hopes for reading it on-line (this was in the days before the redesign when it was ugly to look at it ), but I shelved that idea. The Times is one of the few newspapers that's worth reading in its entirety, and reading it on-line interfered with that. The limitations of a computer screen are one thing, but cherry-picking articles seems to encourage a less informed, if not insular experience. It's like talking only to people who have the same ideas and opinions as you have -- comforting, perhaps, but uninteresting. I think it's much more valuable to take the time and sit down with and have discussions with people you don't agree with on subjects that have greater importance (or interest) than would appear to a casual observer.
I'm sure they will never be able to duplicate the fun of doing the crossword with a pen (or pencil) in one hand, and your morning coffee in the other, but for people elsewhere in the world who read the paper, I'm sure they don't mind.
I guess a company can still be listed on NASDAQ even though it's bankrupt!
Years ago I worked for a law firm that specialised in things like mergers and acquisitions. They also did a lot of bankruptcy work.
One of their clients was a large company that was mired in Chapter 11 proceedings and was, from the perspective of the general public, doomed to extinction. The attorneys came up with a plan for the company to raise money (and expand their business) by issuing new stock which, unsurprisingly, sounds as bizarre as it is illegal. A few months later (and many letters back and forth from the SEC), the company did just that. They ended up raising just under $40 million, and the law firm earned not only their own extravant fees, but bonuses for arranging that deal and the ones that followed.
The company no longer exists today, but if there's any lesson to be learned from this, it's that the subjects of law and finance are more complex than what you read in the newspapers. If there's money to be made, you can be sure someone will be walking away with some of it, even in SCO's case.
The article is obviously aimed at a less experienced audience - in which case it really should provide some tips on securing your network, rather than trying to scare people about wireless network technologies.
Human nature being what it is, my vote would be to do both, irrespective of the audience.
Yes, if your motherboard supports network boot and you have a computer to store the boot image and you are able to change the boot order of your computer.
First, motherboards don't need to support anything other than a NIC. Second, many NICs support PXE boot (I've never encountered a non-off-brand that doesn't going back more years than I count). And changing the "boot order of your computer" (which I assume means "selecting the device order from which to boot") is a function that's part of every BIOS. And lastly, how many users interested in trying Debian wouldn't already have a second or third computer? Hell, you could serve up a boot image from one of the ubiquitous little blue boxes.
If your point is that it's "easier" for certain degrees of easy for certain new users to employ a "click and run" method of installing something, then I get it. But what you wrote is overstated if not nonsensical. It's also worth nothing that "click and run" comes with it's own share of unique limitations, adminstrative burdens, and pitfalls. That said, booting across the network is, IMHO, preferrable on all counts. And as far as Debian is concerned, their boot-only ISO works rather nicely.
I'm going by memory here, but IIRC, disabling the update service (and BITS) works as expected, but I've seen these settings get "reset" when visiting Microsoft's site.
Similarly, I've seen lots of other settings get reset to their "defaults". Most were benign (the firewall is turned on, IE's home page is reset, etc.) but annoying nonetheless.
Given that there's a complete lack of documentation in this regard, and diagnosing what happens and when is as troublesome as it is time consuming, I just make it a point to check and recheck everything after any visit to Microsoft. For home users, it's a losing battle.
Ran the win32 loader on a test-VM here at work. Pretty quick and painless, 4-5 prompts, 45 seconds of downloading, a reboot and debian was installing.
Maybe I don't get it, but isn't that what you'd get out of a typical PXE boot/NFS install?
In this case, for instance, I'm willing to believe that the MS engineers joining this interoperability effort will genuinely do good work towards making MS products work with Linux in a smart and efficient way.
Not to be flippant, but wouldn't a "smart and efficient way" include a decision on the part of Microsoft to stop "not interoperating"? Seems to me that over the years they've actively and repeatedly pursued a course that was designed to maintain monopoly and thwart interoperability of any sort.
Then again, maybe this development is like the situation in the Middle East. Having members of the opposite sides in the same room talking with one another while everyone outside is fighting can be viewed as a positive step, even if shouts of "traitor" are heard through the windows.
I'm certain that someone of my Dad's generation who wrote software in the olden days (1960s/70s/80s) would have a fit at some of the stuff I get away with.
;-)
Speaking as someone from those olden days, here's something else to consider. I don't know a single computer user from that era that doesn't have a good understanding of how computers work. That includes secretaries who, when not filing or painting their fingernails, spent their working hours in a command-line environment. And they liked it.
What's to stop a company from using the same argument against whoever is providing the Usenet feed?
;-)
As a practical matter, it doesn't matter. The content, once accepted, will be distributed worldwide in short order, so if your ISP's news server or your premium server is carrying the group, the content will be there and subject to the control of that news server only. Such mechanisms as cancellation messages, have a tortured history and are typically ignored by all news server admins.
Personally, I think the usenet approach, aside from being traditional, is ideal for any number of reasons (proper threading, filtering, searching, etc.). Hell, even Microsoft make use of usenet for their support "forums". I guess people are having too much fun making websites with MySQL backends.