I wonder if the hybrid drive warranty in Apple's laptop will conveniently last about as long as the iPod's? Just enough time for the product to break so you have get a new one.
Hopefully it's designed so that if the flash fails, it can go gracefully, leaving the spinning disk still useable. Although the flash is probably more reliable than the spinning disk, so maybe that wouldn't matter.
I really don't know why anyone would go with Vonage to begin with. There are other options that are cheaper, better audio quality, demand lower bandwidth and provide a greater free calling area with significantly reduced international calling rates.
A) Vonage has free calling to the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Italy, the UK, and Ireland (with the unlimited plan). If that area doesn't satisfy your needs, you're probably a niche customer, not the general public. I haven't looked at their rates to other areas of the world (except for one phone call to Brazil, but that was pretty reasonable, I thought), and of course there will always be people who want to call family or business contacts in Asia, South America, Africa, etc., but for most American households, the included calling area is pretty darn good.
B) When I signed up (~20 months ago), Vonage was rated 2nd to AT&T's VoIP service for quality, and first for reliability. The only problems I've had with quality were either hardware issues, or a lack of QoS in the phone adapter/router they sent me. The hardware issues were fixed with a replacement (which was sent quickly), and the QoS can be easily solved with a separate router (an inexpensive VoIP device probably shouldn't be intended to be a home's main router anyway).
C) If you have a broadband connection you can use for VoIP at your home, it's probably either cable, FTTH, or DSL. For cable or fiber, the bandwidth won't be noticeable for the vast majority of people. For lower-speed DSL connections, it could be a problem, but how much more efficient are other services? Enough to really make a difference? Besides, many people don't live within range of DSL (myself, for one).
D) Vonage has $15 plans and $25 plans. For a while they were running a deal where you could prepay a year at $20/month (maybe they still are). First month is always free, referring a friend gets you 2 free months.
Vonage isn't perfect... It would be nice if you SIP credentials were not locked and hidden away in the commissioned phone adapters (Yes I know how to find mine, but I'm not interested in violating the terms of service). I also wish that people I call would see my name on their CallerID, not Vonage. But the quality is good enough that most people aren't bothered by any sound quality shortcomings (especially in a world of cell phones), and they are reliable, and above all big. Vonage has phone numbers available in a lot of areas where other VoIP providers don't.
Vonage has two plans, unlimited is $25 and 500 minutes is $14. The instant they introduced the 500 minute plan I switched down to it. This includes all of the services (voicemail in particular) that you pay through the nose for with a real phone company.
Also, they have a deal now (I think just about all the big VoIP companies are doing it, too), where you prepay for a year, at $20/month. So that's really not bad. Lots of features... they're not perfect (where's the Anonymous Call Rejection?), but they're not bad. Plus free calls to 5 European countries (if you count Ireland and the UK as European), Canada and Puerto Rico.
We've been with Vonage for over a year and a half, and haven't had many complaints. Qwest has a much, much worse track record for us. In fact, I mostly switched to Vonage to spite Qwest. I've heard lots of complaints about Vonage Customer Service, but they've been alright for us, plus with Vonage, you can manage your own features, instead of paying Qwest money every time you want to activate a feature, then play monthly, even 6 months after you've requested that they turn off that feature. We've gotten screwed over by Qwest's "Spirit of Service" so many times, I'll never go back to them.
Good hell, you're right! I thought you were joking, but then a joke like that would have been funnier if we were talking about a Mac, so I should have known. I guess it makes more sense than having it be the default player for.wav files.
But I would have thought Sound Recorder would be all Aero'ed up like sol... Buttons fading, and flipping around, the recorded sound magically enhanced by the power of DirectX, and requiring a performance index score of at least 1.0 to run...
One major reason is that out mail server (over which I have no control), can take a long time to deliver mail, even internally.
Do you work with Senator Stevens? You'd better have the IT guys clear out the series of tubes so you can get your internets faster! It should be an easy enough job to clean out the internal tubes, but I don't know about the external ones... better take this one up with Congress.
(I'm kidding, and I mean no disrespect to the parent poster.)
I know it was just a joke, but it doesn't quite work... Apparently you haven't seen the new solitaire. For the first time since Win 3.0 (at least), they've changed the look of sol.
I use Firefox all the time on Vista and it works as well as anything. I would have been surprised to see it "Certified" by Microsoft, though. I have OpenOffice installed, but I barely use it on that machine. OO Writer doesn't have any problems opening, at least. I really haven't had any problems with iTunes, other than the issue where if I use the Windows utility to Stop/Remove the iPod instead of ejecting it in iTunes, the next time I plug it into that machine, Windows tells me its hard drive may have a problem. I haven't noticed any problems with any of my files on it, though.
I agree that the surprising part of TFA was the software that did make the list. The Google Desktop Search as you mentioned, as well as WordPerfect and some others. But then I guess they have to be able to show that some (a carefully selected portion?) of their competitors' apps can run, otherwise they don't get the privilege of saying that Vista can run all of this software you use that Mac/Linux can't. I don't think MS feels very threatened by WordPerfect, so it's OK to throw them on the list.
Chuck Norris knows all about the list... he IS the list, and he'll give a roundhouse kick to the face to anyone who repeats the list without permission.
It's certainly true that there are a number of tools that allow YouTube content to be downloaded, but I suspect that most "ordinary" users aren't likely to be using these any time soon. Why? Because in most cases, what would be the point of doing the extra work required. Most computer users just want to keep it simple.
Not to mention, videos from YouTube are always.flv's... I either use VLC to play them or convert them with a quick and easy drag-n-drop batch file using ffmpeg (usually to an iPod-friendly mp4), then I can do whatever I want. But most users won't know about VLC, or any of the.flv compatible players/converters, so to them, YouTube really does seem "secure" enough to not bother with.
On the other hand, Viacom just decided that it is to easy to get videos from YouTube, so I guess it just depends on how the content provider feels.
And so will Miss Shue, who discovered cold fusion for Mr. Kilmer after she was able to travel from 1985 to 2015 with Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Fox, thanks to Mr. Fusion.
/Actually, it has to do with consumer protection laws, which is why businesses have to eat their losses when they underbill & give you back money if they overbill.
You're right, I forgot to add the disclaimer that I don't ever buy music from PlaysForSure stores, so I've never had an interest in checking it out. I still should have googled for it first. That said, FairPlay hacks seem to get much more press on Slashdot and Digg.
I'm interested to know then how Microsoft handles hacks against PlaysForSure. Are they required to fix the holes or face having all of the PFS-based stores lose their licenses to sell the music? If so, how do they manage the logistics of dealing with so many different stores and devices? I'm just wondering why MS can do it, but Apple doesn't. Maybe MS just puts all of the effort into fighting the fires that Apple just doesn't want to deal with (I'm not saying that's bad, either for Apple or MS).
The big 4 say iTunes has to to DRM everything, or they can't sell their music. Same goes for pricing. The big 4 won't let iTunes sell other people's music for less.
It's funny how if that's true, it shows that even "the big 4" realize that a lack of DRM would lead to success... even so much that it would still threaten their business model. Further proving that DRM is not to prevent piracy, but to give them control over all music, not just their own.
no, i don't buy his argument one bit. his keys would not be anymore loose than they are by keeping it on the ipod.
I didn't interpret what Jobs said to mean that licensing FairPlay to other companies would make the actual keys less secure, but rather that it would make it more difficult to maintain the whole system, especially security updates, if breaches do occur. As it is, when FairPlay gets broken, a new version of iTunes is released (with new firmware for the iPod), and eventually you won't be able to use the iTunes store without the new version of the iTunes software. That's confusing and irritating enough for customers, but imagine if they license their DRM to 3 separate manufacturers. When PlayFair/hymn/whatever-it's-called-today breaks (or works around) FairPlay, 4 different manufacturers would now have to have updated firmware for each of their players, which may or may not be tied to a new version of their own music management software. Then Apple has to at least be aware of and give some support for (to the other companies, not the end-users) FairPlay on 4 different platforms. It makes sense to me.
Of course, I haven't really ever heard of Microsoft's PlaysForSure being hacked, even though pretty much every non-Apple portable player uses it. Why? I don't know, maybe I just haven't paid attention, maybe DRM is the one area where Microsoft has been consistent and solid... too bad even MS has abandoned PlaysForSure for the Zune.
It's funny to me that France, Norway, and many people on slashdot complain about Apple's DRM... then Microsoft turns around and does the exact same thing in tying their player and DRM together in one inseparable package, leaving the one viable multi-company DRM system out in the cold.
As far as campaigning versus advocating, what more do you want? He's already been arguing pricing with the companies ever since the iTunes store opened. He's already turned down paying a fee to the RIAA for each iPod sold, now he's made a very public statement on his company's (not his personal) website, explaining his feelings on DRM. Sure, he could be pandering to some degree to the anti-DRM crowd. I'm sure there's not an insignificant amount of strategy behind FairPlay not being licensed to other companies. Keep in mind, he's not only the CEO of Apple, Inc., he's also the largest individual shareholder and board member of Disney, which happens to be a very large content producer. For him to speak out against DRM, at all is a big move.
But I don't see any reason to believe that he wouldn't want to see DRM removed entirely. Apple doesn't need the store to lock people into the iPod. The masses have already chosen the iPod as the portable music player. iPod has become a general term for mp3 players. Less DRM = more demand for players in general, the iPod in particular.
Of course Jobs is a businessman, interested in increasing market share and making money, so it makes sense to not completely trust him. But to say he must be lying just because he says what we'd like to hear is going a little too far.
First off the title of the article is "Wi-Fi phones reviewed" not Skype phones reviewed, not dual mode phones reviewed, not Vonage phones reviewed. None of the models discussed actually support any sort of generic Voip, although I think Google Talk is sorta SIP based so the Sony might qualify if it can be delinked from Google. They ignored the actual standards based WiFi VoIP phones which do exist.
Vonage offers the Starcom phone, but you can get that one separate from them and use it as a regular SIP client. The Mylo supports several services besides Google, so I'd guess it also would support standard SIP. I don't know anything about the rest, though.
Have you tried watching videos in Quicktime or iTunes? That doesn't work for me, I just get garbage (VLC works great, though) and I'm not sure if it's Apple's fault or NVidia's. It's an annoying side effect of my "upgrade", though, and it would be nice to have it fixed.
I heard a comment while listening to the news on my radio from a Best Buy manager early this morning in which he stated that today will be like the release day for the Nintendo Wii with sporadic availability of Vista in stores for months to come. Somehow I doubt that people will be lining up and fighting for copies of this operating system like they did for Windows '95.
Especially considering that fact that it is available as a download... If Nintendo could have produced Wiis as downloadable software, there sure wouldn't have been many lines at stores. And I'm sure that most people who have an existing computer to install Vista on, and are really eager to get it, will be the type of people to have a broadband connection and a DVD burner.
And to the moron manager that said that: Since when does telling potential customers that they'll have to camp out for several nights in January/February to maybe get a copy of a piece of software encourage people to come to your store?
There is one thing that drives me absolutely mental though... in the windows explorer there is no "up" button, and back does not do the same thing, and yes, I am aware that I can just hit backspace, but when I'm in "mouse only" mode, this does not cut it.
You don't need an Up button anymore. The address bar lists each parent folder as a separate button. You just click on the parent folder you want. Next to each of those folder buttons is a small triangle. If you click that, you get a opop up menu with a list of child folders within that parent folder. I actually sort of like the new style better (Gnome has been doing it in a similar way). You don't have to hit up 3 times to go up three folders, you just click on the folder name that you want. But I guess if they didn't make it obvious enough for you to know that's how to use it, they definitely should re-examine the way they display those folder names, maybe make them look like they're actually buttons.
I can understand that the Up button was in some ways more usable, because it's always in the same place in relation to the address bar. After you've used that button, you don't have to read anything to use it again, or search for the icon, because you know it's there. With the Breadcrumb method, you do have to read the folder names to find the one you want, so in a way, it is a little more annoying. But if you're going Up more than one level, I think it is easier and faster.
I had one of the Vista RC's on my laptop, and just updated to the release version of Ultimate through the company's business copy. It runs like molasses on my P4 which runs XP and Ubuntu Edgy flawlessly. Shutting down takes forever, and logging in takes even longer if I'm not hooked up to the company LAN. I'll probably keep Vista on here for a while, but the next time I decide this laptop needs to be wiped and redone, I'll do it with XP.
One annoying issue I've been having, which I just figured out the other day, was sometimes when I would power on, I would get the "Resuming from hibernate" message, even though I hadn't remembered hibernating. As soon as it was done resuming, it would say "Shutting Down". I finally realized that sometimes after I hit shutdown, I unplug the AC adapter, then close the lid. For some reason, Vista doesn't know any better than to try and hibernate even though it's in the middle of the shutdown process (did I mention shutdown takes a long time?). So I had to change my power settings to not hibernate when the lid is closed on battery or on AC power. Also, I don't care for "the new sleep" (haven't there been versions of sleep since '95, and none of them work right?). At least, I don't like the idea on my laptop. Maybe it would be fine for a desktop. But I don't want the default shutdown option on my laptop to but it in a low-power state. What if I don't use it for a week or two, then suddenly I need to use it on battery?
The power settings are an interesting change, indicative of the rest of the change in the user experience. They have a simple, general set of power settings, then there's an advanced button that throws any possible power option at you. I think the idea is OK, but the presentation makes it feel overwhelming. I think they want to make everything "simple", but they do it in a way to try and draw attention to how simple it is, which ends up making it more complex when you actually have to do anything. I can't really put my finger on it, but I don't like their attempts at simplicity.
I don't see any compelling reason to use Vista for now. It amazes me that for 6 years Apple has made Mac OSX run faster with each release (at least, that's my understanding, I'm not a regular Apple user), and in the same time frame, Windows has gotten much, much slower. It's crazy to think that this laptop was a pretty fast, new machine when Vista was halfway through the development process. Just think about that: When they started showing off developer previews, the computers they were using to preview Vista back then would hardly run it today. I really do think Microsoft (and its customers) would do a lot better by having smaller releases, much more often, and for a much smaller upgrade price. That way they would stay on top of features, security, and performance better.
Yep, however vista does have a window manager, called DWM.
But killing DWM doesn't seem to have any visible effect on the UI at all. Windows are still drawn exactly the same way they were. Window decorations are still there. Maybe it's only used for the Aero stuff (which my laptop won't do at all).
Actually the Debian installer referenced in the OP won't work on Vista, because there's no boot.ini. So it's not much better than loadlin for Vista. (Unless someone knows of a workaround?)
Try DownloadHelper. There's a few other extensions like it too. I really like DownloadHelper. I use it with a Windows build of ffmpeg along with a batch file so I can drag and drop.flv files I download from YouTube to convert them to play on my iPod. It's not as simple as if they let you just download it in an iPod format (that's one feature Google Video has that I wish YouTube could pick up soon... I think it would make YouTube's already explosive popularity even bigger), but it works pretty well, and is easy enough.
There's also iTube (standalone program, not a Firefox extension) which does the downloading and the conversion, then automaticallly imports the video to iTunes. It's easy and very convenient, but sometimes it can't download the videos correctly... (could be my network connection?) I think there's a newer version of it now, so I'll have to try that out to see if it works better for me.
And the same DRM that Zune uses is supported on over a hundred of other devices made by dozens of other companies. www.playsforsure.com will help you find such devices that are supported. Let's see Apple do that.
Apparently you haven't heard: PlaysForSure is not compatible with the Zune. That means that any DRM-based stores out there which used PlaysForSure before the Zune came out (isn't that all of them but iTunes?) will not function with the Zune, and as far as I know, tracks from the Zune store will not function on PlaysForSure devices.
It's funny because France has been threatening stuff like this for months now, and now MS stepped in, as the single company that should benefit from cutting off iTunes and just legitimized Apple's strategy and said to Hell with the old strategy. It was actually kind of nice to see Microsoft do that.
P.S. I hope you're not planning to buy a Zune based on the information you just stated.
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully it's designed so that if the flash fails, it can go gracefully, leaving the spinning disk still useable. Although the flash is probably more reliable than the spinning disk, so maybe that wouldn't matter.
A) Vonage has free calling to the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Italy, the UK, and Ireland (with the unlimited plan). If that area doesn't satisfy your needs, you're probably a niche customer, not the general public. I haven't looked at their rates to other areas of the world (except for one phone call to Brazil, but that was pretty reasonable, I thought), and of course there will always be people who want to call family or business contacts in Asia, South America, Africa, etc., but for most American households, the included calling area is pretty darn good.
B) When I signed up (~20 months ago), Vonage was rated 2nd to AT&T's VoIP service for quality, and first for reliability. The only problems I've had with quality were either hardware issues, or a lack of QoS in the phone adapter/router they sent me. The hardware issues were fixed with a replacement (which was sent quickly), and the QoS can be easily solved with a separate router (an inexpensive VoIP device probably shouldn't be intended to be a home's main router anyway).
C) If you have a broadband connection you can use for VoIP at your home, it's probably either cable, FTTH, or DSL. For cable or fiber, the bandwidth won't be noticeable for the vast majority of people. For lower-speed DSL connections, it could be a problem, but how much more efficient are other services? Enough to really make a difference? Besides, many people don't live within range of DSL (myself, for one).
D) Vonage has $15 plans and $25 plans. For a while they were running a deal where you could prepay a year at $20/month (maybe they still are). First month is always free, referring a friend gets you 2 free months.
Vonage isn't perfect... It would be nice if you SIP credentials were not locked and hidden away in the commissioned phone adapters (Yes I know how to find mine, but I'm not interested in violating the terms of service). I also wish that people I call would see my name on their CallerID, not Vonage. But the quality is good enough that most people aren't bothered by any sound quality shortcomings (especially in a world of cell phones), and they are reliable, and above all big. Vonage has phone numbers available in a lot of areas where other VoIP providers don't.
Also, they have a deal now (I think just about all the big VoIP companies are doing it, too), where you prepay for a year, at $20/month. So that's really not bad. Lots of features... they're not perfect (where's the Anonymous Call Rejection?), but they're not bad. Plus free calls to 5 European countries (if you count Ireland and the UK as European), Canada and Puerto Rico.
We've been with Vonage for over a year and a half, and haven't had many complaints. Qwest has a much, much worse track record for us. In fact, I mostly switched to Vonage to spite Qwest. I've heard lots of complaints about Vonage Customer Service, but they've been alright for us, plus with Vonage, you can manage your own features, instead of paying Qwest money every time you want to activate a feature, then play monthly, even 6 months after you've requested that they turn off that feature. We've gotten screwed over by Qwest's "Spirit of Service" so many times, I'll never go back to them.
Good hell, you're right! I thought you were joking, but then a joke like that would have been funnier if we were talking about a Mac, so I should have known. I guess it makes more sense than having it be the default player for .wav files.
But I would have thought Sound Recorder would be all Aero'ed up like sol... Buttons fading, and flipping around, the recorded sound magically enhanced by the power of DirectX, and requiring a performance index score of at least 1.0 to run...
Do you work with Senator Stevens? You'd better have the IT guys clear out the series of tubes so you can get your internets faster! It should be an easy enough job to clean out the internal tubes, but I don't know about the external ones... better take this one up with Congress.
(I'm kidding, and I mean no disrespect to the parent poster.)
I know it was just a joke, but it doesn't quite work... Apparently you haven't seen the new solitaire. For the first time since Win 3.0 (at least), they've changed the look of sol.
Calc is still the same, though.
Carry on, carry on.
I use Firefox all the time on Vista and it works as well as anything. I would have been surprised to see it "Certified" by Microsoft, though. I have OpenOffice installed, but I barely use it on that machine. OO Writer doesn't have any problems opening, at least. I really haven't had any problems with iTunes, other than the issue where if I use the Windows utility to Stop/Remove the iPod instead of ejecting it in iTunes, the next time I plug it into that machine, Windows tells me its hard drive may have a problem. I haven't noticed any problems with any of my files on it, though.
I agree that the surprising part of TFA was the software that did make the list. The Google Desktop Search as you mentioned, as well as WordPerfect and some others. But then I guess they have to be able to show that some (a carefully selected portion?) of their competitors' apps can run, otherwise they don't get the privilege of saying that Vista can run all of this software you use that Mac/Linux can't. I don't think MS feels very threatened by WordPerfect, so it's OK to throw them on the list.
Chuck Norris knows all about the list... he IS the list, and he'll give a roundhouse kick to the face to anyone who repeats the list without permission.
Not to mention, videos from YouTube are always
On the other hand, Viacom just decided that it is to easy to get videos from YouTube, so I guess it just depends on how the content provider feels.
And so will Miss Shue, who discovered cold fusion for Mr. Kilmer after she was able to travel from 1985 to 2015 with Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Fox, thanks to Mr. Fusion.
Tell that to Amazon.
You're right, I forgot to add the disclaimer that I don't ever buy music from PlaysForSure stores, so I've never had an interest in checking it out. I still should have googled for it first. That said, FairPlay hacks seem to get much more press on Slashdot and Digg.
I'm interested to know then how Microsoft handles hacks against PlaysForSure. Are they required to fix the holes or face having all of the PFS-based stores lose their licenses to sell the music? If so, how do they manage the logistics of dealing with so many different stores and devices? I'm just wondering why MS can do it, but Apple doesn't. Maybe MS just puts all of the effort into fighting the fires that Apple just doesn't want to deal with (I'm not saying that's bad, either for Apple or MS).
It's funny how if that's true, it shows that even "the big 4" realize that a lack of DRM would lead to success... even so much that it would still threaten their business model. Further proving that DRM is not to prevent piracy, but to give them control over all music, not just their own.
I didn't interpret what Jobs said to mean that licensing FairPlay to other companies would make the actual keys less secure, but rather that it would make it more difficult to maintain the whole system, especially security updates, if breaches do occur. As it is, when FairPlay gets broken, a new version of iTunes is released (with new firmware for the iPod), and eventually you won't be able to use the iTunes store without the new version of the iTunes software. That's confusing and irritating enough for customers, but imagine if they license their DRM to 3 separate manufacturers. When PlayFair/hymn/whatever-it's-called-today breaks (or works around) FairPlay, 4 different manufacturers would now have to have updated firmware for each of their players, which may or may not be tied to a new version of their own music management software. Then Apple has to at least be aware of and give some support for (to the other companies, not the end-users) FairPlay on 4 different platforms. It makes sense to me.
Of course, I haven't really ever heard of Microsoft's PlaysForSure being hacked, even though pretty much every non-Apple portable player uses it. Why? I don't know, maybe I just haven't paid attention, maybe DRM is the one area where Microsoft has been consistent and solid... too bad even MS has abandoned PlaysForSure for the Zune.
It's funny to me that France, Norway, and many people on slashdot complain about Apple's DRM... then Microsoft turns around and does the exact same thing in tying their player and DRM together in one inseparable package, leaving the one viable multi-company DRM system out in the cold.
As far as campaigning versus advocating, what more do you want? He's already been arguing pricing with the companies ever since the iTunes store opened. He's already turned down paying a fee to the RIAA for each iPod sold, now he's made a very public statement on his company's (not his personal) website, explaining his feelings on DRM. Sure, he could be pandering to some degree to the anti-DRM crowd. I'm sure there's not an insignificant amount of strategy behind FairPlay not being licensed to other companies. Keep in mind, he's not only the CEO of Apple, Inc., he's also the largest individual shareholder and board member of Disney, which happens to be a very large content producer. For him to speak out against DRM, at all is a big move.
But I don't see any reason to believe that he wouldn't want to see DRM removed entirely. Apple doesn't need the store to lock people into the iPod. The masses have already chosen the iPod as the portable music player. iPod has become a general term for mp3 players. Less DRM = more demand for players in general, the iPod in particular.
Of course Jobs is a businessman, interested in increasing market share and making money, so it makes sense to not completely trust him. But to say he must be lying just because he says what we'd like to hear is going a little too far.
Didn't we know this back when the whole Janet Jackson/Super Bowl thing happened? Maybe this is running today in honor of the anniversary of that.
Thank goodness for my MythTV box.
Vonage offers the Starcom phone, but you can get that one separate from them and use it as a regular SIP client. The Mylo supports several services besides Google, so I'd guess it also would support standard SIP. I don't know anything about the rest, though.
Have you tried watching videos in Quicktime or iTunes? That doesn't work for me, I just get garbage (VLC works great, though) and I'm not sure if it's Apple's fault or NVidia's. It's an annoying side effect of my "upgrade", though, and it would be nice to have it fixed.
Especially considering that fact that it is available as a download... If Nintendo could have produced Wiis as downloadable software, there sure wouldn't have been many lines at stores. And I'm sure that most people who have an existing computer to install Vista on, and are really eager to get it, will be the type of people to have a broadband connection and a DVD burner.
And to the moron manager that said that: Since when does telling potential customers that they'll have to camp out for several nights in January/February to maybe get a copy of a piece of software encourage people to come to your store?
You don't need an Up button anymore. The address bar lists each parent folder as a separate button. You just click on the parent folder you want. Next to each of those folder buttons is a small triangle. If you click that, you get a opop up menu with a list of child folders within that parent folder. I actually sort of like the new style better (Gnome has been doing it in a similar way). You don't have to hit up 3 times to go up three folders, you just click on the folder name that you want. But I guess if they didn't make it obvious enough for you to know that's how to use it, they definitely should re-examine the way they display those folder names, maybe make them look like they're actually buttons.
I can understand that the Up button was in some ways more usable, because it's always in the same place in relation to the address bar. After you've used that button, you don't have to read anything to use it again, or search for the icon, because you know it's there. With the Breadcrumb method, you do have to read the folder names to find the one you want, so in a way, it is a little more annoying. But if you're going Up more than one level, I think it is easier and faster.
It's only a Start button in the Windows Classic interface... In the Vista or Aero interfaces, it's a little Windows Logo Bubble. (WLB)
I had one of the Vista RC's on my laptop, and just updated to the release version of Ultimate through the company's business copy. It runs like molasses on my P4 which runs XP and Ubuntu Edgy flawlessly. Shutting down takes forever, and logging in takes even longer if I'm not hooked up to the company LAN. I'll probably keep Vista on here for a while, but the next time I decide this laptop needs to be wiped and redone, I'll do it with XP.
One annoying issue I've been having, which I just figured out the other day, was sometimes when I would power on, I would get the "Resuming from hibernate" message, even though I hadn't remembered hibernating. As soon as it was done resuming, it would say "Shutting Down". I finally realized that sometimes after I hit shutdown, I unplug the AC adapter, then close the lid. For some reason, Vista doesn't know any better than to try and hibernate even though it's in the middle of the shutdown process (did I mention shutdown takes a long time?). So I had to change my power settings to not hibernate when the lid is closed on battery or on AC power. Also, I don't care for "the new sleep" (haven't there been versions of sleep since '95, and none of them work right?). At least, I don't like the idea on my laptop. Maybe it would be fine for a desktop. But I don't want the default shutdown option on my laptop to but it in a low-power state. What if I don't use it for a week or two, then suddenly I need to use it on battery?
The power settings are an interesting change, indicative of the rest of the change in the user experience. They have a simple, general set of power settings, then there's an advanced button that throws any possible power option at you. I think the idea is OK, but the presentation makes it feel overwhelming. I think they want to make everything "simple", but they do it in a way to try and draw attention to how simple it is, which ends up making it more complex when you actually have to do anything. I can't really put my finger on it, but I don't like their attempts at simplicity.
I don't see any compelling reason to use Vista for now. It amazes me that for 6 years Apple has made Mac OSX run faster with each release (at least, that's my understanding, I'm not a regular Apple user), and in the same time frame, Windows has gotten much, much slower. It's crazy to think that this laptop was a pretty fast, new machine when Vista was halfway through the development process. Just think about that: When they started showing off developer previews, the computers they were using to preview Vista back then would hardly run it today. I really do think Microsoft (and its customers) would do a lot better by having smaller releases, much more often, and for a much smaller upgrade price. That way they would stay on top of features, security, and performance better.
Just my 2 cents.
But killing DWM doesn't seem to have any visible effect on the UI at all. Windows are still drawn exactly the same way they were. Window decorations are still there. Maybe it's only used for the Aero stuff (which my laptop won't do at all).
Actually the Debian installer referenced in the OP won't work on Vista, because there's no boot.ini. So it's not much better than loadlin for Vista. (Unless someone knows of a workaround?)
Try DownloadHelper. There's a few other extensions like it too. I really like DownloadHelper. I use it with a Windows build of ffmpeg along with a batch file so I can drag and drop .flv files I download from YouTube to convert them to play on my iPod. It's not as simple as if they let you just download it in an iPod format (that's one feature Google Video has that I wish YouTube could pick up soon... I think it would make YouTube's already explosive popularity even bigger), but it works pretty well, and is easy enough.
There's also iTube (standalone program, not a Firefox extension) which does the downloading and the conversion, then automaticallly imports the video to iTunes. It's easy and very convenient, but sometimes it can't download the videos correctly... (could be my network connection?) I think there's a newer version of it now, so I'll have to try that out to see if it works better for me.
And the same DRM that Zune uses is supported on over a hundred of other devices made by dozens of other companies. www.playsforsure.com will help you find such devices that are supported. Let's see Apple do that.
Apparently you haven't heard: PlaysForSure is not compatible with the Zune. That means that any DRM-based stores out there which used PlaysForSure before the Zune came out (isn't that all of them but iTunes?) will not function with the Zune, and as far as I know, tracks from the Zune store will not function on PlaysForSure devices.
It's funny because France has been threatening stuff like this for months now, and now MS stepped in, as the single company that should benefit from cutting off iTunes and just legitimized Apple's strategy and said to Hell with the old strategy. It was actually kind of nice to see Microsoft do that.
P.S. I hope you're not planning to buy a Zune based on the information you just stated.