Don't mention it. Although I think it's worth noting--as the Snopes article does--the moral of the story is one we should remember; that the most technological solution is not always the best one.
Superfetch analyzes your usage and loads programs you use right away into RAM after the computer boots. So that RAM usage was from Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, azureus, etc. You can even disable the superfetch service if it's not something you need/want.
People who are having problems and issues with Vista are not as common as you seem to think. There's just a vocal minority, especially on sites like Slashdot, that hates MS and will never say anything that isn't negative about Vista. And even when people do have problems it is usually because of either crapware added by the OEM (not something MS can fix), or device drivers written by the manufacturer that are buggy.
Provide me with evidence and examples of consistent problems with Vista itself that can't be explained by the two things I just mentioned. If you can't do that, you're just trolling.
The 50%+ RAM usage is caused by Vista caching programs and data so it can be accessed faster, that's not the OS. You really should know that if you're going to try and talk about this subject.
Most people mean the Source version when they say Counter Strike these days. Substitute CS:S for Crysis or whatever, same thing applies. Vista is the way to go.
I use Vista on my main machine(s). Updates don't take longer than XP, IE never locked up on me, and my programs are just as reliable as they were when I was using XP.
If you're looking to buy a new computer anyway, get Vista. A couple less FPS isn't going to ruin your gaming experience. That's what you're worrying about; getting 120 FPS in counter strike or 123. Vista is rock solid on new hardware*, even 64 bit version just doesn't have the problems it did a year ago. I'll admit that the gap becomes more noticeable the lower your hardware specs get but you said you're building a gaming machine which says to me you're willing to spend a little more to get more power so the difference between Vista and XP won't be apparent to your eyes--you'll need benchmarking software to measure the difference.
Vista WORKS now, guys. Why don't you try it again and stop basing your idea of Vista on your impression of it at launch, which was no worse than XP when it first came out.
*disregarding the problems from vendor added crapware, but that'll affect you even if you buy an XP machine. Install a clean version of Vista.
My resolution wasn't detected correctly by default and the resolution I needed to set it to (1440x900, a very common wide screen format) wasn't available in the change resolution settings. I installed the ATI driver (it's an x800), rebooted and got a black screen with a nice "Signal out of range" message. Excellent work, guys. The correct screen resolution is just something that has to work right the first time. There should at least be a way to add new resolutions without having to open up a root terminal.
It's still beta, so maybe this will be fixed before release or in an update but I'm not expecting it to be resolved.
Generating static electricity isn't very difficult. I can't imagine it would be very hard to repeat this problem and prove that static was causing it. But the whole idea of the scientific method has really fallen out of favor in this country, why not just make up an explanation that feels true instead of investigating. I'm sure no one was trying to sway the elections...
Electronic voting is such a horrible, horrible idea.
There is a lot of time when the sun is not shining on any part of the US. Unless you have a global power grid that can transfer power to the side of the planet that is experiencing night, you have no way of providing power 24/7. Storing that much power in batteries for night time use isn't possible with current battery tech. I'm not ruling out that it may become possible sometime in the future, but nuclear is ready NOW. It's ready now to provide hundreds of years of safe, clean (fuel can be reprocessed until safe), efficient power. Producing a solar panel for every roof would probably be more expensive than building a few dozen more nuclear plants.
As for wind, it has similar problems or reliability and consistency. It is however a better option than solar because it could be said that it is always windy somewhere in the US. The problem is that of scale, it would take many thousands of wind turbines to equal one nuclear plant.
Regular unleaded is still around $3.60/gl where I live. That doesn't sound like much of a drop off. An EV would still be a very attractive option for me and everyone else in the state of California. Also the longer gas remains "cheap" (in a relative way) the longer we will put off developing alternatives--and meanwhile the environment continues to be affected--so it is harmful if gas burning engines remain acceptable and affordable.
Honda offers a version of their Civic with a hybrid configuration and it looks fairly similar to all the other cars in its class on the road. It is less popular than the more unique and recognizably shaped Prius.
Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.
Well I think secret questions/password hints by definition are NOT proper security procedures. That seems like a user choice though, doesn't it? I'm free to disregard the password hint option, and I could just bang my head against the keyboard and enter in random jibberish for my secret question that no one (not even me) would be able to guess.
That's really the only valid concern I've read about the nature of cloud computing. I think the danger can be mitigated with common sense security measures (strong passwords) and a level of responsibility on the service provide to properly encrypt and store sensitive user information and data. It could also be said that there is already a risk of someone hacking my personal computer anyway, or just stealing it. Even if I don't use web e-mail or document storage my data could still leak out. The nature of the internet is a force multiplier for that threat, but it is not completely mitigated by taking your data offline.
It's never the only copy of my data, except for e-mail. And even then when someone sends me something that file gets saved locally. Losing my personal correspondences might be unfortunate but it'll never cost me money. If it could potentially I would be running my own server. I consider the "cloud" to be a sort of ubiquitous back up and sharing solution, not a first and only data repository.
I would be willing to stake my Slashdot karma on the prediction that OpenOffice or a reasonable facsimile will always exist as a product I can download and run on my own hardware. E-mail, well I could always use my ISP for my e-mail or even running my own mail server isn't out of the question but the nature of e-mail is that it has to exist somewhere and for most people it's not practical to run their own mail server. And as long as I can still buy HDDs I'll never be reliant on Google or MS to access my photos, music, movies, or documents. Even if Windows eventually becomes nothing more than a thin client connecting to the MS mothership I'm sure I'll still be able to grab a Linux ISO and continue using a real operating system on my own hardware.
Right now all the "cloud computing" I do is free: I use windows Live services, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Notebook. Having these things online and accessible from anywhere is a great convenience and I'm almost always connected to the net anyway so it makes sense for me to use them.
BUT, If they ever think they are going to get a dime from me for these things they are wrong. Offline and free alternatives still exist and will exist forever, I don't need to use these "cloud computing" services. I only use them now because they are free. I even remove the ads on Live and Gmail so they really are making ZERO revenue from me beyond the value of the data they can mine--and they can go right ahead since the whole point of that is to show me targeted ads which, imagine that, I'm never going to see.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't mention it. Although I think it's worth noting--as the Snopes article does--the moral of the story is one we should remember; that the most technological solution is not always the best one.
Not a true story.
Counter Strike Source
Or play crysis and get similar results. Now, don't you look silly? Think before you communicate or you end up making a fool of yourself.
Superfetch analyzes your usage and loads programs you use right away into RAM after the computer boots. So that RAM usage was from Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes, azureus, etc. You can even disable the superfetch service if it's not something you need/want.
People who are having problems and issues with Vista are not as common as you seem to think. There's just a vocal minority, especially on sites like Slashdot, that hates MS and will never say anything that isn't negative about Vista. And even when people do have problems it is usually because of either crapware added by the OEM (not something MS can fix), or device drivers written by the manufacturer that are buggy.
Provide me with evidence and examples of consistent problems with Vista itself that can't be explained by the two things I just mentioned. If you can't do that, you're just trolling.
The 50%+ RAM usage is caused by Vista caching programs and data so it can be accessed faster, that's not the OS. You really should know that if you're going to try and talk about this subject.
My primary browser is FF, but I've used IE 7 and 8 enough to know that internet explorer is comparable in reliability to Firefox.
Most people mean the Source version when they say Counter Strike these days. Substitute CS:S for Crysis or whatever, same thing applies. Vista is the way to go.
I use Vista on my main machine(s). Updates don't take longer than XP, IE never locked up on me, and my programs are just as reliable as they were when I was using XP.
None of my computers came with one either, I downloaded an ISO.
If you're looking to buy a new computer anyway, get Vista. A couple less FPS isn't going to ruin your gaming experience. That's what you're worrying about; getting 120 FPS in counter strike or 123. Vista is rock solid on new hardware*, even 64 bit version just doesn't have the problems it did a year ago. I'll admit that the gap becomes more noticeable the lower your hardware specs get but you said you're building a gaming machine which says to me you're willing to spend a little more to get more power so the difference between Vista and XP won't be apparent to your eyes--you'll need benchmarking software to measure the difference.
Vista WORKS now, guys. Why don't you try it again and stop basing your idea of Vista on your impression of it at launch, which was no worse than XP when it first came out.
*disregarding the problems from vendor added crapware, but that'll affect you even if you buy an XP machine. Install a clean version of Vista.
My resolution wasn't detected correctly by default and the resolution I needed to set it to (1440x900, a very common wide screen format) wasn't available in the change resolution settings. I installed the ATI driver (it's an x800), rebooted and got a black screen with a nice "Signal out of range" message. Excellent work, guys. The correct screen resolution is just something that has to work right the first time. There should at least be a way to add new resolutions without having to open up a root terminal.
It's still beta, so maybe this will be fixed before release or in an update but I'm not expecting it to be resolved.
And thank goodness for that!
(Mod me down, it was worth it)
Generating static electricity isn't very difficult. I can't imagine it would be very hard to repeat this problem and prove that static was causing it. But the whole idea of the scientific method has really fallen out of favor in this country, why not just make up an explanation that feels true instead of investigating. I'm sure no one was trying to sway the elections...
Electronic voting is such a horrible, horrible idea.
There is a lot of time when the sun is not shining on any part of the US. Unless you have a global power grid that can transfer power to the side of the planet that is experiencing night, you have no way of providing power 24/7. Storing that much power in batteries for night time use isn't possible with current battery tech. I'm not ruling out that it may become possible sometime in the future, but nuclear is ready NOW. It's ready now to provide hundreds of years of safe, clean (fuel can be reprocessed until safe), efficient power. Producing a solar panel for every roof would probably be more expensive than building a few dozen more nuclear plants.
As for wind, it has similar problems or reliability and consistency. It is however a better option than solar because it could be said that it is always windy somewhere in the US. The problem is that of scale, it would take many thousands of wind turbines to equal one nuclear plant.
Such a feature could be added directly to the vehicle, eliminating the need for a specialized outlet.
Regular unleaded is still around $3.60/gl where I live. That doesn't sound like much of a drop off. An EV would still be a very attractive option for me and everyone else in the state of California. Also the longer gas remains "cheap" (in a relative way) the longer we will put off developing alternatives--and meanwhile the environment continues to be affected--so it is harmful if gas burning engines remain acceptable and affordable.
Honda offers a version of their Civic with a hybrid configuration and it looks fairly similar to all the other cars in its class on the road. It is less popular than the more unique and recognizably shaped Prius.
Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.
If you really require someone to explain to you why then you have not the moral capacity to comprehend the answer.
Well I think secret questions/password hints by definition are NOT proper security procedures. That seems like a user choice though, doesn't it? I'm free to disregard the password hint option, and I could just bang my head against the keyboard and enter in random jibberish for my secret question that no one (not even me) would be able to guess.
That's really the only valid concern I've read about the nature of cloud computing. I think the danger can be mitigated with common sense security measures (strong passwords) and a level of responsibility on the service provide to properly encrypt and store sensitive user information and data. It could also be said that there is already a risk of someone hacking my personal computer anyway, or just stealing it. Even if I don't use web e-mail or document storage my data could still leak out. The nature of the internet is a force multiplier for that threat, but it is not completely mitigated by taking your data offline.
It's never the only copy of my data, except for e-mail. And even then when someone sends me something that file gets saved locally. Losing my personal correspondences might be unfortunate but it'll never cost me money. If it could potentially I would be running my own server. I consider the "cloud" to be a sort of ubiquitous back up and sharing solution, not a first and only data repository.
I would be willing to stake my Slashdot karma on the prediction that OpenOffice or a reasonable facsimile will always exist as a product I can download and run on my own hardware. E-mail, well I could always use my ISP for my e-mail or even running my own mail server isn't out of the question but the nature of e-mail is that it has to exist somewhere and for most people it's not practical to run their own mail server. And as long as I can still buy HDDs I'll never be reliant on Google or MS to access my photos, music, movies, or documents. Even if Windows eventually becomes nothing more than a thin client connecting to the MS mothership I'm sure I'll still be able to grab a Linux ISO and continue using a real operating system on my own hardware.
Right now all the "cloud computing" I do is free: I use windows Live services, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Notebook. Having these things online and accessible from anywhere is a great convenience and I'm almost always connected to the net anyway so it makes sense for me to use them.
BUT, If they ever think they are going to get a dime from me for these things they are wrong. Offline and free alternatives still exist and will exist forever, I don't need to use these "cloud computing" services. I only use them now because they are free. I even remove the ads on Live and Gmail so they really are making ZERO revenue from me beyond the value of the data they can mine--and they can go right ahead since the whole point of that is to show me targeted ads which, imagine that, I'm never going to see.