There's a desktop, pretty pictures, and the same old apps.
We're talking, an end-user, accidentally opening the command prompt (or "running DOS" as they know it) and happening to choose to type "fdisk/mbr". (or whatever)
Yes, that's very true. However, with the more popular-with-newbies Linux distros (Redhat/Fedora, Mandrake, SuSe), we're talking roughly the same procedure: accidentally opening the command prompt and happening to choose to type "lilo" (or whatever). My point was simply to point out that Windows does not completely insulate the user from doing something stupid. In some cases, it makes it harder, but in this particular case, I don't think the difference is significant.
Excuse my ignorance about quantum encryption, and my lack of time to look it up at the moment, but doesn't that just let you know when there IS an eavesdropper (since the intended receipient can't receive the message)? How is that "perfect" security?
"I lament how trackpoints are disappearing off laptop keyboards these days."
I can't second that, I hate those things. Maybe they are better when you get used to them, but I have had to spend zero amount of time learning to use the alternative, the trackpad.
Actually, my Toshiba laptop has one of those things, and I absolutely hate it. Don't think I haven't tried getting used to it, because i've had it for over 2 years, and never could learn to like it. I have to hook up a regular mouse to be productive on my laptop. Or just do everything from the console, which is what I usually do.
I'm currently working for a certain 3-letter ISP (no, not that one. The one that's owned by that one company that we all love to hate) and my supervisor took a great amount of pleasure in having some person's account shut down for "commercial use." I don't know for sure that they were spamming, but the account was shut down after we saw it on a TV commercial that was running here. That was some money well spent for the people running the ad and just having the account shut down as a result...
Obviously we are not spamming people, that avenue is right out of the question.
I actually got a spam about spam blocking software once (not yours). I thought it was quite funny. I've put it up here.
Like you, I know M$ will get around or ignore all of this.
Probably.
Let them go, straight to their demise. The more power they have to tax and annoy their users the faster their users will leave.
In theory, that sounds good, but in reality, most users either: a) don't know that there are any good alternatives, or b) aren't willing to spend the time and effort to install and learn to use the alternatives that exist. Until there are some major computer vendors that preload and support Linux or some other alternative operating systems, mainstream users will not use anything but Microsoft operating systems.
They've alread run off their developers. Now they can run off their users. What are companies going to do when Java and Samba don't work for them? Switch to activeX and IIS with all their security holes? No, they are going to be fed up with it all.
I'm not really familiar with the state of the Windows developer community, since I use Linux almost exclusively (I still have a Windows install to play some of my games, i.e. Mechwarrior 2, Diablo 2, etc), but I don't see any lack of commercial software. The number of individual developers may or may not be decreasing, but it seems to me that the average Windows user doesn't use a lot of software made by those developers anyway. My experience shows that people tend to mostly use commercial software like Office or Netscape. I don't see commercial developers leaving any time soon (unfortunately).
The true cost of M$ greed is apparent as more users and companies jump ship and brag about it. Bad practices will undo them and the end is closer than they think.
I certainly hope so. I for one can't wait until people start to realize just how Microsoft is only trying to make them more dependent on Microsoft software. Users are nothing more than consumers (in the sense that they do nothing but consume product and crap cash).
It's amazing how little people know about alternatives to M$. They are unaware of what it even looks like. "Gee, that looks very windows like", is a comment I get when people at work get a glimps at my laptop, or see pictures from home.
That is true. I have had some amazed looks and commments from people at my previous job who saw my laptop running various X enviornments (Gnome+Sawfish, WindowMaker, Enlightenment, etc). I don't think they had any intention of looking into the possibility of using something other than Windows though.
Linus, BSD, Apple, Sun and the US govrnment won't beat M$, M$ will ruin themselves. The harder they make it for others to develop, "compete" they call it, the more trouble they put their users through, and the more expensive they make it all, the faster they will change or die. I don't think they can change. They have already created a huge potential. As users learn the new path of least resistance, the current trickle of user conversions will become a flood that will make the early 90s adoption of Win3.1 look slow and small.
Microsoft may be doing their part in digging their own grave, but they won't do it alone. As I said above, there needs to be a mainstream vendor selling PCs with an alternative OS preinstalled before most people will migrate away from Microsoft products. I think that businesses will be the first ones to migrate in large numbers. They will have their own IT staff to do the work, and won't be dependent on the hardware vendor. They will be much more willing to download a distribution, or buy a CDROM. Hopefully it will be a trend that will catch on.
Re:battery life?
on
Pocket PC 2002
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, the average runtime on my Visor is 10 hours, 11 minutes. That is actual runtime. The average time between battery changes is 31 days, 1 hour, 58 minutes. My highest actual runtime (at least out of the last 10 battery changes is 1 day, 2 hours, 9 minutes). Just because you get "over a month of regular use" doesn't mean you are getting significantly more actual runtime. That said, I wouldn't buy a PocketPC based device. The iPaqs & similar machines sure look sweet, but if I want to play MP3s, I'll buy a dedicated player. For PDA functions, my Visor is serving me quite well, thank you.
BTW, the numbers I mentioned above come from a program called Runtime. I currently have v1.5.1, but here is a newer version on PalmGear.
>The users would need a fair amount of training to
>be able to deal with troubleshooting in the new
>enviornment...
Your users actually try to troubleshoot their own problems? Amazing. When I was working support, mine would just come whining to me at the first sign of trouble - "My ______ is broken." You must truly inspire fear in your users. Congrats:)
Not only is there no evidence that they used encrypted email, but according to this story (originally posted in response to a previous slashdot story), there seems to be evidence that they in fact did not use encrypted email.
Where was our law enforcement then? How do they figure that having crippled encryption will make us any safer? They didn't catch on to the terrorists' plans, and they were apparently sending messages IN THE CLEAR.
Answer: They probably don't think it will protect anyone. I think that they just want to look like they are doing SOMETHING. They have to look like they are being tough on terrorism. <SARCASM>After all, who besides a criminal uses encryption anyway</SARCASM>
We all know that crowbars are hardly used except by criminals and the paranoid. I am not trying to flame people, but it's the honest truth. Personally, I don't use them nor does anyone I know. However, I think it's ok if someone needs to use a crowbar for some legitimate reason. The problem is that criminals are abusing these crowbars to commit crimes.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a desktop, pretty pictures, and the same old apps.
We're talking, an end-user, accidentally opening the command prompt (or "running DOS" as they know it) and happening to choose to type "fdisk /mbr". (or whatever)
Yes, that's very true. However, with the more popular-with-newbies Linux distros (Redhat/Fedora, Mandrake, SuSe), we're talking roughly the same procedure: accidentally opening the command prompt and happening to choose to type "lilo" (or whatever). My point was simply to point out that Windows does not completely insulate the user from doing something stupid. In some cases, it makes it harder, but in this particular case, I don't think the difference is significant.
it's just as easy ("one command") to "accidentally" install a boot loader and "disable an OS" in Windows.
/mbr'?
ever hear of 'fdisk
any OS gives you enough rope to hang yourself.
Excuse my ignorance about quantum encryption, and my lack of time to look it up at the moment, but doesn't that just let you know when there IS an eavesdropper (since the intended receipient can't receive the message)? How is that "perfect" security?
Actually, 0.70 works fine for me. According to the Changelog, support for MSNP9 has been there since 0.69.
It said that they're donating the first primetime spot. From the article: "...each network donating 30 seconds in the first prime time break."
I can't second that, I hate those things. Maybe they are better when you get used to them, but I have had to spend zero amount of time learning to use the alternative, the trackpad.
Actually, my Toshiba laptop has one of those things, and I absolutely hate it. Don't think I haven't tried getting used to it, because i've had it for over 2 years, and never could learn to like it. I have to hook up a regular mouse to be productive on my laptop. Or just do everything from the console, which is what I usually do.
the latter.
I'm currently working for a certain 3-letter ISP (no, not that one. The one that's owned by that one company that we all love to hate) and my supervisor took a great amount of pleasure in having some person's account shut down for "commercial use." I don't know for sure that they were spamming, but the account was shut down after we saw it on a TV commercial that was running here. That was some money well spent for the people running the ad and just having the account shut down as a result...
Obviously we are not spamming people, that avenue is right out of the question. I actually got a spam about spam blocking software once (not yours). I thought it was quite funny. I've put it up here.
Probably.
Let them go, straight to their demise. The more power they have to tax and annoy their users the faster their users will leave.
In theory, that sounds good, but in reality, most users either: a) don't know that there are any good alternatives, or b) aren't willing to spend the time and effort to install and learn to use the alternatives that exist. Until there are some major computer vendors that preload and support Linux or some other alternative operating systems, mainstream users will not use anything but Microsoft operating systems.
They've alread run off their developers. Now they can run off their users. What are companies going to do when Java and Samba don't work for them? Switch to activeX and IIS with all their security holes? No, they are going to be fed up with it all.
I'm not really familiar with the state of the Windows developer community, since I use Linux almost exclusively (I still have a Windows install to play some of my games, i.e. Mechwarrior 2, Diablo 2, etc), but I don't see any lack of commercial software. The number of individual developers may or may not be decreasing, but it seems to me that the average Windows user doesn't use a lot of software made by those developers anyway. My experience shows that people tend to mostly use commercial software like Office or Netscape. I don't see commercial developers leaving any time soon (unfortunately).
The true cost of M$ greed is apparent as more users and companies jump ship and brag about it. Bad practices will undo them and the end is closer than they think.
I certainly hope so. I for one can't wait until people start to realize just how Microsoft is only trying to make them more dependent on Microsoft software. Users are nothing more than consumers (in the sense that they do nothing but consume product and crap cash).
It's amazing how little people know about alternatives to M$. They are unaware of what it even looks like. "Gee, that looks very windows like", is a comment I get when people at work get a glimps at my laptop, or see pictures from home.
That is true. I have had some amazed looks and commments from people at my previous job who saw my laptop running various X enviornments (Gnome+Sawfish, WindowMaker, Enlightenment, etc). I don't think they had any intention of looking into the possibility of using something other than Windows though.
Linus, BSD, Apple, Sun and the US govrnment won't beat M$, M$ will ruin themselves. The harder they make it for others to develop, "compete" they call it, the more trouble they put their users through, and the more expensive they make it all, the faster they will change or die. I don't think they can change. They have already created a huge potential. As users learn the new path of least resistance, the current trickle of user conversions will become a flood that will make the early 90s adoption of Win3.1 look slow and small.
Microsoft may be doing their part in digging their own grave, but they won't do it alone. As I said above, there needs to be a mainstream vendor selling PCs with an alternative OS preinstalled before most people will migrate away from Microsoft products. I think that businesses will be the first ones to migrate in large numbers. They will have their own IT staff to do the work, and won't be dependent on the hardware vendor. They will be much more willing to download a distribution, or buy a CDROM. Hopefully it will be a trend that will catch on.
BTW, the numbers I mentioned above come from a program called Runtime. I currently have v1.5.1, but here is a newer version on PalmGear.
>The users would need a fair amount of training to
:)
>be able to deal with troubleshooting in the new
>enviornment...
Your users actually try to troubleshoot their own problems? Amazing. When I was working support, mine would just come whining to me at the first sign of trouble - "My ______ is broken." You must truly inspire fear in your users. Congrats
Not only is there no evidence that they used encrypted email, but according to this story (originally posted in response to a previous slashdot story), there seems to be evidence that they in fact did not use encrypted email.
Where was our law enforcement then? How do they figure that having crippled encryption will make us any safer? They didn't catch on to the terrorists' plans, and they were apparently sending messages IN THE CLEAR.
Answer: They probably don't think it will protect anyone. I think that they just want to look like they are doing SOMETHING. They have to look like they are being tough on terrorism. <SARCASM>After all, who besides a criminal uses encryption anyway</SARCASM>
We all know that crowbars are hardly used except by criminals and the paranoid. I am not trying to flame people, but it's the honest truth. Personally, I don't use them nor does anyone I know. However, I think it's ok if someone needs to use a crowbar for some legitimate reason. The problem is that criminals are abusing these crowbars to commit crimes.