Re:am I the only one who does not get it?
on
Video iPod Oct 12?
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· Score: 4, Informative
There is, however, a conversion when loading mp3 to an iPod?
Nope, not really. iPods play mp3 files with the built in hardware, but the filesystem on the iPod gives it a weird hash for a name and organizes it in a weird file structure. Perhaps you were recalling something about the Sony music players that spent several hours converting mp3's to their proprietary format when it loaded them onto the player.
It concerned me that their end game is to tie you to their retail service much the same way that MS has done by slightly altering their implementations of standards.
My opinion given the prices/profits they have posted for the iTMS is that their goal is twofold, first they sell music as an incentive for people to buy their devices. Second, they sell music to prevent MS from dominating the space with their proprietary format and making macs second class citizens for music, which would hurt their core market.
would you like to spend some time speculating also on the costs and problems of modifying your production processes to ship an operating system with your boxes that is going to have 1% the demand that the one you've been shipping for 20 years?
So you're saying that you think it costs dell $80+$35+the cost of a hard drive upgrade to skip one step in their manufacturing/packaging operation? Well, ok, that is possible, although I find it unlikely. You did not address, however, why they don't ship the machines without an OS? They go to the extra effort to press and include a CD that no one will ever use or want. Why do they do that, do you suppose?
Also, explain to us how, if there is indeed this satanic compact between Microsoft and Dell, what exactly would be Dell's motivation to do this at all?
Dell lives or dies at MS's whim. The only way Dell machines are any better than their competitors is price, and only there by a very thin margin. They are innovative only in their supply chain and business process that allows them to shave off a few dollars here and there and make boxes a tiny bit cheaper than anyone else. All of this is dependent upon maintaining their volume of sales so that they can get huge volume discounts. MS sells windows at different prices to different vendors. They can make Dell no longer competitive simply by raising the cost of Windows for them. Very few people buy boxes without Windows pre-installed because it is an unknown quantity (to the general and business public). Linux will never gain significant desktop market share until it is sold pre-installed. Since Dell (and every other major PC OEM) is subject to MS's whim, they do whatever MS tells them when it comes time to sign Windows licensing contracts, even if those contracts contain clauses that may be anti-competitive.
This isn't exactly news, everyone in the industry has heard of these contracts, just no one has yet put their entire company on the line to try to stop them. Remember BeOS, two different vendors announced that they would be shipping boxes pre-installed with both Windows and BeOS. They retracted their statements saying it violated their Windows licensing agreement to do so, thus we know these contracts contain at least some restrictions on shipping OS's other than Windows.
Or maybe, just maybe, because it simply costs them more to give you the box without an OS?
Of course it costs them more to ship you a box with FreeDOS than with Windows, the question is why. I have no doubt Dell would love to sell cheaper boxes without Windows. They have thousands of corporate customers who buy machines and immediately wipe them and install either a corporate Windows site license or another OS. There is a big market for a Windowless box, but for some reason it is cheaper for Dell to pay that $35 for a Windows license than it is for them to pay nothing and exclude a step in their production line. And $35 is significant to their razor thin margins. The only reason I can think why that would be is because their Windows purchase contract forces them to either pay for Windows or pay a penalty to ship with nothing that is more than $35.
As an aside, in one of the more amusing revelations, some time ago it was discovered that some major retailers had agreements saying they could ship Windows 98SE on computers they sold if and only if they paid for one license for every computer they sold. MS held them to the contract forcing them to pay for one Windows license for every mac computer they sold. If you hadn't noticed companies with monopolies can enforce these ridiculous clauses unless the law steps in and stops the abuse. Given that Windows licensing to these companies is a "trade secret" and given that our legal system has been bought that does not happen.
Re:am I the only one who does not get it?
on
Video iPod Oct 12?
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· Score: 2, Informative
It has always bugged the hell out of me why you can only listen to their proprietary format with the IPod.
You're misinformed. It also plays Mpeg1-audio3 (mp3), FLAAC, WAV, mpeg4-audio1 (mp4), etc. as well as DRMed mp4.
Also, you are tied to ITunes as well....correct?
Nope. It is just a hard drive that indexes content oddly (with some advantages). Plenty of other software supports it.
In addition, the consumer is not forced to use a particular retailer.
The only way the ipod restricts your choice of retailer is in that it does not support.wmv or.ogg (and a few other oddballs). So long as you buy from a retailer that offers a format it supports it treats the music as a first class citizen. Also, before being available for Windows, I had Windows using friends come over and borrow my mac and iTunes to rip their CD collections since doing it on their PCs was too hard. Most music played on iPods I'd guess is from ripped CDs (I might mention iTunes does not add DRM to your rips by default like WMP does).
Please someone explain this apparent cult mentality.
This is not quite right, it is not a cult thing, more of a social status thing. A lot of geeks like iPods because they work really well. Go down to an electronics retailer and try playing with some of their demo models. Try simulating real use by operating them one handed while not looking at the screen. The iPod is way easier to use. As for non-geeks, iPods are "cool" and if you don't have one you'll never be part of the popular crowd, or something. Also they are really easy to learn to use, have easy to use software that comes with them and beats most other music jukebox software by a mile, and has an easy to use built in store. For geeks, again, the DRM music from that store has easy, legal ways to remove it and a pretty good selection compared to other stores. There is no mystery, the combination of the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS is something a lot of different people like and enjoy using one or more components of.
If you get your music from iTunes, you are forced to only ever use an iPod, even if something much much better comes along.
Except that they also have a built in, legal, easy to use back door... burn a CD and re-rip it. The loss of quality is very negligible, especially on average hardware. And there are programs that strip off the DRM so you can convert it to whatever you want without any loss. You can then play it in any player that supports a non-DRM format (which is every one I've seen).
Conversely, if you buy your music from a store that sells.wmv files can you legally and easily burn a CD of it and re-rip it? Can you strip the DRM using freeware you can download today? If you want to play it in a player that does not support that particular DRM format and only supports open formats and/or other DRM formats can you do so easily?
The final, and best IMHO, choice is to just by DRM free music to start with as CDs or from one of the vendors offering DRM-free downloads. There is plenty of great independent stuff out there, used CDs are cheap and provide a pre-packaged backup of your data, and there is always allofmp3.com. I know, I know they use legal loopholes to screw over artists and the system, tell me how this differs from the RIAA again?
It's a PC without a preinstalled forcibly-paid-for copy of Windows. So Dell gets Windows for cheap, you don't see a huge price difference, but all those people who wanted an MS-free PC can now buy one. You can't possibly be upset by that, can you???
First, you can buy this same machine, from the same vendor, with a better hard drive, and with Windows for significantly less money. That does not sound like they have removed the cost of Windows. More likely they are still paying a flat fee to MS and have added an additional fee to cover whatever "penalty" MS is charging them. Second, this comes included with FreeDOS. Why do you suppose that is? No one really uses it. It is not popular, well supported, or in demand. Why would Dell ship any OS with this, and when shipping with an OS, why such an obscure one?
Clues to answering these questions may be hidden in their choices. I surmise that they ship an OS because for some reason paying someone to press copies of FreeDOS and package it is cheaper for them than not including any OS. Is that perhaps because they have a contract with MS that penalizes for or forbids them to ship boxes without OS's? If I were a large PC seller and was going to ship an alternate OS, I'd pick one of the popular Linux distributions. Pretty much any of them, on the surface, seems to be a better choice. What does FreeDOS have? Well it is DOS based, like Windows. Could Dell have a contract that forbids them from shipping Linux specifically, or one that is worded in such a way that only FreeDOS and Windows meet the specifications of OS's they are allowed to include without incurring a penalty. Either of the above contracts would be blatantly illegal and a violation of anti-trust statutes. Of course it would also be a protected trade secret and the only people who could do anything about it would be Dell and MS. I know if I was running Dell I would not bet the future of my successful company on the hope that the American legal system would properly deal with MS. It has already shown that it is willing to ignore MS's tactics.
Or maybe Dell just does not want to piss off any given faction of Linux users by favoring another. I wouldn't bet on it though. My opinion is MS is behaving in a criminal manner and this is just more indication of it.
The thing about the GPL and its viralness is not you building your car from scratch and including your air conditioning, it's about the car company letting you build an air conditioner only if you give it for free, which hardly makes any sesnse for a business since you spent money to build the air conditioner in the first place.
You're straining the analogy to the breaking point, but your interpretation would require that the car company give me the car for free in the first place before banning me from making an air conditioner for it (which would then have to be free). That then, is the cost of the car. And I, for one, am all for it. I'll happily build and give Ford a free air conditioner as well as building one for myself if they give me a free car. It sounds like a great deal. Think they will go for it?
Please tell me how many succeful business you have started? How many of said business were started by YOU beggining an open source project?
By myself, none. I have, however, worked at and own shares in several successful start up companies that create and contribute to open source software. You're missing the point of the business model I described. The GPL is a good business model if a user needs software, not if a developer wants to make arbitrary software. If Comcast and AT&T want particular software it makes a lot of sense for them to each hire a developer to write a GPL program they can both use.
There are plenty of great business ideas for using open source software. There are very few good business models for developing open source software.
Hmm, perhaps you've never considered the thousands of companies that use open source software and develop it, or hire someone to develop it for their own use? You know the vast majority of the people who devote a lot of time to working on Linux, Apache, etc. get paid to do it. They are successful, paid, open source developers. It is a well tested business model and it works.
Games. Hum...no one ever approached a potential game developer and said Hey man can you create a videa game that is like football?
Umm, sure they do, all the time. That is how most games are made. A company says We'll give you 20 million to make a spider-man game and then we'll sell it. Mind you that has nothing to do with the GPL, but neither did your statement.
I actually think the video game market is due for an open source revolution in the next decade. Developers of games don't want to use the GPL because they cannot get as much money per game if they do, but GPL'd gaming engines offer significant advantages to both developers and consumers. Once created for a genre, a single GPL gaming engine can theoretically run any number of games which can come as modules. A module would include graphics, audio, and the story/plot scripting as well as description of controls and object models. By using a GPL engine game developers can rely on only a few engineers to supplement the story writers and artists. Modules need not be GPL and the artwork, etc. does not make sense to license in that way. This has the potential to slash development costs in the medium and long term. Any company that wants to add a feature the the base, GPL engine could easily do so and all gaming companies would benefit, reducing duplicated effort and saving money. I surmise that the company that gets there first and creates the base engine will recoup their losses through the free publicity, consulting, by being the foremost experts on the system and thus gaining work as developers for any franchise that wants to create a new game, and through certification testing for the game. If they are smart they can probably grab a large share of the support and QA testing as well and their is a market for specialized development tools.
Sure it would kick as to look at the code behind some of these games but I don't have any right just because I dislike open source software.
Ummm. Ummm. I have no idea what you are talking about or what you are trying to say here.
Open source does not fit every situation. If you think otherwise you my friend are the idot and not the others that you point the finger at.
Who said it did fit every situation? In fact, I strongly implied otherwise in my post. That said, it does fit many situations and it makes a lot of sense for large businesses and groups of smaller businesses to collaborate to fund/develop GPL software for their own use. It even makes business sense for essential parts of end-user non-business, individual purchase applications. It makes sense for end users to collaborate to fund the development of these works as well, but creating the necessary infrastructure to support the development, while not too hard (it has been done and works) is pretty alien to most users experience
I found myself missing things that I discovered I had really come to depend on... like multiple desktops
Being an OS X and Linux (among other OS's) user myself, I think the vast majority of these type of issues are simply that people are accustomed to doing things in a particular way, and then try to find a way to not have to learn a new method. Multiple desktops, for example, solve the problem of finding and navigating large numbers of windows of data and controls. They work well and we love them. Expose solves the same problem in a different way and we love it. Both solutions are better in some ways and ideally we could use both on any platform. Right now, however, Expose is only working well on OS X and virtual desktops work well only for some other UNIX's, like Linux (yes, I know and don't care about UNIX vs. Linux). It is hard to say in the long run which platform will have the advantage. I know I do just fine without virtual desktops since starting to use Expose and I get by without expose using virtual desktops in Linux. I think I prefer expose in general, but that is just a personal preference highly influenced by my workflows.
The point I am making is each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, but you can't discover them by moving platforms and then trying to replicate your old workflows and features on a different OS. Launching applications with Spotlight, for example is much, much faster than other methods. That is a real improvement, not a gimmick. being able to quickly and easily search for a term within the contents of HTML, text, PDF, Word, OpenOffice, etc. file types is a real advantage of Tiger, not a gimmick. Automator is, as far as I know, a unique and great alternative to traditional scripting that brings a lot of power to novice users that they have been lacking. It also provides hooks for all sorts of scripting that I have not seen elsewhere. It is a real improvement, not a gimmick. Now I'd love it if Apple implemented all the features you like as optional UI settings and I'd love it if the major Linux distros would clone all of the functionality I mentioned above as well as all the other missing features. I just don't see that happening in a reasonable timeframe. My advice to you in the mean time is to try to break some of your current habits and use a Linux box the way it is designed to be used and use an OS X box the way it is designed to be used. Trying to use either, hacked to behave like some other OS is always going to be a sub-optimal experience.
Most software developers simply don't beleive in the businessmodel: (1: Make free stuff., 2: ?, 3: Profit! ) And rightfully so. Therefore, lots of developers use linux but dont make software for it.
Any developer who thinks that is the proper business model or any business model at all is too stupid for me to want to use their software anyway. The GPL is a great license for software and brings many advantages to the user of the software, not the developer. Your post implies the GPL is about getting more for doing less; this is not true at all. The GPL is a feature of software. By your argument no product should have any features beyond what is needed for it to function. Why would a car maker include air conditioning? It costs more money to include. The answer: because customers want it. If I build my own car from scratch, I'll include air conditioning, just as Linux users who created their own OS included the GPL.
The GPL is a license that is designed to benefit the end user of software. It was written by end users who also happen to be developers. As an end user of software the GPL means I can use a product and modify a product and redistribute it however I like. I can hire anyone to work on it I like. No one else can take all the effort I have put into it, add something, and make a profit off of it without giving me back something in exchange for all my work. It enforces fair collaboration on projects. All this is great for me, as a user.
That said can people make money by creating GPL software? Hell yes. Can construction workers and engineers make money constructing a bridge that is not a toll bridge? Yes. Can artists make money creating a commissioned mural in a building? Yes. Bridge builders, however, don't use the business model of, I think I'll build a bridge here and then try to get the county to pay me for having built it. Artists don't go into buildings, paint murals, and then try to negotiate a payment for it with the building owner. Software creation using the GPL can be plenty profitable if you find someone or some group that wants to hire a work to be done. The problem is that shortsighted and slow people cannot understand using any business model except the one used by current commercial software developers, even if it is one that is much more beneficial to them, personally.
As an addendum, you can make money for additional commission work adding features and customizing software, and in some cases with advertising revenue and by supplying expert support and/or consultation. Any businessman who cannot grasp the advantages of using GPL software tools to solve their businesses needs should be fired immediately. It is not always the right or best solution, but it certainly has some compelling advantages in terms of immediate cost, competitive supply, sharing expenses, industry interoperability, shared research costs, free advertising, and in-house talent development. Any developer who does not want to create GPL software, that is fine, create licenses that favor you as much as possible, just don't expect your customers to be willing to put up with it in the long run when they have better alternatives.
OK, so she is willing to work for ethically questionable people for money. I think the fact that she is George Bush's personal lawyer pretty much already illuminated that aspect of her character. What I'm interested in though is her pro bono work. Who has she personally chosen to represent for free? What causes has she sought out? A quick google search finds plenty of links to her being a member of an organization that encourages pro bono work, but I have not found a single reference to a pro bono case she was a lawyer for. Has she not represented anyone pro bono? It seems like Roberts managed to avoid doing any pro bono work in criminal cases, but at least we have his record as a judge to look at. All I know about Miers is she will do things I find ethically questionable for money. Will her rulings as a supreme court justice just favor whomever pays her the most? I'd appreciate it if anyone who has any real information about her would post it.
Reading between the lines for this proposal we seem to have another print.google.com, except it will not index a huge number of works whose copyright holders do not "opt in" to the program. The advantage to this is that it may make some copyright holders feel better about the whole thing and, hopefully submit entire works to be viewed by the public. It is also possible that Yahoo is worried about the legal issues and want to wait and see how google weathers any legal challenges.
From a purely technical perspective, this system seems inferior in most ways. It only displays full text and does not give copyright authors the ability to show only an excerpt, or a set number of pages. Although, providing them as PDFs is nice. I wish Google would add that feature for works that are shown in their entirety. In general though, if I'm looking for particular data I don't see why I'd use yahoo which will have a much smaller index of work.
If they're trying to get into the Mac Mini market, they should really have put more effort into getting a device that looks better. The device sounds like a good concept, but who wants to put something that doesn't look great in their kitchen?
I disagree. I think it looks fine, better than most PC's anyway, and most importantly, it looks different. People like things that look different from the norm. On the other side of things, I can't see how this is any real competition for the mac mini. It has less power, a stripped down OS, fewer features, and runs an MS OS. People buy minis because they want a mac and OS X, but don't want to spend a lot of money. Or because they want an easily administered machine for their family. I don't see this overpriced, under-featured machine competing with the mini at all.
The RIAA members collectively own most of the radio stations. If they want to make some talentless skank a star, to make money, they just make sure her new "hit song" plays on all the radio stations. Since that is how most people find (found?) music no one could become a hit and reach a large audience without paying them a between 80% and 120% off the top. (Yes, most musicians lose money by signing with an RIAA label.) Then MTV came along and was a huge success. The problem was, they were playing anything someone made a video for, even if they were not signed with the RIAA. Popular musicians were reaching the public without paying the toll and were making money. It took a lot of money for the RIAA to pay for their acts to get played in the prime slots and to keep those other musicians out of the limelight. It was fiasco, and it was largely because the RIAA is made of dinosaurs who don't want to innovate and don't want technology to make listening to music easier or better. All they want is a steady influx of money.
So here is what the RIAA fears: the iTunes music store selling and providing free advertisement for non-RIAA musicians. It is already happening to some extent. Songs by indy labels are for sale and their songs can be previewed and purchased. Apple refuses to favor any label in their placement or advertisement, putting whatever they like in the front window of the store. If they wanted Apple could host large quantities of cheap or free indy music exposing a huge audience to non-RIAA songs very cheaply, and Apple would make money doing it through the sale of iPods. What the RIAA wants is time to stop people from using digital music until they can control the formats, the DRM, and the distribution. They envision an online store, or better a whole series of online stores that carry just their music, with heavy DRM, in formats that cannot be easily moved to new computers or new players and will require the user to purchase one copy for every device they own. Their goal is to make sure the iTunes store does not get too popular, without being destroyed in court for price fixing, and before Apple is in a position to bypass them completely and either supplant them or compete with them effectively. Basically they want to keep screwing their customers and make sure that never stops.
The only convincing things they have are things like opener.
Opener is a generic trojan, nothing special about it. Trojans have been somewhat effective vectors for years on many platforms. Right now someone could craft a sneaky trojan and use it to attack os x users. That said, it is unlikely, and it is even less likely such an a attack would be effective. First, Pretty much any way the user gets the trojan they will be notified that it is an executable. This means the social engineering has to pass it of as such. Second, unless it is a cross platform trojan, it will not propagate itself, thus it will only effect a small portion of the user base. Third, in order to do much useful, the user will have to enter their admin password, which will make some people suspicious of it. Fourth, there is disproportionately large number of security people using OS X, increasing the speed and likelihood it will be discovered, documented, and mitigated. Fifth, pretty much all OS X users run auto updating of their system, allowing security fixes for a given trojan to be rolled out to all users, not just those running the latest OS's. Sixth, Open source tools like ClamAV already function just fine on OS X, meaning Apple could turn around a trojan detector for a given trojan in very little time. seventh, many OS X users do not run as admin users and thus cannot perform many useful operations themselves (non-admin accounts are usable and local privilege escalations are non-trivial). Finally, while all of these stumbling blocks for a successful trojan can be overcome, it would take a great deal of motivation, which will not be financial due to the small number of machines that will be compromised compared to the relatively easy and profitable target that is Windows.
I'd also like to argue that there are a great many things that could be done to make OS's in general less susceptible to trojans. BSD Jails and virtual machines are a great step towards making trojans harder to implement. Properly implemented ACLs, with a good, understandable GUI, built into the OS, and with a well thought out series of defaults could make trojans very, very hard to pull off. I think this will eventually be done, but has not really happened simply because there is not a strong incentive. Windows has a monopoly and so many other security problems that there is no reason for them to implement such a system. Linux distros and UNIXes have implemented some protections, but for the most part they are not well tested or easy to use because the demand for them is so small. Apple has the talent to create this type of system, but customers don't want it since they are not generally under attack. These will materialize and become usable when something takes significant desktops from Windows, or when MS successfully creates a basically secure OS, and then has to address the proliferation of trojans that results.
Don't pay. Contact the DoJ and tell the Cyber Crimes divsion that somone broke into your computer and is trying to extort money from you based on what they claim they found. Do it today!
Sorry the feds don't bother with chasing down criminals unless a politician is interested. Hell you can call them and give them logs of an IP address trying to hack into your machine and webcam pictures of the guy using that IP address at that time and they still won't do jack. Have you ever tried to deal with law enforcement?
Incompetent few? I hope you're joking. My family contains some brilliant and successful people. These people can solve complex math in their heads, build an entire house from scratch, repair automobiles, paint intricate pictures, perform DNA extractions, etc. They are not helpless idiots. They are average and above average people. Maybe you have been fooled by spending to much time among computer experts here on Slashdot. The truth is most computers are not very well designed, fixable, easily understood, reliable, or refined. We're in the Model-T phase of computers, they are being mass produced and widely distributed. They are better than the old way, but still not very good and everyone except experts expects them to break regularly. So many tasks that can and should be taken care of for the user are not done and many, many features that could improve reliability and safety are not implemented in general. Computers have a long way to go before being usable. I suspect we'd be a lot further along if their was real competition for desktop operating systems, but we don't and it has slowed advancement in the field to a crawl. There is no reason computers cannot do so much more, so much better than they do now. The frustration and problems computer users experience is a reflection of that.
To send MSWord and PowerPoint to their well-deserved place on the ash heap of history, will take a replacement that shoots higher.
For years Word has been used to sell all the rest of the MS Office suite. To a large extent, that is still true. MS has been using their file format lock-in for two purposes. First they have been intentionally introducing incompatibilities to give companies incentive to upgrade. This costs companies a lot of money. Second, they have been using their file format to lock out possible competitors, allowing them to charge more than they could otherwise accomplish. This costs companies money. As a side effect of this, the ability to read very old Word docs is limited, and that costs companies money. Finally, their successful lock-in using their file format and momentum has removed any incentive for them to improve the product. Like IE, Word, Excel, etc. are stagnating, with no real improvements.
The OpenOffice, KOffice, StarOffice teams, Several large IT service providers, and a variety of government institutions are all unhappy with this situation and have helped positioned products to capitalize upon this very negative aspect of Word, the single aspect MS least wants to change. Governments and big businesses like taking bids from multiple vendors and they like being able to reliably access older records. They like improvements. They don't like paying any more money than they have to. MS needs a file format lock-in to maintain gouging their customers. Alternative office suites are better than MS Office because they do not have a file-format lock-in. They use open formats and that benefits their customers. When you have a dominant product with a "feature" that is so detrimental to the end user that governments start passing laws prohibiting that "feature" that feature is going to go, whether you replace it or whether your products slowly dies as people move away from it. MS has done what they can to prolong the inevitable. They tried and failed to move to a subscription model. They announced a new XML format which they claim eliminates the problem (but close inspection reveals does not). They have given huge discounts to customers to prevent them from switching and the change gaining momentum. They have made large contributions to politicians and governments in the hopes of influencing laws. They are currently working on a trusted computing architecture and networked applications for a second try at the subscription model. I don't think anyone is going to be fooled. The truth is, savvy players know open document formats are in their best interest financially, strategically, and they are better for end users and posterity.
You claim that StarOffice is not better than word, but that is because you are looking at the end-user functionality, not the use case for a business or government which is purchasing the product. StarOffice is better because it can read and write both.doc and OpenOffice formats, and that is what smart businesses and governments want.
The article has lots of great links and tools, but the majority of windows users are perfectly content.
Then why do family members keep calling me and asking how to fix their @#$#@! computers, or do some particular thing with their computer, or if their isn't a way to make it stop doing some particular annoying thing? I get calls from all the Windows using family members I am in contact with, and occasionally from my mother to ask why her mac won't turn on (after the third time you'd think she'd know that she has kicked the power cord out of the wall again). I don't see much contentment among computer users in general. Most people seem to find computers frustrating and difficult, but useful for certain tasks once they figure them out.
The key phrase here is "because I've agreed to a license that removes such liability." If you want software that won't be broken into by script kiddies, then don't buy the stuff that CAN be broken into.
Such software is largely not available, but more importantly we don't have truth in advertising in the U.S. Basically, this whole problem could be solved by some government regulation requiring software or hardware sold with software included to list what the software maker agrees that it will do correctly. If, like Windows there is a clause in the license agreement that says the software is not suitable for any purpose and is not guaranteed safe, will not keep your data from being stolen, or corrupted, and can fail at any time, include that in big red letters on the outside of the box the software or hardware comes in. The PR and marketing impression that will make is much more likely to make software makers secure their systems and accept liability for problems than any other sort of regulation and it does not impinge upon anyone's freedom to make or use buggy software..
Re:Windows is an OS. Applications are applications
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Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 1
One doesn't "pep up" Windows with applications. Windows is an "Operating System".
OpenOffice and Gimp are "Applications".
That is only one perspective. Windows is an OS, but it is also a platform. It is an environment within which users experience computer interaction. Adding applications that change that user experience can be said to be "pepping up" the Windows environment.
Isn't it odd, though, that another platform has to better enough that a user must choose to change it to something else? If you buy a machine, with very few exceptions, it comes with Windows on it. This is because of probably illegal, predatory business practices. If the user was always given a choice at time of purchase to pick their OS, and then charged the full price for it and MS was not allowed to subsidize that cost with money they made by pre-installing that OS on other systems, which OS would emerge the winner? We will likely never know, since our legal system is so corrupt.
Basically, I don't disagree with your statement, but I think it is important to realize that does not mean Windows is better, or even as good, in general as other OS's.
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
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Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 1
My brother likes Windows because he can always count on an app looking somewhat like all the other Windows apps. That may or may not be true, but the impression is what counts for him. He also likes how everything installs relatively easily.
How amusing, that is very close to some of the reasons I don't like Windows. On Windows programs are not standardized enough; not all programs have the same keyboard shortcuts for very standard functions, not all programs have preferences, version information, etc. in the same place, and not all programs can access the same functionality (like spellchecking, language translation, custom scripts, etc.).
Installing software on Windows usually requires and installer that often needs administrative privileges, and scatters files all over the place. Uninstalling often requires yet another program to remove all the program parts and for every program you have to trust the developers and packagers to properly design the installer and uninstaller. One thing I really like about OS X is the self contained programs. Drag it somewhere on your hard drive and you are done. Drag it to the trash and it is gone. Simple and easy by comparison to Windows. Also, have you ever tried migrating an application from one Windows box to another? Good luck, you basically need to image the entire partition or install it from scratch. Compare that to dragging the program from a shared folder to the computer you want it to be installed on. Heck I once saw a guy in CompUSA plug in his iPod to a demo OS X machine and drag MS Word onto it to take home. Try that with a Windows machine.
I find it amusing that someone would prefer an OS based on several features where Windows is way behind.
If I waste 4 hours of my time fiddling with files that won't convert, I've more than paid for the Office license.
You've had a lot better time with.doc than I have. I have dozens of old files that will not open in new versions of Word, and dozens more that open improperly in the current version of Word. I also work with a lot of people that don't have Word (engineers running Linux, or a BSD, or who just did not bother to pay to license a word processor since their are good, free ones available. You making the mistake of believing.doc is a format, when it is really a whole series of formats that are partially compatible with one another.
When another format can provide the same ease of exchange, edit, return edit, return, etc then it will become the de-facto standard. This can happen several ways.
You missed a couple of possibilities, like a widespread, destructive internet worm corrupts the vast majority of.doc files on the internet and people switch to avoid the same thing from happening in the future. Or, much more likely, the EU and China mandate the Open Doc format for all public organizations, businesses are forced to buy a word processor that will use that format (OpenOffice will do both.doc and OpenDoc and is free). At this point smart businesses migrate away from Word and MS will either be forced to provide the requested functionality or lose a lot of market share. Without being able to lock customers in using its file format MS will have to (gasp) compete based upon features and might actually fix some of the long-standing bugs in Word.
In the bast case, it will cost business billions to convert not in $ to M$ but in upgrades, training, lost productivity, etc.
Which will be more than paid for the next purchase cycle for PC's since a critical application will now be subject to competitive bids, with multiple free options available.
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There is, however, a conversion when loading mp3 to an iPod?
Nope, not really. iPods play mp3 files with the built in hardware, but the filesystem on the iPod gives it a weird hash for a name and organizes it in a weird file structure. Perhaps you were recalling something about the Sony music players that spent several hours converting mp3's to their proprietary format when it loaded them onto the player.
It concerned me that their end game is to tie you to their retail service much the same way that MS has done by slightly altering their implementations of standards.
My opinion given the prices/profits they have posted for the iTMS is that their goal is twofold, first they sell music as an incentive for people to buy their devices. Second, they sell music to prevent MS from dominating the space with their proprietary format and making macs second class citizens for music, which would hurt their core market.
Thanks for the reply.
You're quite welcome.
would you like to spend some time speculating also on the costs and problems of modifying your production processes to ship an operating system with your boxes that is going to have 1% the demand that the one you've been shipping for 20 years?
So you're saying that you think it costs dell $80+$35+the cost of a hard drive upgrade to skip one step in their manufacturing/packaging operation? Well, ok, that is possible, although I find it unlikely. You did not address, however, why they don't ship the machines without an OS? They go to the extra effort to press and include a CD that no one will ever use or want. Why do they do that, do you suppose?
Also, explain to us how, if there is indeed this satanic compact between Microsoft and Dell, what exactly would be Dell's motivation to do this at all?
Dell lives or dies at MS's whim. The only way Dell machines are any better than their competitors is price, and only there by a very thin margin. They are innovative only in their supply chain and business process that allows them to shave off a few dollars here and there and make boxes a tiny bit cheaper than anyone else. All of this is dependent upon maintaining their volume of sales so that they can get huge volume discounts. MS sells windows at different prices to different vendors. They can make Dell no longer competitive simply by raising the cost of Windows for them. Very few people buy boxes without Windows pre-installed because it is an unknown quantity (to the general and business public). Linux will never gain significant desktop market share until it is sold pre-installed. Since Dell (and every other major PC OEM) is subject to MS's whim, they do whatever MS tells them when it comes time to sign Windows licensing contracts, even if those contracts contain clauses that may be anti-competitive.
This isn't exactly news, everyone in the industry has heard of these contracts, just no one has yet put their entire company on the line to try to stop them. Remember BeOS, two different vendors announced that they would be shipping boxes pre-installed with both Windows and BeOS. They retracted their statements saying it violated their Windows licensing agreement to do so, thus we know these contracts contain at least some restrictions on shipping OS's other than Windows.
Or maybe, just maybe, because it simply costs them more to give you the box without an OS?
Of course it costs them more to ship you a box with FreeDOS than with Windows, the question is why. I have no doubt Dell would love to sell cheaper boxes without Windows. They have thousands of corporate customers who buy machines and immediately wipe them and install either a corporate Windows site license or another OS. There is a big market for a Windowless box, but for some reason it is cheaper for Dell to pay that $35 for a Windows license than it is for them to pay nothing and exclude a step in their production line. And $35 is significant to their razor thin margins. The only reason I can think why that would be is because their Windows purchase contract forces them to either pay for Windows or pay a penalty to ship with nothing that is more than $35.
As an aside, in one of the more amusing revelations, some time ago it was discovered that some major retailers had agreements saying they could ship Windows 98SE on computers they sold if and only if they paid for one license for every computer they sold. MS held them to the contract forcing them to pay for one Windows license for every mac computer they sold. If you hadn't noticed companies with monopolies can enforce these ridiculous clauses unless the law steps in and stops the abuse. Given that Windows licensing to these companies is a "trade secret" and given that our legal system has been bought that does not happen.
It has always bugged the hell out of me why you can only listen to their proprietary format with the IPod.
You're misinformed. It also plays Mpeg1-audio3 (mp3), FLAAC, WAV, mpeg4-audio1 (mp4), etc. as well as DRMed mp4.
Also, you are tied to ITunes as well....correct?
Nope. It is just a hard drive that indexes content oddly (with some advantages). Plenty of other software supports it.
In addition, the consumer is not forced to use a particular retailer.
The only way the ipod restricts your choice of retailer is in that it does not support .wmv or .ogg (and a few other oddballs). So long as you buy from a retailer that offers a format it supports it treats the music as a first class citizen. Also, before being available for Windows, I had Windows using friends come over and borrow my mac and iTunes to rip their CD collections since doing it on their PCs was too hard. Most music played on iPods I'd guess is from ripped CDs (I might mention iTunes does not add DRM to your rips by default like WMP does).
Please someone explain this apparent cult mentality.
This is not quite right, it is not a cult thing, more of a social status thing. A lot of geeks like iPods because they work really well. Go down to an electronics retailer and try playing with some of their demo models. Try simulating real use by operating them one handed while not looking at the screen. The iPod is way easier to use. As for non-geeks, iPods are "cool" and if you don't have one you'll never be part of the popular crowd, or something. Also they are really easy to learn to use, have easy to use software that comes with them and beats most other music jukebox software by a mile, and has an easy to use built in store. For geeks, again, the DRM music from that store has easy, legal ways to remove it and a pretty good selection compared to other stores. There is no mystery, the combination of the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS is something a lot of different people like and enjoy using one or more components of.
Dell already supplies Linux tech support, actually they outsource it. Research first, post second, got it?
If you get your music from iTunes, you are forced to only ever use an iPod, even if something much much better comes along.
Except that they also have a built in, legal, easy to use back door... burn a CD and re-rip it. The loss of quality is very negligible, especially on average hardware. And there are programs that strip off the DRM so you can convert it to whatever you want without any loss. You can then play it in any player that supports a non-DRM format (which is every one I've seen).
Conversely, if you buy your music from a store that sells .wmv files can you legally and easily burn a CD of it and re-rip it? Can you strip the DRM using freeware you can download today? If you want to play it in a player that does not support that particular DRM format and only supports open formats and/or other DRM formats can you do so easily?
The final, and best IMHO, choice is to just by DRM free music to start with as CDs or from one of the vendors offering DRM-free downloads. There is plenty of great independent stuff out there, used CDs are cheap and provide a pre-packaged backup of your data, and there is always allofmp3.com. I know, I know they use legal loopholes to screw over artists and the system, tell me how this differs from the RIAA again?
It's a PC without a preinstalled forcibly-paid-for copy of Windows. So Dell gets Windows for cheap, you don't see a huge price difference, but all those people who wanted an MS-free PC can now buy one. You can't possibly be upset by that, can you???
First, you can buy this same machine, from the same vendor, with a better hard drive, and with Windows for significantly less money. That does not sound like they have removed the cost of Windows. More likely they are still paying a flat fee to MS and have added an additional fee to cover whatever "penalty" MS is charging them. Second, this comes included with FreeDOS. Why do you suppose that is? No one really uses it. It is not popular, well supported, or in demand. Why would Dell ship any OS with this, and when shipping with an OS, why such an obscure one?
Clues to answering these questions may be hidden in their choices. I surmise that they ship an OS because for some reason paying someone to press copies of FreeDOS and package it is cheaper for them than not including any OS. Is that perhaps because they have a contract with MS that penalizes for or forbids them to ship boxes without OS's? If I were a large PC seller and was going to ship an alternate OS, I'd pick one of the popular Linux distributions. Pretty much any of them, on the surface, seems to be a better choice. What does FreeDOS have? Well it is DOS based, like Windows. Could Dell have a contract that forbids them from shipping Linux specifically, or one that is worded in such a way that only FreeDOS and Windows meet the specifications of OS's they are allowed to include without incurring a penalty. Either of the above contracts would be blatantly illegal and a violation of anti-trust statutes. Of course it would also be a protected trade secret and the only people who could do anything about it would be Dell and MS. I know if I was running Dell I would not bet the future of my successful company on the hope that the American legal system would properly deal with MS. It has already shown that it is willing to ignore MS's tactics.
Or maybe Dell just does not want to piss off any given faction of Linux users by favoring another. I wouldn't bet on it though. My opinion is MS is behaving in a criminal manner and this is just more indication of it.
The thing about the GPL and its viralness is not you building your car from scratch and including your air conditioning, it's about the car company letting you build an air conditioner only if you give it for free, which hardly makes any sesnse for a business since you spent money to build the air conditioner in the first place.
You're straining the analogy to the breaking point, but your interpretation would require that the car company give me the car for free in the first place before banning me from making an air conditioner for it (which would then have to be free). That then, is the cost of the car. And I, for one, am all for it. I'll happily build and give Ford a free air conditioner as well as building one for myself if they give me a free car. It sounds like a great deal. Think they will go for it?
Please tell me how many succeful business you have started? How many of said business were started by YOU beggining an open source project?
By myself, none. I have, however, worked at and own shares in several successful start up companies that create and contribute to open source software. You're missing the point of the business model I described. The GPL is a good business model if a user needs software, not if a developer wants to make arbitrary software. If Comcast and AT&T want particular software it makes a lot of sense for them to each hire a developer to write a GPL program they can both use.
There are plenty of great business ideas for using open source software. There are very few good business models for developing open source software.
Hmm, perhaps you've never considered the thousands of companies that use open source software and develop it, or hire someone to develop it for their own use? You know the vast majority of the people who devote a lot of time to working on Linux, Apache, etc. get paid to do it. They are successful, paid, open source developers. It is a well tested business model and it works.
Games. Hum...no one ever approached a potential game developer and said Hey man can you create a videa game that is like football?
Umm, sure they do, all the time. That is how most games are made. A company says We'll give you 20 million to make a spider-man game and then we'll sell it. Mind you that has nothing to do with the GPL, but neither did your statement.
I actually think the video game market is due for an open source revolution in the next decade. Developers of games don't want to use the GPL because they cannot get as much money per game if they do, but GPL'd gaming engines offer significant advantages to both developers and consumers. Once created for a genre, a single GPL gaming engine can theoretically run any number of games which can come as modules. A module would include graphics, audio, and the story/plot scripting as well as description of controls and object models. By using a GPL engine game developers can rely on only a few engineers to supplement the story writers and artists. Modules need not be GPL and the artwork, etc. does not make sense to license in that way. This has the potential to slash development costs in the medium and long term. Any company that wants to add a feature the the base, GPL engine could easily do so and all gaming companies would benefit, reducing duplicated effort and saving money. I surmise that the company that gets there first and creates the base engine will recoup their losses through the free publicity, consulting, by being the foremost experts on the system and thus gaining work as developers for any franchise that wants to create a new game, and through certification testing for the game. If they are smart they can probably grab a large share of the support and QA testing as well and their is a market for specialized development tools.
Sure it would kick as to look at the code behind some of these games but I don't have any right just because I dislike open source software.
Ummm. Ummm. I have no idea what you are talking about or what you are trying to say here.
Open source does not fit every situation. If you think otherwise you my friend are the idot and not the others that you point the finger at.
Who said it did fit every situation? In fact, I strongly implied otherwise in my post. That said, it does fit many situations and it makes a lot of sense for large businesses and groups of smaller businesses to collaborate to fund/develop GPL software for their own use. It even makes business sense for essential parts of end-user non-business, individual purchase applications. It makes sense for end users to collaborate to fund the development of these works as well, but creating the necessary infrastructure to support the development, while not too hard (it has been done and works) is pretty alien to most users experience
I found myself missing things that I discovered I had really come to depend on... like multiple desktops
Being an OS X and Linux (among other OS's) user myself, I think the vast majority of these type of issues are simply that people are accustomed to doing things in a particular way, and then try to find a way to not have to learn a new method. Multiple desktops, for example, solve the problem of finding and navigating large numbers of windows of data and controls. They work well and we love them. Expose solves the same problem in a different way and we love it. Both solutions are better in some ways and ideally we could use both on any platform. Right now, however, Expose is only working well on OS X and virtual desktops work well only for some other UNIX's, like Linux (yes, I know and don't care about UNIX vs. Linux). It is hard to say in the long run which platform will have the advantage. I know I do just fine without virtual desktops since starting to use Expose and I get by without expose using virtual desktops in Linux. I think I prefer expose in general, but that is just a personal preference highly influenced by my workflows.
The point I am making is each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, but you can't discover them by moving platforms and then trying to replicate your old workflows and features on a different OS. Launching applications with Spotlight, for example is much, much faster than other methods. That is a real improvement, not a gimmick. being able to quickly and easily search for a term within the contents of HTML, text, PDF, Word, OpenOffice, etc. file types is a real advantage of Tiger, not a gimmick. Automator is, as far as I know, a unique and great alternative to traditional scripting that brings a lot of power to novice users that they have been lacking. It also provides hooks for all sorts of scripting that I have not seen elsewhere. It is a real improvement, not a gimmick. Now I'd love it if Apple implemented all the features you like as optional UI settings and I'd love it if the major Linux distros would clone all of the functionality I mentioned above as well as all the other missing features. I just don't see that happening in a reasonable timeframe. My advice to you in the mean time is to try to break some of your current habits and use a Linux box the way it is designed to be used and use an OS X box the way it is designed to be used. Trying to use either, hacked to behave like some other OS is always going to be a sub-optimal experience.
Most software developers simply don't beleive in the businessmodel: (1: Make free stuff., 2: ?, 3: Profit! ) And rightfully so. Therefore, lots of developers use linux but dont make software for it.
Any developer who thinks that is the proper business model or any business model at all is too stupid for me to want to use their software anyway. The GPL is a great license for software and brings many advantages to the user of the software, not the developer. Your post implies the GPL is about getting more for doing less; this is not true at all. The GPL is a feature of software. By your argument no product should have any features beyond what is needed for it to function. Why would a car maker include air conditioning? It costs more money to include. The answer: because customers want it. If I build my own car from scratch, I'll include air conditioning, just as Linux users who created their own OS included the GPL.
The GPL is a license that is designed to benefit the end user of software. It was written by end users who also happen to be developers. As an end user of software the GPL means I can use a product and modify a product and redistribute it however I like. I can hire anyone to work on it I like. No one else can take all the effort I have put into it, add something, and make a profit off of it without giving me back something in exchange for all my work. It enforces fair collaboration on projects. All this is great for me, as a user.
That said can people make money by creating GPL software? Hell yes. Can construction workers and engineers make money constructing a bridge that is not a toll bridge? Yes. Can artists make money creating a commissioned mural in a building? Yes. Bridge builders, however, don't use the business model of, I think I'll build a bridge here and then try to get the county to pay me for having built it. Artists don't go into buildings, paint murals, and then try to negotiate a payment for it with the building owner. Software creation using the GPL can be plenty profitable if you find someone or some group that wants to hire a work to be done. The problem is that shortsighted and slow people cannot understand using any business model except the one used by current commercial software developers, even if it is one that is much more beneficial to them, personally.
As an addendum, you can make money for additional commission work adding features and customizing software, and in some cases with advertising revenue and by supplying expert support and/or consultation. Any businessman who cannot grasp the advantages of using GPL software tools to solve their businesses needs should be fired immediately. It is not always the right or best solution, but it certainly has some compelling advantages in terms of immediate cost, competitive supply, sharing expenses, industry interoperability, shared research costs, free advertising, and in-house talent development. Any developer who does not want to create GPL software, that is fine, create licenses that favor you as much as possible, just don't expect your customers to be willing to put up with it in the long run when they have better alternatives.
OK, so she is willing to work for ethically questionable people for money. I think the fact that she is George Bush's personal lawyer pretty much already illuminated that aspect of her character. What I'm interested in though is her pro bono work. Who has she personally chosen to represent for free? What causes has she sought out? A quick google search finds plenty of links to her being a member of an organization that encourages pro bono work, but I have not found a single reference to a pro bono case she was a lawyer for. Has she not represented anyone pro bono? It seems like Roberts managed to avoid doing any pro bono work in criminal cases, but at least we have his record as a judge to look at. All I know about Miers is she will do things I find ethically questionable for money. Will her rulings as a supreme court justice just favor whomever pays her the most? I'd appreciate it if anyone who has any real information about her would post it.
Reading between the lines for this proposal we seem to have another print.google.com, except it will not index a huge number of works whose copyright holders do not "opt in" to the program. The advantage to this is that it may make some copyright holders feel better about the whole thing and, hopefully submit entire works to be viewed by the public. It is also possible that Yahoo is worried about the legal issues and want to wait and see how google weathers any legal challenges.
From a purely technical perspective, this system seems inferior in most ways. It only displays full text and does not give copyright authors the ability to show only an excerpt, or a set number of pages. Although, providing them as PDFs is nice. I wish Google would add that feature for works that are shown in their entirety. In general though, if I'm looking for particular data I don't see why I'd use yahoo which will have a much smaller index of work.
If they're trying to get into the Mac Mini market, they should really have put more effort into getting a device that looks better. The device sounds like a good concept, but who wants to put something that doesn't look great in their kitchen?
I disagree. I think it looks fine, better than most PC's anyway, and most importantly, it looks different. People like things that look different from the norm. On the other side of things, I can't see how this is any real competition for the mac mini. It has less power, a stripped down OS, fewer features, and runs an MS OS. People buy minis because they want a mac and OS X, but don't want to spend a lot of money. Or because they want an easily administered machine for their family. I don't see this overpriced, under-featured machine competing with the mini at all.
You can't blame the politicians for playing the game.
Yes I can.
The RIAA members collectively own most of the radio stations. If they want to make some talentless skank a star, to make money, they just make sure her new "hit song" plays on all the radio stations. Since that is how most people find (found?) music no one could become a hit and reach a large audience without paying them a between 80% and 120% off the top. (Yes, most musicians lose money by signing with an RIAA label.) Then MTV came along and was a huge success. The problem was, they were playing anything someone made a video for, even if they were not signed with the RIAA. Popular musicians were reaching the public without paying the toll and were making money. It took a lot of money for the RIAA to pay for their acts to get played in the prime slots and to keep those other musicians out of the limelight. It was fiasco, and it was largely because the RIAA is made of dinosaurs who don't want to innovate and don't want technology to make listening to music easier or better. All they want is a steady influx of money.
So here is what the RIAA fears: the iTunes music store selling and providing free advertisement for non-RIAA musicians. It is already happening to some extent. Songs by indy labels are for sale and their songs can be previewed and purchased. Apple refuses to favor any label in their placement or advertisement, putting whatever they like in the front window of the store. If they wanted Apple could host large quantities of cheap or free indy music exposing a huge audience to non-RIAA songs very cheaply, and Apple would make money doing it through the sale of iPods. What the RIAA wants is time to stop people from using digital music until they can control the formats, the DRM, and the distribution. They envision an online store, or better a whole series of online stores that carry just their music, with heavy DRM, in formats that cannot be easily moved to new computers or new players and will require the user to purchase one copy for every device they own. Their goal is to make sure the iTunes store does not get too popular, without being destroyed in court for price fixing, and before Apple is in a position to bypass them completely and either supplant them or compete with them effectively. Basically they want to keep screwing their customers and make sure that never stops.
The only convincing things they have are things like opener.
Opener is a generic trojan, nothing special about it. Trojans have been somewhat effective vectors for years on many platforms. Right now someone could craft a sneaky trojan and use it to attack os x users. That said, it is unlikely, and it is even less likely such an a attack would be effective. First, Pretty much any way the user gets the trojan they will be notified that it is an executable. This means the social engineering has to pass it of as such. Second, unless it is a cross platform trojan, it will not propagate itself, thus it will only effect a small portion of the user base. Third, in order to do much useful, the user will have to enter their admin password, which will make some people suspicious of it. Fourth, there is disproportionately large number of security people using OS X, increasing the speed and likelihood it will be discovered, documented, and mitigated. Fifth, pretty much all OS X users run auto updating of their system, allowing security fixes for a given trojan to be rolled out to all users, not just those running the latest OS's. Sixth, Open source tools like ClamAV already function just fine on OS X, meaning Apple could turn around a trojan detector for a given trojan in very little time. seventh, many OS X users do not run as admin users and thus cannot perform many useful operations themselves (non-admin accounts are usable and local privilege escalations are non-trivial). Finally, while all of these stumbling blocks for a successful trojan can be overcome, it would take a great deal of motivation, which will not be financial due to the small number of machines that will be compromised compared to the relatively easy and profitable target that is Windows.
I'd also like to argue that there are a great many things that could be done to make OS's in general less susceptible to trojans. BSD Jails and virtual machines are a great step towards making trojans harder to implement. Properly implemented ACLs, with a good, understandable GUI, built into the OS, and with a well thought out series of defaults could make trojans very, very hard to pull off. I think this will eventually be done, but has not really happened simply because there is not a strong incentive. Windows has a monopoly and so many other security problems that there is no reason for them to implement such a system. Linux distros and UNIXes have implemented some protections, but for the most part they are not well tested or easy to use because the demand for them is so small. Apple has the talent to create this type of system, but customers don't want it since they are not generally under attack. These will materialize and become usable when something takes significant desktops from Windows, or when MS successfully creates a basically secure OS, and then has to address the proliferation of trojans that results.
Don't pay. Contact the DoJ and tell the Cyber Crimes divsion that somone broke into your computer and is trying to extort money from you based on what they claim they found. Do it today!
Sorry the feds don't bother with chasing down criminals unless a politician is interested. Hell you can call them and give them logs of an IP address trying to hack into your machine and webcam pictures of the guy using that IP address at that time and they still won't do jack. Have you ever tried to deal with law enforcement?
Don't let the incompotent few skew your view.
Incompetent few? I hope you're joking. My family contains some brilliant and successful people. These people can solve complex math in their heads, build an entire house from scratch, repair automobiles, paint intricate pictures, perform DNA extractions, etc. They are not helpless idiots. They are average and above average people. Maybe you have been fooled by spending to much time among computer experts here on Slashdot. The truth is most computers are not very well designed, fixable, easily understood, reliable, or refined. We're in the Model-T phase of computers, they are being mass produced and widely distributed. They are better than the old way, but still not very good and everyone except experts expects them to break regularly. So many tasks that can and should be taken care of for the user are not done and many, many features that could improve reliability and safety are not implemented in general. Computers have a long way to go before being usable. I suspect we'd be a lot further along if their was real competition for desktop operating systems, but we don't and it has slowed advancement in the field to a crawl. There is no reason computers cannot do so much more, so much better than they do now. The frustration and problems computer users experience is a reflection of that.
To send MSWord and PowerPoint to their well-deserved place on the ash heap of history, will take a replacement that shoots higher.
For years Word has been used to sell all the rest of the MS Office suite. To a large extent, that is still true. MS has been using their file format lock-in for two purposes. First they have been intentionally introducing incompatibilities to give companies incentive to upgrade. This costs companies a lot of money. Second, they have been using their file format to lock out possible competitors, allowing them to charge more than they could otherwise accomplish. This costs companies money. As a side effect of this, the ability to read very old Word docs is limited, and that costs companies money. Finally, their successful lock-in using their file format and momentum has removed any incentive for them to improve the product. Like IE, Word, Excel, etc. are stagnating, with no real improvements.
The OpenOffice, KOffice, StarOffice teams, Several large IT service providers, and a variety of government institutions are all unhappy with this situation and have helped positioned products to capitalize upon this very negative aspect of Word, the single aspect MS least wants to change. Governments and big businesses like taking bids from multiple vendors and they like being able to reliably access older records. They like improvements. They don't like paying any more money than they have to. MS needs a file format lock-in to maintain gouging their customers. Alternative office suites are better than MS Office because they do not have a file-format lock-in. They use open formats and that benefits their customers. When you have a dominant product with a "feature" that is so detrimental to the end user that governments start passing laws prohibiting that "feature" that feature is going to go, whether you replace it or whether your products slowly dies as people move away from it. MS has done what they can to prolong the inevitable. They tried and failed to move to a subscription model. They announced a new XML format which they claim eliminates the problem (but close inspection reveals does not). They have given huge discounts to customers to prevent them from switching and the change gaining momentum. They have made large contributions to politicians and governments in the hopes of influencing laws. They are currently working on a trusted computing architecture and networked applications for a second try at the subscription model. I don't think anyone is going to be fooled. The truth is, savvy players know open document formats are in their best interest financially, strategically, and they are better for end users and posterity.
You claim that StarOffice is not better than word, but that is because you are looking at the end-user functionality, not the use case for a business or government which is purchasing the product. StarOffice is better because it can read and write both .doc and OpenOffice formats, and that is what smart businesses and governments want.
The article has lots of great links and tools, but the majority of windows users are perfectly content.
Then why do family members keep calling me and asking how to fix their @#$#@! computers, or do some particular thing with their computer, or if their isn't a way to make it stop doing some particular annoying thing? I get calls from all the Windows using family members I am in contact with, and occasionally from my mother to ask why her mac won't turn on (after the third time you'd think she'd know that she has kicked the power cord out of the wall again). I don't see much contentment among computer users in general. Most people seem to find computers frustrating and difficult, but useful for certain tasks once they figure them out.
The key phrase here is "because I've agreed to a license that removes such liability." If you want software that won't be broken into by script kiddies, then don't buy the stuff that CAN be broken into.
Such software is largely not available, but more importantly we don't have truth in advertising in the U.S. Basically, this whole problem could be solved by some government regulation requiring software or hardware sold with software included to list what the software maker agrees that it will do correctly. If, like Windows there is a clause in the license agreement that says the software is not suitable for any purpose and is not guaranteed safe, will not keep your data from being stolen, or corrupted, and can fail at any time, include that in big red letters on the outside of the box the software or hardware comes in. The PR and marketing impression that will make is much more likely to make software makers secure their systems and accept liability for problems than any other sort of regulation and it does not impinge upon anyone's freedom to make or use buggy software..
One doesn't "pep up" Windows with applications. Windows is an "Operating System". OpenOffice and Gimp are "Applications".
That is only one perspective. Windows is an OS, but it is also a platform. It is an environment within which users experience computer interaction. Adding applications that change that user experience can be said to be "pepping up" the Windows environment.
Then the platform is not worth changing.
Isn't it odd, though, that another platform has to better enough that a user must choose to change it to something else? If you buy a machine, with very few exceptions, it comes with Windows on it. This is because of probably illegal, predatory business practices. If the user was always given a choice at time of purchase to pick their OS, and then charged the full price for it and MS was not allowed to subsidize that cost with money they made by pre-installing that OS on other systems, which OS would emerge the winner? We will likely never know, since our legal system is so corrupt.
Basically, I don't disagree with your statement, but I think it is important to realize that does not mean Windows is better, or even as good, in general as other OS's.
My brother likes Windows because he can always count on an app looking somewhat like all the other Windows apps. That may or may not be true, but the impression is what counts for him. He also likes how everything installs relatively easily.
How amusing, that is very close to some of the reasons I don't like Windows. On Windows programs are not standardized enough; not all programs have the same keyboard shortcuts for very standard functions, not all programs have preferences, version information, etc. in the same place, and not all programs can access the same functionality (like spellchecking, language translation, custom scripts, etc.).
Installing software on Windows usually requires and installer that often needs administrative privileges, and scatters files all over the place. Uninstalling often requires yet another program to remove all the program parts and for every program you have to trust the developers and packagers to properly design the installer and uninstaller. One thing I really like about OS X is the self contained programs. Drag it somewhere on your hard drive and you are done. Drag it to the trash and it is gone. Simple and easy by comparison to Windows. Also, have you ever tried migrating an application from one Windows box to another? Good luck, you basically need to image the entire partition or install it from scratch. Compare that to dragging the program from a shared folder to the computer you want it to be installed on. Heck I once saw a guy in CompUSA plug in his iPod to a demo OS X machine and drag MS Word onto it to take home. Try that with a Windows machine.
I find it amusing that someone would prefer an OS based on several features where Windows is way behind.
If I waste 4 hours of my time fiddling with files that won't convert, I've more than paid for the Office license.
You've had a lot better time with .doc than I have. I have dozens of old files that will not open in new versions of Word, and dozens more that open improperly in the current version of Word. I also work with a lot of people that don't have Word (engineers running Linux, or a BSD, or who just did not bother to pay to license a word processor since their are good, free ones available. You making the mistake of believing .doc is a format, when it is really a whole series of formats that are partially compatible with one another.
When another format can provide the same ease of exchange, edit, return edit, return, etc then it will become the de-facto standard. This can happen several ways.
You missed a couple of possibilities, like a widespread, destructive internet worm corrupts the vast majority of .doc files on the internet and people switch to avoid the same thing from happening in the future. Or, much more likely, the EU and China mandate the Open Doc format for all public organizations, businesses are forced to buy a word processor that will use that format (OpenOffice will do both .doc and OpenDoc and is free). At this point smart businesses migrate away from Word and MS will either be forced to provide the requested functionality or lose a lot of market share. Without being able to lock customers in using its file format MS will have to (gasp) compete based upon features and might actually fix some of the long-standing bugs in Word.
In the bast case, it will cost business billions to convert not in $ to M$ but in upgrades, training, lost productivity, etc.
Which will be more than paid for the next purchase cycle for PC's since a critical application will now be subject to competitive bids, with multiple free options available.