The communication problem I'm talking about is not spelling, grammar etc but instead using technical sounding words for completely different things in an effort to sound cool, belong or whatever. It confuses the hell out of those of us that are literate in that area.
No you're just being an anal retentive trolling dick.
Where is my "Computer"? Can you help me find my "Computer" component? I can't seem to find my "computer".
I don't ever remember buying an AMD computer. Or an Nvidia computer. I must have forgotten to buy one.
A Computer is an assembly of components. To me my screen is part of my computer. My wacom tablet is part of my computer. My mouse is part of my computer. My Logitech remote is part of my computer.
Oh no! What do I do with a laptop? Is that a computer? Or a screen? It's... like... a computer that has a screen... or is it a computer without a monitor? Or is it a screen with a really fast processor in it? What if I use a computer to telnet into another computer? Which computer am I using? Wait... what I'm just using voice commands like star trek? Does that mean I'm not sitting in front of a computer anymore? How about a cintiq? It's sort of like sitting in front of a souped up mouse. Ooo Oooo! If I remote desktop in using a smartphone... but the smartphone is off to the side and I'm in a coffee shop next to a window... am I in front of the screen or in front of my phone? Or should I say "I sit next to my screen in a coffee shop which is 10 miles from my computer?" Can we consider phones computers? Oh my goodness so many years of dick headed questions that I have wanted answered without anyone to answer them!
Oh wait I thought of some more! If I use my TV as my computer screen at home... but I also watch some TV. Do I need to itemize my time between the "Screen" for computer usage and TV usage? Or if it's Media Center PVR does that count as sitting in front of the screen for "computer" or for "TV"? They're both screens... so if I break up my time... it starts to get complicated really fast. Thank god you came along!
So I'm computer illiterate now? What, do I have to show my nerd card? By all means. Let's hear it. Lay out my transgressions against Jargonazism. Wait... if I play stupid will you do all of my work for me for free? I just realized I've been going about this all wrong. If I ever have a problem with a computer can I call you? And just pretend I don't actually understand anything? "So like... my program isn't compiling... and like.. it's giving me this weird error that just says "Syntax error" what's a syntax? Do I need to buy one? Are they expensive?". Oooo and when I have a render glitch will you find the source of the bug? Oh and I have this character I have to concept out tommorow would you draw it up for me and make a rough model? Oooo and when that's done I need some quick python work done. Wow you're my new best friend!
People who think of things technically have a term for you too but posting it tends to be frowned upon in civilized circles.
How is Windows 7 like going from Windows 98 to Windows 98 SE.
I couldn't even tell the difference between the two.
SE was just Windows 98 with a small service pack and more drivers. That was the was only difference I could discern between my 98 and 98 SE disk. "Do I need the latest drivers out of the gate."
Here is the Official Feature List for SE:
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Device Bay Controller DirectX Version 6.1 Microsoft Connection Manager Version 1.2 Microsoft Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Version 1.3 Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98) Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.1 Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) Microsoft NetMeeting Version 3.0 (build 4.4.3345) Microsoft Wake-On-LAN Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0 Microsoft Windows Driver Model (WDM) Modem Microsoft Windows Media Player Version 6.2 Microsoft Year 2000 (Y2K) Updates MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0
The only two features I see in that entire list that aren't updates to freely available products on the web or driver updates are Wake On Lan and Internet Sharing (which didn't actually ever work well).
Yep. When you really lay them all out like that I don't see how I could have lived without Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0 before Windows 98SE.
You CAN pin an app to the start menu and the taskbar
You are correct I tried it with a different app and it worked this time... kind of.
I tried pinning something before and then it got unpinned when I added another app. There seems to be some glitchiness if you attempt it. But it is theoretically possible. Just make sure the app isn't running. That seems to make it act more predictably.
However, the big concern many, including myself, have with Windows7, is DRM... is it overloaded with DRM that limits software usefulness / degrades performance?
Ron
No.
It only limits software usefulness if the software in question is taking advantage of DRM. If you want to playback DRMed music. Then yes. It will limit usefulness. But you know what limits usefulness of a DRMed file even more than a DRM playback system? A system which has no DRM.
It's like my Zune. Yes. I have DRMed music which can only be played back while I'm a ZunePass subscriber. But I love it! I just subscribed and being able to just easily jump from artist to artist and find new music that I like is a far more enjoyable experience than visiting a CD store and looking at album covers hoping the new album is good for an artist I think stands a reasonable chance of putting out a dollar worthy song. Similarly I'm not limited to 15 second little useless choruses from a handful of CDs. It's way better than piratebay too. I can start listening immediately. Listen to a few songs. If I like it hit download for the entire album and move on to something else Zune says I might like.
All of that is possible thanks to DRM. If the music industry didn't feel confident in the DRM of my computer they wouldn't let me just download all their music willy nilly for free.
On the flip side I run my computer through my TV. I watch DVDs, HD-DVDs and Blurays through it. I also watch Netflix and some HBO xvids. As far as I can tell I'm not being affect in any way by DRM.
It looks like today the "News for Nerds, stuff that matters" just got replaced and instead we have a spot where the majority of people think technical details or even communication no longer matter.
Technical details matter... when they're important. How many horsepower your engine provides is less important than the handling and accelleration of your vehicle.
If I read a review or an automobile I don't care how many liters of displacement the engine has. I don't care if it's a V4 or a V10. What I care about is the end user experience. The Driving Experience.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. I spend 14 hours a day in front of a computer. Stuff that matters to me is not what kernel build Windows 7 is. How much RAM it takes. Whether or not it uses SATA 2.1 or SATA 2.2 Spec. What I care about is how the computer performs. Windows 7 to me offers an advantage to Vista and an even greater advantage as an end user.
To me what matters is the User Experience. I don't use an OS to spend all day inside the control panel. The control panel is to me a necessary evil to be avoided. An unproductive, useless and worthless region of the operating system whose very existence is an admittance of a cruel and uncaring world. What I care about are the applications that run on top of the operating system and how those applications interact with one another.
So yes. I will redefine an Operating System's worth as its Polish and User experience. But it's not a redefinition because I don't use the registry. I don't use the DRM drivers. I don't use the AGP bus. I don't use the SATA interface. I don't use the video drivers. I don't use the network stack. I don't use the sound card. I don't give a flying bat how they work. What anachronistic technical detail makes them work what I care about in an OS is how it enables me to use the applications that do enable me to be productive.
That's the true technical detail that matters. How well does all the engineering and design come together to hide everything from the user so that they can get work done? If I work faster, more efficiently and more happily with less stress and pain then it's successful.
I appologize that I didn't spell check or proof read my post. You're right communication does matter. But I was attempting to offer another perspective to a conversation before leaving to grab a bite to eat--the contents of which was more important than spending 2 weeks writing an essay on my views of operating systems.
You want to go read white papers on Windows 7? Be my guest. Honestly as a nerd who uses his computer all day and night what matters to me is how well it'll enable me to do work that really does matter.
What are you installing on a netbook that's going to take up a lot of space.
When I think netbook I think: IM client, Web Browser, Word Processor, Music Player (along with an SD Card for the music library).
I've got everything important that I *need* to run my computer installed right now (All of the above) including my Zune Pass downloads and I'm only at 8GB.
Polish and User Experience in my view IS the operating system.
What the OS does for me is hide all of the ugliness of computers.
I just want to run a bunch of applications. Be able to switch between apps quickly. Setup a network to media with my XBox. Find files I'm looking for and boot quickly. It's all "Surface" stuff. But for me Vista has been incredibly stable so I haven't seen any need for improvement.
Windows 7 has added a lot of really nice things on top of Vista. People buy new operating systems because they increase their efficiency. That's why people love a mac. Those are the important new features. Being able to drag a window to the side of the screen in a big new feature. It might not take as many dev hours but it's a huge time saver for the user.
Service Packs fix bugs. New versions add features. Windows 7 is as much about adding features as it is bug fixing. And so far I've really liked a lot of the new features. I like that I don't have to manage my music and video sharing with my Xbox independently of my Zune independently of my WMP and I look forward to Winamp taking advantage of it as well.
I like the new taskbar even if I had to enable labels and disable application grouping. I don't like that it mixes running apps and icons but at the same time I do kind of have to remind myself "Why do I care?" At most I usually only have 2 icons mixed in that aren't running. And since figuring that out I've reorganized my pinned icons so that I rarely have an 'orphaned' icon.
I don't notice any performance bump. Then again I don't own a computer with less than 3GB of RAM and really... what excuse is there for only having 1GB of RAM? You can buy 1GB of RAM for $15.
I like the new wifi widget.
I like the new driver search feature (it found new updated drivers automatically and installed them. Handy!)
I like the new taskbar look and I like that I can change the taskbar's color. Seriously. I have to look at it all day. I didn't want black on my black background.
I can't stand that MSN now won't go to the notifications are and instead goes to my taskbar leaving TWO!! TWO!!!! STUPID #$*)@# taskbar entries for the same application.
I don't like that I can't have something pinned to the taskbar and start menu.
I like being able to drag an application up to the top of my screen to maximize it.
I like the updates to touch for my tablet PC.
I like the jump menus. Handy for Microsoft Word.
I look forward to Device Stage or whatever it is they call their USB connected device system.
And I look forward to being able to tell media to 'play on' my xbox from my PC.
And those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head from 2 days of use.
As far as performance and bugs are concerned perhaps you could call this SP2. But everything beyond that are the kinds of enhancements and improvements that I expect from an OS upgrade.
What did I get out of XP? An improved Start Menu? Easier Networking? More stability? Was XP just Windows 98 SP3?
I still see the odd Windows 98/95 installations. I'm certain XP will outlast Windows 8.
People get stupid ideas in their heads like "Windows 98 is TEH FASTEST!!!" and they never switch. Such is life. The rest of us actually evaluate it. Make an informed rational decision and move on with our lives.
A passive system requires "no paperwork" but it requires a far greater invasion of privacy. I agree it would be far easier for the citizien to simply let the Government automatically determine what your tax burden is without filling out forms and paperworks but that requires the government to intimately track how many children you have, what your income was for the year, how much money you spent on medical expenses, what the value of your home is, how much you payed in interest for student loans... etc etc.
So really your options are these
1) A passive system where the government knows everything about you and automatically deducts how much you owe. *Risk being that they mistake you for someone else or have out of date information in which you pay too much. 2) An active system where you control all of the details about your life and only release the relevant details about your life that you think are worth a rebate. *Risk being that you lie and they get suspicious requiring you to prove your claims.
The Passive system is far far far more invasive than the Active system. The Active system allows you to not even report you have a child to the IRS if you care more about your privacy than your discount.
This is the problem with the "Flat Tax" system. Everybody wants their own little rebates. "I have 2 children. I need to keep them fed and educated!" "I am in college, I shouldn't pay taxes on any student loan interest!" "I own a small business and employ 3 people in the community!".
Everybody from every walk of life has something they don't feel is taxable-- or should get rewarded for doing. "I gave $10,000 to charity!" And I agree most deductions are things that deserve to be deducted.
But... the "Flat Tax" policy still offers these deductions. They just offer them in the form of a Rebate Check. So by the time you've *given back* all the money that the poor, blind, impregnated, educated and housed individuals want in rebates our tax policy is equally unflat... equally complicated and equally difficult to maintain.
If people want a simple tax code it's really really easy. Stop taking DEDUCTIONS! I filled out my taxes in under 15 minutes this year. I looked at my W2 typed in 15 boxes. Did a 5 second estimate in my head that I wouldn't break the $10k automatic deductions and hit send.
It's the people with 5 kids a mortage, a mentally hadicapped step daughter, 3 student loans, a small business under their name and 3 vacation properties on top of a pension fund that have trouble doing their taxes. And the ONLY reason they have trouble doing their taxes is because they want to pay the absolute bare minimum possible taking advantage of every tax break possibly afforded to them. These people would have an equally difficult time squeezing their "refund" out of a flat tax system as they do squeezing their "deductions" out of the progressive tax system.
Let's just face it. Unless we want to unfairly tax people without consideration to special circumstances tax codes are going to be complicated. You can't be both easy and detailed. They're mutually exclusive. The more detailed you want your deductions and more things you want excluded from taxation the more difficult your taxes will become. Get over it. Pay H&R Block $30 or whatever it is they're asking now adays. Or pay $50 for TurboTax.
The only alternative is to open your books completely to the government and let them automatically calculate it. *Cue privacy advocates descending from hell to sing their chorus.
The IRS can charge me taxes in WOW items. But I can defend it using WOW laws.
So the IRS agent must catch me in a raid and take my items by force. Because if I'm in a WOW world I'm going to fight by WOW rules and kick his sorry tax collecting ass.
Just think how much more interesting collecting a 400 gold piece tax will become when you can draw a sword and protect your property. Of course the IRS raiding parties will be top level well orchestrated teams working in concert across Azeroth it will add a whole new level of excitement every february for most players. The IRS would also probably add bounties for top level characters leading to an interesting new dynamic of payed free agents for whom money is on the line.
Orrrr... if you sell your gold you report your "Other Income" like you're legally obligated right now. But that would be far less exciting.
*thatoneguy does not play WOW nor has ever played WOW. However adding IRS agents as a force might... just might convince him to open an account.
Agreed. For the first few days I kept noticing the new favicon for google and wondering in my head "Why is google putting up a jumble of random shapes for their favicon?" I had assumed it was like the anniversary of some grand puzzle maker or something. Only yesterday did it suddenly hit me "OH that's a g!"
Terrible logo. In the middle it's at least legible.
It's also important to note that while the communist party doesn't like being undermined they are religious in their zeal to stamp out corruption. They recognize that they can't fully control the population and their presence must be desired.
All of the people I talked to in China (even in private) seemed to be proud of their government and their country. They all got incensed when I made any sort of inquiry into what it's like to live in a communist nation or their thoughts about communism. "We are not communist! We are a republic!" That was the answer I always got or something to that effect. They elect their leaders and if those leaders in any way do anything which could potentially embarass the party they're sacked. Immediately and with almost no investigation. If the people are dissastisfied with a communist official they can report them to headquarters and action from on high will be swift.
The communist party's crackdowns are not just on dissidents and undesireables. It's also directed at itself. Party First. You dishonor the party and you better jump on your sword or face the consequences--harsh consequences. They certainly learned from the Soviet system in which the soviets become complacent and over confident in their power. Revolutions are inevitable. The best way to quell revolution is to keep the people happy. In some ways the single party system in China is more accountable than our multi-party system in America.
The trick though is with a country like China you can pay 1,000 people 1,000 dollars to read every news site and most major web forums in order to 'know what we know'.
Updating a firewall with IP and DNS information is relatively trivial with solid reporting. Like you say you can't stop it all but you can stop anything popular. It's the paradox of counter-censorship. In order to advertise a piece of information to a large number of people-- a large number of people need to be made aware of the information. Keeping the 'secret' distribution methods secret is as difficult for the other side as it is for the government. There's no way for either party to keep what they know completely secret but seeing as the government doesn't have to stop 100% of it they have an advantage. They just have to keep the number of people who know about it less than they can deal with. That number is by definition larger than themselves therefore as soon as you can spread the information to a group larger than the government then the source becomes identifiable.
I just bought a Motherboard today. All of the ones I looked at had standard PCI slots (All i7 motherboards so top of the line latest chipsets). Considering the number of WIFI cards floating around that are still being released that are standard PCI I HIGHLY doubt that we'll see an end to PCI any time soon.
It wouldn't seem the musicians have anything to worry about.:D
Since another reply covered the problems with Firewire. I'll also add another problem with eSATA besides large swaths of incompatibility with a diverse range of computers. The connector for eSATA is garbage. It is incredibly weak and unreliable. Using an eSATA plug in a mobile environment is just asking for a disconnection. It can't take any abuse. A USB plug on the other hand will stay connected through a hurricane without any disconnects.
Are you arguing with your nerdpost that the need for 64-bit is common among most computer users?
No. But I think you would suprised to find that there are millions of users with needs exactly the same as mine. 64bit falls firmly into the old arguements of "Who needs more than one core!?" Well... 3d rendering and VFX was one of the first industries that really was able to take advantage of multi-core technologies. "Who needs a large display!?" Again VFX industry and 3D Rendering were industries which needed large displays and helped push 23" LCDs into the mainstream. "Who needs a touch interface!?" Flame Flint and Inferno workstations have been indirectly "Touch" interfaces for over a decade (through the use of Wacom tablets) now we iphones. "Who needs a RAID!?" VFX and film industry needed to push massive amounts of data very quickly to lots of workstations. Some of the very first fiber switching was for VFX related NAS. Now we have USB3.0 and new SATA specs which boast HD uncompressed speeds.
There is even a company called Boxx computers that produces workstations exclusively for the VFX industry. The 3D Architecture industry is suprisingly large with millions of users. Where VFX goes so goes mainstream because often our needs are right at the cutting edge. By the time Windows 8 is released everyday products will be using raytracing and realtime 3D Visualization. It might not be needed at this very second but games will undoutably be using vast amounts of RAM. Photoshop is far from a non-mainstream product. Look at cameras. We're seeing consumer 12megapixel cameras now. Expect 20 and 30 megapixel cameras within 5 years being common. Editing a photo in photoshop (or HP's Photo Studio) on a consumer camera will require gigs of memory.
Democratization of media is inevitable. Simulations of everyday places and things will become common hat.
I would say we're already at the point where we need at least 2GB of ram in every computer. And it's not like memory is expensive I just saw 4GB for $60 yesterday.
I don't think pushing 64bit is important right now. But to say nobody but a server needs 4GB is short sighted. 8GB will be the norm well before you know it.
Where do you host the webboard? If it's not exposed to the internet then it's publicly available to hacking. If it's not exposed to the internet then nobody can access it externally. An email server can be hardened much more easily.
How do you notify people of new replys? You send out emails.
How do you keep a conversation private and then open it up to other people as needed? Discussion boards with per topic passwords? Sounds really awkward.
Emails are around for a reason. You only need to check them when something is relevant to you, they're publicly accessible and easy to send to. Everybody has one already regardless of where you work. With conversation threading they can act just like a webboard. They're peer to peer without a need to decide which host will carry the project. It's a good technology.
The *correct* solution to this reply to all situation is to detect an action which is determined to take longer than X time and alert the user that they're about to do something horrible. If it's going to take Y time tell the user the server is unable to send the message and what they can do to fix it. This is a UI design problem. Not a feature problem.
How about conducting discussions on discussion boards rather than email?
Great Idea!
"Dear Vendor, Since several people will need to be in on this conversation please visit our website at: www.webboards.com and create a user account and password.
When you've registered you will need to visit the topic "Vendor discussions/XYZ Project" and pay special attention to the topic "How do we implement X without breaking Y or can we live without Y?".
We would really appreciate your input.
Signed, Employee who's about to be fired."
Brilliant idea! A webboard! Now... I just need to send a mass email to everyone involved to let them know there is a new topic open and how to get to it. That sounds far more intuitive than just sending an email to 5 people!
If you were my admin and you did this to me I would hunt you down and kick you in the shins.
In the year 2009 we now often work in teams. We often communicate as teams. We often 'think' as... you guessed it... teams.
But by all means I'm sure whatever company you're working at people only talk to one person at a time. You have no group discussions and the only interaction that occurs between employees is by the watercooler and in meetings.
At our company however more than one recipient is the norm. Especially when you want to keep a project manager 'in the loop' of a conversation with a vendor. In fact our most common occurance is to have to say "oops - sorry looks like I dropped so and so from this conversation". Not "Ooops, I accidentally killed our mail server while talking to 4 people."
So go ahead and remove Reply-All in the classic System Administrator "I don't care how my users want to use my network. It's mine and I'll do as I please." dick move. Because that's what it is. It's a Dick move and expect irate emails from users who suddenly find their email doesn't work very well anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
The communication problem I'm talking about is not spelling, grammar etc but instead using technical sounding words for completely different things in an effort to sound cool, belong or whatever. It confuses the hell out of those of us that are literate in that area.
No you're just being an anal retentive trolling dick.
Where is my "Computer"? Can you help me find my "Computer" component? I can't seem to find my "computer".
I don't ever remember buying an AMD computer. Or an Nvidia computer. I must have forgotten to buy one.
A Computer is an assembly of components. To me my screen is part of my computer. My wacom tablet is part of my computer. My mouse is part of my computer. My Logitech remote is part of my computer.
Oh no! What do I do with a laptop? Is that a computer? Or a screen? It's... like... a computer that has a screen... or is it a computer without a monitor? Or is it a screen with a really fast processor in it? What if I use a computer to telnet into another computer? Which computer am I using? Wait... what I'm just using voice commands like star trek? Does that mean I'm not sitting in front of a computer anymore? How about a cintiq? It's sort of like sitting in front of a souped up mouse. Ooo Oooo! If I remote desktop in using a smartphone... but the smartphone is off to the side and I'm in a coffee shop next to a window... am I in front of the screen or in front of my phone? Or should I say "I sit next to my screen in a coffee shop which is 10 miles from my computer?" Can we consider phones computers? Oh my goodness so many years of dick headed questions that I have wanted answered without anyone to answer them!
Oh wait I thought of some more! If I use my TV as my computer screen at home... but I also watch some TV. Do I need to itemize my time between the "Screen" for computer usage and TV usage? Or if it's Media Center PVR does that count as sitting in front of the screen for "computer" or for "TV"? They're both screens... so if I break up my time... it starts to get complicated really fast. Thank god you came along!
So I'm computer illiterate now? What, do I have to show my nerd card? By all means. Let's hear it. Lay out my transgressions against Jargonazism. Wait... if I play stupid will you do all of my work for me for free? I just realized I've been going about this all wrong. If I ever have a problem with a computer can I call you? And just pretend I don't actually understand anything? "So like... my program isn't compiling... and like.. it's giving me this weird error that just says "Syntax error" what's a syntax? Do I need to buy one? Are they expensive?". Oooo and when I have a render glitch will you find the source of the bug? Oh and I have this character I have to concept out tommorow would you draw it up for me and make a rough model? Oooo and when that's done I need some quick python work done. Wow you're my new best friend!
People who think of things technically have a term for you too but posting it tends to be frowned upon in civilized circles.
How is Windows 7 like going from Windows 98 to Windows 98 SE.
I couldn't even tell the difference between the two.
SE was just Windows 98 with a small service pack and more drivers. That was the was only difference I could discern between my 98 and 98 SE disk. "Do I need the latest drivers out of the gate."
Here is the Official Feature List for SE:
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
Device Bay Controller
DirectX Version 6.1
Microsoft Connection Manager Version 1.2
Microsoft Dial-Up Networking (DUN) Version 1.3
Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM98)
Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.1
Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA)
Microsoft NetMeeting Version 3.0 (build 4.4.3345)
Microsoft Wake-On-LAN
Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0
Microsoft Windows Driver Model (WDM) Modem
Microsoft Windows Media Player Version 6.2
Microsoft Year 2000 (Y2K) Updates
MSN, The Microsoft Network Version 5.0
The only two features I see in that entire list that aren't updates to freely available products on the web or driver updates are Wake On Lan and Internet Sharing (which didn't actually ever work well).
Yep. When you really lay them all out like that I don't see how I could have lived without Microsoft Wallet Version 3.0 before Windows 98SE.
You CAN pin an app to the start menu and the taskbar
You are correct I tried it with a different app and it worked this time... kind of.
I tried pinning something before and then it got unpinned when I added another app. There seems to be some glitchiness if you attempt it. But it is theoretically possible. Just make sure the app isn't running. That seems to make it act more predictably.
However, the big concern many, including myself, have with Windows7, is DRM ... is it overloaded with DRM that limits software usefulness / degrades performance?
Ron
No.
It only limits software usefulness if the software in question is taking advantage of DRM. If you want to playback DRMed music. Then yes. It will limit usefulness. But you know what limits usefulness of a DRMed file even more than a DRM playback system? A system which has no DRM.
It's like my Zune. Yes. I have DRMed music which can only be played back while I'm a ZunePass subscriber. But I love it! I just subscribed and being able to just easily jump from artist to artist and find new music that I like is a far more enjoyable experience than visiting a CD store and looking at album covers hoping the new album is good for an artist I think stands a reasonable chance of putting out a dollar worthy song. Similarly I'm not limited to 15 second little useless choruses from a handful of CDs. It's way better than piratebay too. I can start listening immediately. Listen to a few songs. If I like it hit download for the entire album and move on to something else Zune says I might like.
All of that is possible thanks to DRM. If the music industry didn't feel confident in the DRM of my computer they wouldn't let me just download all their music willy nilly for free.
On the flip side I run my computer through my TV. I watch DVDs, HD-DVDs and Blurays through it. I also watch Netflix and some HBO xvids. As far as I can tell I'm not being affect in any way by DRM.
It looks like today the "News for Nerds, stuff that matters" just got replaced and instead we have a spot where the majority of people think technical details or even communication no longer matter.
Technical details matter... when they're important. How many horsepower your engine provides is less important than the handling and accelleration of your vehicle.
If I read a review or an automobile I don't care how many liters of displacement the engine has. I don't care if it's a V4 or a V10. What I care about is the end user experience. The Driving Experience.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. I spend 14 hours a day in front of a computer. Stuff that matters to me is not what kernel build Windows 7 is. How much RAM it takes. Whether or not it uses SATA 2.1 or SATA 2.2 Spec. What I care about is how the computer performs. Windows 7 to me offers an advantage to Vista and an even greater advantage as an end user.
To me what matters is the User Experience. I don't use an OS to spend all day inside the control panel. The control panel is to me a necessary evil to be avoided. An unproductive, useless and worthless region of the operating system whose very existence is an admittance of a cruel and uncaring world. What I care about are the applications that run on top of the operating system and how those applications interact with one another.
So yes. I will redefine an Operating System's worth as its Polish and User experience. But it's not a redefinition because I don't use the registry. I don't use the DRM drivers. I don't use the AGP bus. I don't use the SATA interface. I don't use the video drivers. I don't use the network stack. I don't use the sound card. I don't give a flying bat how they work. What anachronistic technical detail makes them work what I care about in an OS is how it enables me to use the applications that do enable me to be productive.
That's the true technical detail that matters. How well does all the engineering and design come together to hide everything from the user so that they can get work done? If I work faster, more efficiently and more happily with less stress and pain then it's successful.
I appologize that I didn't spell check or proof read my post. You're right communication does matter. But I was attempting to offer another perspective to a conversation before leaving to grab a bite to eat--the contents of which was more important than spending 2 weeks writing an essay on my views of operating systems.
You want to go read white papers on Windows 7? Be my guest. Honestly as a nerd who uses his computer all day and night what matters to me is how well it'll enable me to do work that really does matter.
Warning! Windows 7 is not Windows 2000
I'm starting to think this is the label that needs to be affixed to the Windows 7 box that would appease most slashdot readers.
Windows 2000 was the OS Slashdot decided they would like. Everything after that gets judged by rose tinted glasses.
Really?
What are you installing on a netbook that's going to take up a lot of space.
When I think netbook I think:
IM client, Web Browser, Word Processor, Music Player (along with an SD Card for the music library).
I've got everything important that I *need* to run my computer installed right now (All of the above) including my Zune Pass downloads and I'm only at 8GB.
Polish and User Experience in my view IS the operating system.
What the OS does for me is hide all of the ugliness of computers.
I just want to run a bunch of applications. Be able to switch between apps quickly. Setup a network to media with my XBox. Find files I'm looking for and boot quickly. It's all "Surface" stuff. But for me Vista has been incredibly stable so I haven't seen any need for improvement.
Windows 7 has added a lot of really nice things on top of Vista. People buy new operating systems because they increase their efficiency. That's why people love a mac. Those are the important new features. Being able to drag a window to the side of the screen in a big new feature. It might not take as many dev hours but it's a huge time saver for the user.
Service Packs fix bugs. New versions add features. Windows 7 is as much about adding features as it is bug fixing. And so far I've really liked a lot of the new features. I like that I don't have to manage my music and video sharing with my Xbox independently of my Zune independently of my WMP and I look forward to Winamp taking advantage of it as well.
I like the new taskbar even if I had to enable labels and disable application grouping. I don't like that it mixes running apps and icons but at the same time I do kind of have to remind myself "Why do I care?" At most I usually only have 2 icons mixed in that aren't running. And since figuring that out I've reorganized my pinned icons so that I rarely have an 'orphaned' icon.
I don't notice any performance bump. Then again I don't own a computer with less than 3GB of RAM and really... what excuse is there for only having 1GB of RAM? You can buy 1GB of RAM for $15.
I like the new wifi widget.
I like the new driver search feature (it found new updated drivers automatically and installed them. Handy!)
I like the new taskbar look and I like that I can change the taskbar's color. Seriously. I have to look at it all day. I didn't want black on my black background.
I can't stand that MSN now won't go to the notifications are and instead goes to my taskbar leaving TWO!! TWO!!!! STUPID #$*)@# taskbar entries for the same application.
I don't like that I can't have something pinned to the taskbar and start menu.
I like being able to drag an application up to the top of my screen to maximize it.
I like the updates to touch for my tablet PC.
I like the jump menus. Handy for Microsoft Word.
I look forward to Device Stage or whatever it is they call their USB connected device system.
And I look forward to being able to tell media to 'play on' my xbox from my PC.
And those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head from 2 days of use.
As far as performance and bugs are concerned perhaps you could call this SP2. But everything beyond that are the kinds of enhancements and improvements that I expect from an OS upgrade.
What did I get out of XP? An improved Start Menu? Easier Networking? More stability? Was XP just Windows 98 SP3?
Enable "Labels"
Disable "Group icons Always"
and you're pretty much back to the original taskbar. Which even out of the box is infinitely better than the dock.
I still see the odd Windows 98/95 installations. I'm certain XP will outlast Windows 8.
People get stupid ideas in their heads like "Windows 98 is TEH FASTEST!!!" and they never switch. Such is life. The rest of us actually evaluate it. Make an informed rational decision and move on with our lives.
And then what do the kids use at home?
I remember we had a ton of old Macs. And we were encouraged to play number munchers and what not at home too.
If your software is *nix only then the chances of being able to encourage kids to continue at home is close to nill.
"Dad can I install LINUX on your laptop?"
"Lin who what! Absolutely not!"
Software compatibility extends beyond the classroom.
Behold Cloud Computing! Fast, Efficient, Scalab.. errr--hold that thought.
A passive system requires "no paperwork" but it requires a far greater invasion of privacy. I agree it would be far easier for the citizien to simply let the Government automatically determine what your tax burden is without filling out forms and paperworks but that requires the government to intimately track how many children you have, what your income was for the year, how much money you spent on medical expenses, what the value of your home is, how much you payed in interest for student loans... etc etc.
So really your options are these
1) A passive system where the government knows everything about you and automatically deducts how much you owe.
*Risk being that they mistake you for someone else or have out of date information in which you pay too much.
2) An active system where you control all of the details about your life and only release the relevant details about your life that you think are worth a rebate.
*Risk being that you lie and they get suspicious requiring you to prove your claims.
The Passive system is far far far more invasive than the Active system. The Active system allows you to not even report you have a child to the IRS if you care more about your privacy than your discount.
This is the problem with the "Flat Tax" system. Everybody wants their own little rebates. "I have 2 children. I need to keep them fed and educated!" "I am in college, I shouldn't pay taxes on any student loan interest!" "I own a small business and employ 3 people in the community!".
Everybody from every walk of life has something they don't feel is taxable-- or should get rewarded for doing. "I gave $10,000 to charity!" And I agree most deductions are things that deserve to be deducted.
But... the "Flat Tax" policy still offers these deductions. They just offer them in the form of a Rebate Check. So by the time you've *given back* all the money that the poor, blind, impregnated, educated and housed individuals want in rebates our tax policy is equally unflat... equally complicated and equally difficult to maintain.
If people want a simple tax code it's really really easy. Stop taking DEDUCTIONS! I filled out my taxes in under 15 minutes this year. I looked at my W2 typed in 15 boxes. Did a 5 second estimate in my head that I wouldn't break the $10k automatic deductions and hit send.
It's the people with 5 kids a mortage, a mentally hadicapped step daughter, 3 student loans, a small business under their name and 3 vacation properties on top of a pension fund that have trouble doing their taxes. And the ONLY reason they have trouble doing their taxes is because they want to pay the absolute bare minimum possible taking advantage of every tax break possibly afforded to them. These people would have an equally difficult time squeezing their "refund" out of a flat tax system as they do squeezing their "deductions" out of the progressive tax system.
Let's just face it. Unless we want to unfairly tax people without consideration to special circumstances tax codes are going to be complicated. You can't be both easy and detailed. They're mutually exclusive. The more detailed you want your deductions and more things you want excluded from taxation the more difficult your taxes will become. Get over it. Pay H&R Block $30 or whatever it is they're asking now adays. Or pay $50 for TurboTax.
The only alternative is to open your books completely to the government and let them automatically calculate it. *Cue privacy advocates descending from hell to sing their chorus.
Or an even better solution.
The IRS can charge me taxes in WOW items. But I can defend it using WOW laws.
So the IRS agent must catch me in a raid and take my items by force. Because if I'm in a WOW world I'm going to fight by WOW rules and kick his sorry tax collecting ass.
Just think how much more interesting collecting a 400 gold piece tax will become when you can draw a sword and protect your property. Of course the IRS raiding parties will be top level well orchestrated teams working in concert across Azeroth it will add a whole new level of excitement every february for most players. The IRS would also probably add bounties for top
level characters leading to an interesting new dynamic of payed free agents for whom money is on the line.
Orrrr... if you sell your gold you report your "Other Income" like you're legally obligated right now. But that would be far less exciting.
*thatoneguy does not play WOW nor has ever played WOW. However adding IRS agents as a force might... just might convince him to open an account.
Agreed. For the first few days I kept noticing the new favicon for google and wondering in my head "Why is google putting up a jumble of random shapes for their favicon?" I had assumed it was like the anniversary of some grand puzzle maker or something. Only yesterday did it suddenly hit me "OH that's a g!"
Terrible logo. In the middle it's at least legible.
It's also important to note that while the communist party doesn't like being undermined they are religious in their zeal to stamp out corruption. They recognize that they can't fully control the population and their presence must be desired.
All of the people I talked to in China (even in private) seemed to be proud of their government and their country. They all got incensed when I made any sort of inquiry into what it's like to live in a communist nation or their thoughts about communism. "We are not communist! We are a republic!" That was the answer I always got or something to that effect. They elect their leaders and if those leaders in any way do anything which could potentially embarass the party they're sacked. Immediately and with almost no investigation. If the people are dissastisfied with a communist official they can report them to headquarters and action from on high will be swift.
The communist party's crackdowns are not just on dissidents and undesireables. It's also directed at itself. Party First. You dishonor the party and you better jump on your sword or face the consequences--harsh consequences. They certainly learned from the Soviet system in which the soviets become complacent and over confident in their power. Revolutions are inevitable. The best way to quell revolution is to keep the people happy. In some ways the single party system in China is more accountable than our multi-party system in America.
The trick though is with a country like China you can pay 1,000 people 1,000 dollars to read every news site and most major web forums in order to 'know what we know'.
Updating a firewall with IP and DNS information is relatively trivial with solid reporting. Like you say you can't stop it all but you can stop anything popular. It's the paradox of counter-censorship. In order to advertise a piece of information to a large number of people-- a large number of people need to be made aware of the information. Keeping the 'secret' distribution methods secret is as difficult for the other side as it is for the government. There's no way for either party to keep what they know completely secret but seeing as the government doesn't have to stop 100% of it they have an advantage. They just have to keep the number of people who know about it less than they can deal with. That number is by definition larger than themselves therefore as soon as you can spread the information to a group larger than the government then the source becomes identifiable.
Whackamole can be suprisingly effective.
I just bought a Motherboard today. All of the ones I looked at had standard PCI slots (All i7 motherboards so top of the line latest chipsets). Considering the number of WIFI cards floating around that are still being released that are standard PCI I HIGHLY doubt that we'll see an end to PCI any time soon.
It wouldn't seem the musicians have anything to worry about. :D
Power? I have a 2.5" drive I power off of USB2.0. With eSata I have to plug a drive into a wall (or power it off of a USB port. :D)
Since another reply covered the problems with Firewire. I'll also add another problem with eSATA besides large swaths of incompatibility with a diverse range of computers. The connector for eSATA is garbage. It is incredibly weak and unreliable. Using an eSATA plug in a mobile environment is just asking for a disconnection. It can't take any abuse. A USB plug on the other hand will stay connected through a hurricane without any disconnects.
Are you arguing with your nerdpost that the need for 64-bit is common among most computer users?
No. But I think you would suprised to find that there are millions of users with needs exactly the same as mine. 64bit falls firmly into the old arguements of "Who needs more than one core!?" Well... 3d rendering and VFX was one of the first industries that really was able to take advantage of multi-core technologies. "Who needs a large display!?" Again VFX industry and 3D Rendering were industries which needed large displays and helped push 23" LCDs into the mainstream. "Who needs a touch interface!?" Flame Flint and Inferno workstations have been indirectly "Touch" interfaces for over a decade (through the use of Wacom tablets) now we iphones. "Who needs a RAID!?" VFX and film industry needed to push massive amounts of data very quickly to lots of workstations. Some of the very first fiber switching was for VFX related NAS. Now we have USB3.0 and new SATA specs which boast HD uncompressed speeds.
There is even a company called Boxx computers that produces workstations exclusively for the VFX industry. The 3D Architecture industry is suprisingly large with millions of users. Where VFX goes so goes mainstream because often our needs are right at the cutting edge. By the time Windows 8 is released everyday products will be using raytracing and realtime 3D Visualization. It might not be needed at this very second but games will undoutably be using vast amounts of RAM. Photoshop is far from a non-mainstream product. Look at cameras. We're seeing consumer 12megapixel cameras now. Expect 20 and 30 megapixel cameras within 5 years being common. Editing a photo in photoshop (or HP's Photo Studio) on a consumer camera will require gigs of memory.
Democratization of media is inevitable. Simulations of everyday places and things will become common hat.
I would say we're already at the point where we need at least 2GB of ram in every computer. And it's not like memory is expensive I just saw 4GB for $60 yesterday.
I don't think pushing 64bit is important right now. But to say nobody but a server needs 4GB is short sighted. 8GB will be the norm well before you know it.
That would be true if WoW didn't take place in an alternate universe filled with trolls, orcs, and virtual armour and words
Wait... what? Alternate universe? I'm payed in gold and armor how are you payed? And slashdot is already full of trolls.
More problems with webboards:
Where do you host the webboard? If it's not exposed to the internet then it's publicly available to hacking. If it's not exposed to the internet then nobody can access it externally. An email server can be hardened much more easily.
How do you notify people of new replys? You send out emails.
How do you keep a conversation private and then open it up to other people as needed? Discussion boards with per topic passwords? Sounds really awkward.
Emails are around for a reason. You only need to check them when something is relevant to you, they're publicly accessible and easy to send to. Everybody has one already regardless of where you work. With conversation threading they can act just like a webboard. They're peer to peer without a need to decide which host will carry the project. It's a good technology.
The *correct* solution to this reply to all situation is to detect an action which is determined to take longer than X time and alert the user that they're about to do something horrible. If it's going to take Y time tell the user the server is unable to send the message and what they can do to fix it. This is a UI design problem. Not a feature problem.
How about conducting discussions on discussion boards rather than email?
Great Idea!
"Dear Vendor,
Since several people will need to be in on this conversation please visit our website at:
www.webboards.com and create a user account and password.
When you've registered you will need to visit the topic "Vendor discussions/XYZ Project" and pay special attention to the topic "How do we implement X without breaking Y or can we live without Y?".
We would really appreciate your input.
Signed,
Employee who's about to be fired."
Brilliant idea! A webboard! Now... I just need to send a mass email to everyone involved to let them know there is a new topic open and how to get to it. That sounds far more intuitive than just sending an email to 5 people!
If you were my admin and you did this to me I would hunt you down and kick you in the shins.
In the year 2009 we now often work in teams. We often communicate as teams. We often 'think' as... you guessed it... teams.
But by all means I'm sure whatever company you're working at people only talk to one person at a time. You have no group discussions and the only interaction that occurs between employees is by the watercooler and in meetings.
At our company however more than one recipient is the norm. Especially when you want to keep a project manager 'in the loop' of a conversation with a vendor. In fact our most common occurance is to have to say "oops - sorry looks like I dropped so and so from this conversation". Not "Ooops, I accidentally killed our mail server while talking to 4 people."
So go ahead and remove Reply-All in the classic System Administrator "I don't care how my users want to use my network. It's mine and I'll do as I please." dick move. Because that's what it is. It's a Dick move and expect irate emails from users who suddenly find their email doesn't work very well anymore.