Vista SP3 PLUS Marketing hype PLUS Lipstick on a Pig... doesn't make it much faster.
You're absolutely right. The thing is though, Vista is a good operating system that is plagued by a stigma that is largely persisted by technology sites that, by default and in some sort of nerd conformance insist that all Microsoft products are garbage, an opinion formed with disregard to objectivity. By rebranding Windows Vista as Windows 7 and getting some tech sites to view it in a positive light, the layperson who holds any nerds technology opinion as inherent truth will be more apt to try and view it in a positive light as well.
For the rest of us nerd conformists, that live in the real world/front line, we'll stick to our experience, thank you very much.
Give me more than anecdotal proof that Vista's problems are stigma. I have dealt with many problems with Vista and legacy apps. Not very many people want to rebuy all their programs just because their new laptop has Vista.
Try: Any older version of AutoCAD Outlook 2000/2002 Quickbooks 2006 or before MYOB (I know the work around to get it installed, but Intuit (it's owner) shut down the program years ago, and won't offer any support for it)
None of these are cheap programs.
I saw Spore (by EA) kill a Vista install. Worked 100% on XP. I also saw (the brand new game) Call of Duty: World at War not run properly on Vista for no apparent reason...XP? Perfectly fine.
Ever try to repair a failed Vista? No? There's no repair install option like with XP. Oh, and don't bother trying to massage old reg hives to make it work, it's not worth the aggravation, because it doesn't work. Just reinstall a clean version (which will likely take quite a few hours to make it back to its original properly working state after all a user's programs are reinstalled, settings are reset, and data is transferred).
I'm all for progress. I wish that all these lazy companies would put out 64-bit builds of their crap...but it ain't gonna happen. So? Well, then we stick with XP.
Nope...I would say you are right. I recommend something like this to everyone that asks me about getting rid of their old computer(s) (and hence: hard drives). I usually can't believe it when seemingly intelligent human beings maintain a cavalier or the "well, it's going back to the factory, what could go wrong?" attitude.
Very few people have been interested in paying for such a data protection service.
I don't like to RMA drives I can't properly wipe...does the sworn statement actually work?
Yeah. It's almost like we should move towards some type of hidden metadata that indicates what a file's type is, and maybe another one indicating what application created it. That way, a user could change the filename as much as they want, but the file will still retain the key information that identifies what it really is (which lets other programs open it), as well as what program initially created it (so that program will launch when the document is opened or double-clicked). Probably too advanced for modern systems, though...
Actually, NTFS allows for something called an ADS (Alternate Data Streams). Any amount of data can exist there. It's even possible to have multiple data streams...so...why not just reserve one or two for application information? Well, only a handful of popular file systems use/understand an ADS...any version of FAT, CDFS, ISO9660 etc can't story that data, so if one copies data to a volume with one of these file systems, the ADS data is lost.
Some very smart viruses like to hide in ADS land...as in, you might see a file with 0k allocated, but in fact, in an ADS, it might have its payload. Unfortunately, until Vista, Windows Explorer didn't tally the ADS in it's "Total Size on Disk" line in a file's properties dialog, so you could have a file report as 1k, but actually take up gigs, and there isn't a way to account for it.
Try it! Bring up a command shell in Windows 2000 through Win 7. Go to a temp dir, and create a file like this:
echo Regular Stream > testfile.txt
Then create an ADS, but use of the semicolon:
echo Alternate Stream > testfile.txt:anything
Then display your newly created file:
type testfile.txt
more (less-than sign) testfile.txt:anything
(Sorry, I don't know how to properly escape a less-than sign)
Seriously? They're releasing a top-down space combat game? Is it 1990 again and nobody told me? If you're going to create a strategic space combat game, why not license the engine from a game that did it well (e.g. Homeworld) and use that.
+1
Homeworld == Best 3D space sim ever. Real 3D, not pseudo 3D. I think Hegemonia used the same engine.
"Personally, I think this sort of lax infrastructure security has become endemic."
That's why the incident under discussion is a good thing in the way that cracker threats and viruses are good.
Without attacks there is little incentive to build robust systems.
Without attacks, there's no reason to build robust systems.
Well, sorta...redundancy is always a good idea...stuff breaks...100% uptime would be nice.
I had an idea: build a system with utilized redundancy...if one area/link goes down, the other keeps going...e.g. 50% of total capacity, but it's still going...
This probably won't affect 80% of all users, so it'll fly under the radar. If this was back in the 90's when it was mostly computers guys/gals on the net, this wouldn't squeak through. Now that Joe S. Pack pays out the nose for his shitty cell phone and net service in Canada, the incumbents don't care (there are no Cell packages available now that are all-you-can-eat...Internet is almost 'unlimited' right now, but will be usage based in 2 months). The CRTC is just a floor show to lock in Bell/Rogers desires.
What incentive does any company have to do what is 'right' here if the government won't back its own people? Well, the government doesn't care about people, it cares about money and power...neither of which any person has, only big corporations. See that? They feed each other, a perfect relationship, and we consumers get blood-let in the process.
If you are on the phone, how is it supposed to 'hear' your bio response? I don't know about any of you, but my ear doesn't produce a sound so loud that it could be heard by the mic of a phone, and there is no sound reception functionality in the earpiece of any phone. This also doesn't take into account telephonic compression, cellular data stream tomfuckery, background noise, blah blah...via telephone, ain't gonna happen.
Furthermore, in person, they'd have to jam something in my ear to measure its response (to overcome any ambient noise). How gross is that? Have you ever seen the crusty chunks of goo and other congealed humanoid fluids left on the earpiece of a public/someone else's phone...but this won't be outside goopiness..it'll be yes...yes...inside goopiness. Much more pleasant. Do you think they'll give you a nice clean new point ear-end every time? HAH! Once I went to the dentist and they made me put my mouth on the plastic "stage" so that my mouth would be in the right position for their x-ray machine. I asked if it was sterilized...the chick said "oh...yeah...don't worry about that." WTF! I could see five thousand score marks from the last snaggle-toothed Neanderthals so fortunate to grace the ray shooter before me.
NO THANKS. Everyone else can use it. That shit ain't touchin' me.
Anecdotal evidence is exactly my point. There's no way to know what is really going on without being the engineer of the system, or reverse-engineering the failure.
I didn't call dude a troll, I called what he said was a troll...very different things. And yeah, if his buddies continually have to return their systems for repair, something isn't right. Yes, I believe the engineering of the 360 isn't 100% to my standard of electronic devices, but knowing this, I act accordingly. I have run my 360 longer than the prescribed 'non-abusive' time limit...and if it breaks, I won't complain. I'll request repair, but won't expect it.
I see that the PS3 may be able to survive extreme conditions well, the only problem with their tests is that they didn't cycle it. Hot --> cold --> hot --> cold...that's way harder on electronics than constant temperature.
Anyway...point is the 360 is delicate, and should be treated as such. MS is standing behind them, cool. We all bought one, we all have to live with the quirks...I've always thought the 360 games were better, controls more refined/mature...I'll buy another if this one dies.
I'm sorry to hear about your flaky eject button, that's just annoying to work around.
Heh...funny remark, but I am pulling from a few more systems than just my own. I am aware of quite a few people that have 360s, and it seems the only people that have problems are the addicts that neglect their systems.
I'm not saying that this is the case every time. As I said, mine red ringed once. I know that MS made these things a cheaply as possible, so something has to give...I'm just saying that if people respected their consoles a little bit more, it would be less of a problem. There's no way MS can tell if you had your system in an enclosed area, or on a carpet when it overheated -- they can only tell that it did. They want to, surprisingly, make people happy, so they'll fix the borked units.
I think it's actually more of a case that MS makes such a killing off of game licensing, that if people stopped buying consoles (or more specifically, didn't replace broken ones), they would lose market share, and thus a large profit...it's just conjecture, but it makes sense to me.
I don't disagree with you that MS skimped on the h/w quality. I was shocked when mine red ringed. Really, the unit should have a thermal sensor on sensitive parts so that it doesn't allow itself to overheat to the point of self-destruction. God, all CPUs in the last 5 years (or more) have had this feature, why not mobos and video cards?
You may have had some other problem besides overheating, perhaps an over-voltage? The power brick should smooth that out, but what if its power-smoothing abilities failed? It could have been bad caps too, which can die at any time.
Anyway, I agree 100% that MS did the right thing by extending the default warranty. My respect for them went up a bit...from around -100 to maybe -98.
I agree with you. Any electronic device should be able to handle indefinite use without fear of borkage. Operating anything that generates heat inside a cabinet does cause premature death, though. A 360 is just a tiny PC...imagine stuffing a computer into a tiny box (the 360 skin), and closing off all the vents (the cabinet in which it resides)...eventually heat dissipation isn't sufficient to cool the components...and the RoHS lead-free solder points give out, and it's all over but the cryin'...unfortunately. MS knows this, so they write it in the manual that it can only be used for a few hours at a time.
Check out projectors. They have it in the warranty -- use it continuously for more than 8hrs, and the warranty is voided.
I've had a 360 console since launch, and it runs perfectly to this day - never repaired.
I had the red ring of death once, it said something not so informative on the screen. I powered off, waited a few minutes, and powered it back on and haven't had any issues since.
I bet that your friends neglect or abuse their consoles. If you look in the manual, it says that you aren't supposed to use the console for extended periods of time (which is something like 3 or 4 hours), set them on carpet, enclose them inside cabinets etc etc. Everyone knows these units heat up...mitigate it.
You also say that all, minus one, have sent their consoles in more than once? Unreal! They should learn to do something differently if they expect different results.
One thing I don't understand well is the idea that admins must disable root's ability to login remotely via SSH. Could you explain your reasoning? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm curious...and I don't know any linux admins other than myself with which to discuss the topic)
I can understand it via FTP, but SSH is different. You see, I would imagine that any proper admin has a wicked long password, where most users have a relatively short password, thus introducing a weak point. If a user has a relatively easy username and password combination, an attacker could gain access to a server. Once in, the attacker can spend all day attempting to su as root, bypassing any potential brute force blocking measures via IPTables.
Is it theorized that an attacker would be less likely to guess a proper username? Thus, making any user's password more secure by a few orders of magnitude? Or is it just the fact that you can let someone run literally forever attempting to crack root, but won't be able to?
Personally, I subscribe to the "put ssh on a different port" and have a long password school of thought. 99% of all regular users don't need ssh, so, they won't be inconvenienced by a non-default port, and if they do, it's easy to pre-program their ssh client to save the proper port. Furthermore, I'd say a 20 character password is enough to essentially take "forever" to crack...unless of course, there's some hash collision that will exist with a smaller set of characters...which is not likely, right?
I used to have thousands of FTP brute force attemps daily. I threw in some IPTables rules, cutting off an IP after 6 attempts (stupid IE connects 4 times per actual "human" login attempt! Yes, 3 to try "anonymous" then it prompts the user for u/p combo, and tries that!!!). My bandwidth usage went down, and my logs aren't hideous anymore.
In high school, I had a physics teacher who, way back when he first started teaching, ordered x picograms of radioactive material for his class. The school secretary thought he misspelled the order and changed it to grams.
He said later on the principal called him over the intercom and sounded really upset. He went to the office, only to find the principal steaming mad over a $50,000.00-plus invoice. He looked at the invoice and, realizing what it was, went and got his giger counter...only to find it going crazy even out in the hall from the principal's office.
As it turned out, they had shipped a large order of radioactive material in a cardboard box!
They had to evacuate the office and call someone to come and get it.
Possibly unrelated, because that had happened many years prior, but he died of cancer.
transporter_ii
My physics teacher was cool and all, but that teacher was wicked cool...
The real WTF is he didn't evacuate the school before getting the giger counter. Actually, a bigger WTF is who shipped $50,000 of radio-active material to a school? And who packed it in something other than lead? They only evacuated the office?
Oddly, it reminds me of that episode of Star Trek:TNG where Data loses his memory in a shuttle accident and is on a civilized planet. He has radio-active shards in a lead box, but doesn't recall that they are hazardous. People wear them as pretty trinkets on their necks and people start getting radiation burns....
I read that article and I caught the same thing too. It's quite staggering that people with this level of ineptitude rise to such a power position in our society.
I think the -definition- of discrimination is the differentiation between a person or group based on an attribute of that person or group. The property being "intelligence level", and the attribute being "high". This would be the same property/attribute combination as say sexual orientation/gay, or age/young. Unfortunately "intelligence" as a property of a person is not protected by our governing doctrines.
Still, this judges logic! I hope I am never put before a judge with such a limited mentality, ever.
I wire 75 baud 20 ma current loop leads directly into the muscles of my left forearm. I use slightly rusty safety pins to pierce my "insulation". I key Baudot by flexing my left index finger and decode Baudot from the computer by feeling the twitches of my left pinky finger.
Yes, half-duplex. It's a luxury, but you gotta treat yourself right sometimes.
Oh, yeah, I use csh too. Because sometimes you gotta treat yourself badly to compensate for the luxuries of things like half-duplex.
(epileptics probably shouldn't drive buses for example)
Epileptics who are not controlled by medication, thank you very much. Some of us have been lucky enough to find the right drug, and have happy productive lives, and don't kill people very often at all.
Not very often? Just out of curiosity, how often would that be?
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
Vista is very stable (for me) too, and I don't think it's ever done anything for me that I didn't want it to do (except for changing the folder views -- that drives me nuts sometimes). YMMV.
Sorry for me brevity, but I'm kinda tired.
You're missing the point. Linux's components are not integrated into the OS. XP, Vista, Win7, all the additional services/apps are integrated such that it's difficult to remove said services/apps. Win2k, this wasn't a problem. Try easily removing MSN messenger, or Windows Live.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely.
Sure, and I agree. But the thing is: the average person doesn't care which programs are installed. And memory and hard drive space are so cheap these days that it's would literally cost me more in time and effort to "slim down" the OS than to just install everything and just don't use what I don't want.
This is my exact point. Even if most people don't care, I care. I want choice, option, freedom, decision, and will. XP and forwards removes these valuable attributes for no beneficial reason to the end user. Linux will run with only the Kernel. Windows requires everything just to boot properly. In your example, in Linux, all you have to do is go to the package manager (like Add/Remove programs) and click the button that makes the installed OS just the bare minimum. The distros I've used have presests, too (like server, workstation, base, everything!, and a few more), which makes it very very easy to reconfigure the role of a computer. It may take a moment for the computer to complete the install/uninstall, but it takes very very few bum-in-the-chair minutes.
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
And how many Linux distros are there?
Probably 100 that are popular. Again, you miss the point. These are all by different companies. MS is one company. Also, being that most (if not all) Linux distros are FREE in every respect, it's a moot point. I don't have to pay more for any specific distro, so I have an incentive to download and install the one that fits its desired application. Purchasing Windows, there is a real difference between installing Vista Starter Edition, and Vista Ultimate, namely about $300 retail, which is almost the price of a whole computer!
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
FWIW, Linux installation has never EVER gone this easily for me. Not even close. On the other hand, the only time I have ever had a problem installing Windows was when XP wanted SATA drivers that I had to hunt around for. Vista Untilate installed perfectly. The Windows 7 Beta installed perfectly in a dual-boot configuration with Vista. It may install things that you personally don't want, but Windows has Linux beat for ease of installation hands down.
Well, I suppose everyone has different experiences. I've had stellar, and less than stellar installations with Linux. Ultimately, they are worked as intended, even printers. My LaserJet 1000 and 3055 (proprietary internal
I don't really think that anything changes now that they were "caught". How many price-fixing slaps-on-the-wrists have we seen? Any company that does it just chalks up the fine to business costs, and continues.
Do I think anything will change? Nope. Ask yourself why they don't get caught while doing it. After the fact, it doesn't matter anymore.
Oh, and double bonus points to the article writer for using the word "plead", and not "pleaded".
It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Elaborate, please. I have Vista on my home system and XP on my work system, and for me going from Vista to XP (let alone 2000) is like going back to the bronze age. Also I develop on Linux at work, and I'm not sure what features it has that I should be wanting on my Windows machine.
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely. Media Player? Nope. Some people (businesses I would say drive most PC sales, but I could be wrong) don't need many of the programs that get installed with XP and Vista. It's an administrative nightmare to slim down XP or Vista without going to 3rd party utils like vLite (which may or may not be allowed depending on company "risk" assessments).
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
Windows installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Windows. I've already decided everything for you. Oh, after installation you decided you want to remove your browser? Sorry. Win7 -- You want your classic desktop back? Sorry. We don't provide any facility for that.
He said Microsoft's move in March 2006 to put former head of Office development Steven Sinofsky in charge of Windows development was a key driver of changes in the process. Sinofsky is now senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, and Nash credits him for bringing order to the group.
They need to fire that guy, and hire me. I'll do it for half the money, and pump out an OS that people actually want. It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Gavriella Schuster, a senior director of Windows product management, cited the "stop-and-start nature" of Vista's development process as contributing to partners' lack of preparedness for the final release. Microsoft stopped Vista's development in the middle of the process to overhaul the security of the OS, a move that delayed its final release.
Wrong, they didn't overhaul security, they overhauled the whole damn thing because an OS made out of.NET wouldn't actually run any applications. What's it called when someone re-writes history?
I still didn't see anything specific to "How Vista mistakes guided blah blah". Guided? Guided? Not even close. "Vista mistakes" didn't exist until Win7 was announced. All I saw in this article was this: "Hey, look, we have a new and BETTAR one, LOOKIES! It's safer, more secure, faster, more reliable than any other" what? propogadvertisement we've ever seen before while installing it, that's what.
I know I sound like I have a chip on my shoulder. I do. It's because my clients, friends, family, and I have been forced into this crap if we plan to run the applications we are familiar with, or buy a computer from a big box store. I tried, oh how I tried, to get family on Linux...endless support calls later, they're all back on XP. Yes, XP. I like Linux dearly, it's close to market, but just not yet...I can operate a computer in the dark, under water, wearing blindfold with one hand behind my back. >95% of all other people can't, which precludes them from that platform.
As an aside, and completely off-topic, who the hell started the standard of making the non-functional progress bar? The first time I recall seeing it was during the XP installation. Now, it's everywhere. Is nothing sacred? Obfuscate! They must not know!
Slashdot Mirror
Vista SP3 PLUS Marketing hype PLUS Lipstick on a Pig... doesn't make it much faster.
You're absolutely right. The thing is though, Vista is a good operating system that is plagued by a stigma that is largely persisted by technology sites that, by default and in some sort of nerd conformance insist that all Microsoft products are garbage, an opinion formed with disregard to objectivity. By rebranding Windows Vista as Windows 7 and getting some tech sites to view it in a positive light, the layperson who holds any nerds technology opinion as inherent truth will be more apt to try and view it in a positive light as well.
For the rest of us nerd conformists, that live in the real world/front line, we'll stick to our experience, thank you very much.
Give me more than anecdotal proof that Vista's problems are stigma. I have dealt with many problems with Vista and legacy apps. Not very many people want to rebuy all their programs just because their new laptop has Vista.
Try:
Any older version of AutoCAD
Outlook 2000/2002
Quickbooks 2006 or before
MYOB (I know the work around to get it installed, but Intuit (it's owner) shut down the program years ago, and won't offer any support for it)
None of these are cheap programs.
I saw Spore (by EA) kill a Vista install. Worked 100% on XP. I also saw (the brand new game) Call of Duty: World at War not run properly on Vista for no apparent reason...XP? Perfectly fine.
Ever try to repair a failed Vista? No? There's no repair install option like with XP. Oh, and don't bother trying to massage old reg hives to make it work, it's not worth the aggravation, because it doesn't work. Just reinstall a clean version (which will likely take quite a few hours to make it back to its original properly working state after all a user's programs are reinstalled, settings are reset, and data is transferred).
I'm all for progress. I wish that all these lazy companies would put out 64-bit builds of their crap...but it ain't gonna happen. So? Well, then we stick with XP.
Nope...I would say you are right. I recommend something like this to everyone that asks me about getting rid of their old computer(s) (and hence: hard drives). I usually can't believe it when seemingly intelligent human beings maintain a cavalier or the "well, it's going back to the factory, what could go wrong?" attitude.
Very few people have been interested in paying for such a data protection service.
I don't like to RMA drives I can't properly wipe...does the sworn statement actually work?
I wish more people were security minded...
Yeah. It's almost like we should move towards some type of hidden metadata that indicates what a file's type is, and maybe another one indicating what application created it. That way, a user could change the filename as much as they want, but the file will still retain the key information that identifies what it really is (which lets other programs open it), as well as what program initially created it (so that program will launch when the document is opened or double-clicked). Probably too advanced for modern systems, though...
Actually, NTFS allows for something called an ADS (Alternate Data Streams). Any amount of data can exist there. It's even possible to have multiple data streams...so...why not just reserve one or two for application information? Well, only a handful of popular file systems use/understand an ADS...any version of FAT, CDFS, ISO9660 etc can't story that data, so if one copies data to a volume with one of these file systems, the ADS data is lost.
Some very smart viruses like to hide in ADS land...as in, you might see a file with 0k allocated, but in fact, in an ADS, it might have its payload. Unfortunately, until Vista, Windows Explorer didn't tally the ADS in it's "Total Size on Disk" line in a file's properties dialog, so you could have a file report as 1k, but actually take up gigs, and there isn't a way to account for it.
Try it! Bring up a command shell in Windows 2000 through Win 7. Go to a temp dir, and create a file like this:
echo Regular Stream > testfile.txt
Then create an ADS, but use of the semicolon:
echo Alternate Stream > testfile.txt:anything
Then display your newly created file:
type testfile.txt
more (less-than sign) testfile.txt:anything
(Sorry, I don't know how to properly escape a less-than sign)
Note the use of "more" for the alternate stream. I suppose "type" doesn't understand an ADS.
There you have it. A relatively surreptitious way to protect data in plain sight.
Seriously? They're releasing a top-down space combat game? Is it 1990 again and nobody told me? If you're going to create a strategic space combat game, why not license the engine from a game that did it well (e.g. Homeworld) and use that.
+1
Homeworld == Best 3D space sim ever. Real 3D, not pseudo 3D. I think Hegemonia used the same engine.
"Personally, I think this sort of lax infrastructure security has become endemic."
That's why the incident under discussion is a good thing in the way that cracker threats and viruses are good.
Without attacks there is little incentive to build robust systems.
Without attacks, there's no reason to build robust systems.
Well, sorta...redundancy is always a good idea...stuff breaks...100% uptime would be nice.
I had an idea: build a system with utilized redundancy...if one area/link goes down, the other keeps going...e.g. 50% of total capacity, but it's still going...
Not good, but could be worse. It could have been Microsoft with this big idea.
Imagine having SilverLight on every TV?
Who did you go to?
Not me.
This is sorta old news, this was on the docket 9 months ago.
This probably won't affect 80% of all users, so it'll fly under the radar. If this was back in the 90's when it was mostly computers guys/gals on the net, this wouldn't squeak through. Now that Joe S. Pack pays out the nose for his shitty cell phone and net service in Canada, the incumbents don't care (there are no Cell packages available now that are all-you-can-eat...Internet is almost 'unlimited' right now, but will be usage based in 2 months). The CRTC is just a floor show to lock in Bell/Rogers desires.
What incentive does any company have to do what is 'right' here if the government won't back its own people? Well, the government doesn't care about people, it cares about money and power...neither of which any person has, only big corporations. See that? They feed each other, a perfect relationship, and we consumers get blood-let in the process.
I want my money back, I'm going home.
If you are on the phone, how is it supposed to 'hear' your bio response? I don't know about any of you, but my ear doesn't produce a sound so loud that it could be heard by the mic of a phone, and there is no sound reception functionality in the earpiece of any phone. This also doesn't take into account telephonic compression, cellular data stream tomfuckery, background noise, blah blah...via telephone, ain't gonna happen.
Furthermore, in person, they'd have to jam something in my ear to measure its response (to overcome any ambient noise). How gross is that? Have you ever seen the crusty chunks of goo and other congealed humanoid fluids left on the earpiece of a public/someone else's phone...but this won't be outside goopiness..it'll be yes...yes...inside goopiness. Much more pleasant. Do you think they'll give you a nice clean new point ear-end every time? HAH! Once I went to the dentist and they made me put my mouth on the plastic "stage" so that my mouth would be in the right position for their x-ray machine. I asked if it was sterilized...the chick said "oh...yeah...don't worry about that." WTF! I could see five thousand score marks from the last snaggle-toothed Neanderthals so fortunate to grace the ray shooter before me.
NO THANKS. Everyone else can use it. That shit ain't touchin' me.
Anecdotal evidence is exactly my point. There's no way to know what is really going on without being the engineer of the system, or reverse-engineering the failure.
I didn't call dude a troll, I called what he said was a troll...very different things. And yeah, if his buddies continually have to return their systems for repair, something isn't right. Yes, I believe the engineering of the 360 isn't 100% to my standard of electronic devices, but knowing this, I act accordingly. I have run my 360 longer than the prescribed 'non-abusive' time limit...and if it breaks, I won't complain. I'll request repair, but won't expect it.
I see that the PS3 may be able to survive extreme conditions well, the only problem with their tests is that they didn't cycle it. Hot --> cold --> hot --> cold...that's way harder on electronics than constant temperature.
Anyway...point is the 360 is delicate, and should be treated as such. MS is standing behind them, cool. We all bought one, we all have to live with the quirks...I've always thought the 360 games were better, controls more refined/mature...I'll buy another if this one dies.
I'm sorry to hear about your flaky eject button, that's just annoying to work around.
Heh...funny remark, but I am pulling from a few more systems than just my own. I am aware of quite a few people that have 360s, and it seems the only people that have problems are the addicts that neglect their systems.
I'm not saying that this is the case every time. As I said, mine red ringed once. I know that MS made these things a cheaply as possible, so something has to give...I'm just saying that if people respected their consoles a little bit more, it would be less of a problem. There's no way MS can tell if you had your system in an enclosed area, or on a carpet when it overheated -- they can only tell that it did. They want to, surprisingly, make people happy, so they'll fix the borked units.
I think it's actually more of a case that MS makes such a killing off of game licensing, that if people stopped buying consoles (or more specifically, didn't replace broken ones), they would lose market share, and thus a large profit...it's just conjecture, but it makes sense to me.
I don't disagree with you that MS skimped on the h/w quality. I was shocked when mine red ringed. Really, the unit should have a thermal sensor on sensitive parts so that it doesn't allow itself to overheat to the point of self-destruction. God, all CPUs in the last 5 years (or more) have had this feature, why not mobos and video cards?
You may have had some other problem besides overheating, perhaps an over-voltage? The power brick should smooth that out, but what if its power-smoothing abilities failed? It could have been bad caps too, which can die at any time.
Anyway, I agree 100% that MS did the right thing by extending the default warranty. My respect for them went up a bit...from around -100 to maybe -98.
I agree with you. Any electronic device should be able to handle indefinite use without fear of borkage. Operating anything that generates heat inside a cabinet does cause premature death, though. A 360 is just a tiny PC...imagine stuffing a computer into a tiny box (the 360 skin), and closing off all the vents (the cabinet in which it resides)...eventually heat dissipation isn't sufficient to cool the components...and the RoHS lead-free solder points give out, and it's all over but the cryin'...unfortunately. MS knows this, so they write it in the manual that it can only be used for a few hours at a time.
Check out projectors. They have it in the warranty -- use it continuously for more than 8hrs, and the warranty is voided.
Welcome to yesterday's future.
I call troll.
I've had a 360 console since launch, and it runs perfectly to this day - never repaired.
I had the red ring of death once, it said something not so informative on the screen. I powered off, waited a few minutes, and powered it back on and haven't had any issues since.
I bet that your friends neglect or abuse their consoles. If you look in the manual, it says that you aren't supposed to use the console for extended periods of time (which is something like 3 or 4 hours), set them on carpet, enclose them inside cabinets etc etc. Everyone knows these units heat up...mitigate it.
You also say that all, minus one, have sent their consoles in more than once? Unreal! They should learn to do something differently if they expect different results.
One thing I don't understand well is the idea that admins must disable root's ability to login remotely via SSH. Could you explain your reasoning? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm curious...and I don't know any linux admins other than myself with which to discuss the topic)
I can understand it via FTP, but SSH is different. You see, I would imagine that any proper admin has a wicked long password, where most users have a relatively short password, thus introducing a weak point. If a user has a relatively easy username and password combination, an attacker could gain access to a server. Once in, the attacker can spend all day attempting to su as root, bypassing any potential brute force blocking measures via IPTables.
Is it theorized that an attacker would be less likely to guess a proper username? Thus, making any user's password more secure by a few orders of magnitude? Or is it just the fact that you can let someone run literally forever attempting to crack root, but won't be able to?
Personally, I subscribe to the "put ssh on a different port" and have a long password school of thought. 99% of all regular users don't need ssh, so, they won't be inconvenienced by a non-default port, and if they do, it's easy to pre-program their ssh client to save the proper port. Furthermore, I'd say a 20 character password is enough to essentially take "forever" to crack...unless of course, there's some hash collision that will exist with a smaller set of characters...which is not likely, right?
I used to have thousands of FTP brute force attemps daily. I threw in some IPTables rules, cutting off an IP after 6 attempts (stupid IE connects 4 times per actual "human" login attempt! Yes, 3 to try "anonymous" then it prompts the user for u/p combo, and tries that!!!). My bandwidth usage went down, and my logs aren't hideous anymore.
Could you be so generous as to post the script that would create such a useful report?
"Goo" for Game Object Obfuscation?!? Why not simply Controled Update Management?
I like Synchronized Protective Object Obfuscated Game Environment, but for some reason, I don't think some people will.
In high school, I had a physics teacher who, way back when he first started teaching, ordered x picograms of radioactive material for his class. The school secretary thought he misspelled the order and changed it to grams.
He said later on the principal called him over the intercom and sounded really upset. He went to the office, only to find the principal steaming mad over a $50,000.00-plus invoice. He looked at the invoice and, realizing what it was, went and got his giger counter...only to find it going crazy even out in the hall from the principal's office.
As it turned out, they had shipped a large order of radioactive material in a cardboard box!
They had to evacuate the office and call someone to come and get it.
Possibly unrelated, because that had happened many years prior, but he died of cancer.
transporter_ii
My physics teacher was cool and all, but that teacher was wicked cool...
The real WTF is he didn't evacuate the school before getting the giger counter. Actually, a bigger WTF is who shipped $50,000 of radio-active material to a school? And who packed it in something other than lead? They only evacuated the office?
Oddly, it reminds me of that episode of Star Trek:TNG where Data loses his memory in a shuttle accident and is on a civilized planet. He has radio-active shards in a lead box, but doesn't recall that they are hazardous. People wear them as pretty trinkets on their necks and people start getting radiation burns....
I read that article and I caught the same thing too. It's quite staggering that people with this level of ineptitude rise to such a power position in our society.
I think the -definition- of discrimination is the differentiation between a person or group based on an attribute of that person or group. The property being "intelligence level", and the attribute being "high". This would be the same property/attribute combination as say sexual orientation/gay, or age/young. Unfortunately "intelligence" as a property of a person is not protected by our governing doctrines.
Still, this judges logic! I hope I am never put before a judge with such a limited mentality, ever.
Bash screens. Macros. Feh.
I wire 75 baud 20 ma current loop leads directly into the muscles of my left forearm. I use slightly rusty safety pins to pierce my "insulation". I key Baudot by flexing my left index finger and decode Baudot from the computer by feeling the twitches of my left pinky finger.
Yes, half-duplex. It's a luxury, but you gotta treat yourself right sometimes.
Oh, yeah, I use csh too. Because sometimes you gotta treat yourself badly to compensate for the luxuries of things like half-duplex.
Best. Post. Evar.
(epileptics probably shouldn't drive buses for example)
Epileptics who are not controlled by medication, thank you very much. Some of us have been lucky enough to find the right drug, and have happy productive lives, and don't kill people very often at all.
Not very often? Just out of curiosity, how often would that be?
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
Vista is very stable (for me) too, and I don't think it's ever done anything for me that I didn't want it to do (except for changing the folder views -- that drives me nuts sometimes). YMMV.
Sorry for me brevity, but I'm kinda tired.
You're missing the point. Linux's components are not integrated into the OS. XP, Vista, Win7, all the additional services/apps are integrated such that it's difficult to remove said services/apps.
Win2k, this wasn't a problem. Try easily removing MSN messenger, or Windows Live.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely.
Sure, and I agree. But the thing is: the average person doesn't care which programs are installed. And memory and hard drive space are so cheap these days that it's would literally cost me more in time and effort to "slim down" the OS than to just install everything and just don't use what I don't want.
This is my exact point. Even if most people don't care, I care. I want choice, option, freedom, decision, and will. XP and forwards removes these valuable attributes for no beneficial reason to the end user. Linux will run with only the Kernel. Windows requires everything just to boot properly. In your example, in Linux, all you have to do is go to the package manager (like Add/Remove programs) and click the button that makes the installed OS just the bare minimum. The distros I've used have presests, too (like server, workstation, base, everything!, and a few more), which makes it very very easy to reconfigure the role of a computer. It may take a moment for the computer to complete the install/uninstall, but it takes very very few bum-in-the-chair minutes.
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
And how many Linux distros are there?
Probably 100 that are popular. Again, you miss the point. These are all by different companies. MS is one company. Also, being that most (if not all) Linux distros are FREE in every respect, it's a moot point. I don't have to pay more for any specific distro, so I have an incentive to download and install the one that fits its desired application. Purchasing Windows, there is a real difference between installing Vista Starter Edition, and Vista Ultimate, namely about $300 retail, which is almost the price of a whole computer!
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
FWIW, Linux installation has never EVER gone this easily for me. Not even close. On the other hand, the only time I have ever had a problem installing Windows was when XP wanted SATA drivers that I had to hunt around for. Vista Untilate installed perfectly. The Windows 7 Beta installed perfectly in a dual-boot configuration with Vista. It may install things that you personally don't want, but Windows has Linux beat for ease of installation hands down.
Well, I suppose everyone has different experiences. I've had stellar, and less than stellar installations with Linux. Ultimately, they are worked as intended, even printers. My LaserJet 1000 and 3055 (proprietary internal
I don't really think that anything changes now that they were "caught". How many price-fixing slaps-on-the-wrists have we seen? Any company that does it just chalks up the fine to business costs, and continues.
Do I think anything will change? Nope. Ask yourself why they don't get caught while doing it. After the fact, it doesn't matter anymore.
Oh, and double bonus points to the article writer for using the word "plead", and not "pleaded".
It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Elaborate, please. I have Vista on my home system and XP on my work system, and for me going from Vista to XP (let alone 2000) is like going back to the bronze age. Also I develop on Linux at work, and I'm not sure what features it has that I should be wanting on my Windows machine.
The greatest asset Win2k had was it was very stable, and didn't try to do everything for the end user. All it did was OS.
One beneficial option of Linux would be giving the end user control over which programs are installed. If I don't link Totem for media, I can uninstall it completely. Media Player? Nope. Some people (businesses I would say drive most PC sales, but I could be wrong) don't need many of the programs that get installed with XP and Vista. It's an administrative nightmare to slim down XP or Vista without going to 3rd party utils like vLite (which may or may not be allowed depending on company "risk" assessments).
Also, the non-sense of 5 different streams of OS...craziness. Win2k was either client, or server. Perfect. WinXP was Home or Pro...alright, I don't like it, but can understand why MS would do such a thing...but Vista? Business 101 says segment your market, so I understand why MS would do that...but it's to the detriment of their users.
Linux installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Linux, here's everything you might need to operate your computer. What would you like to install? Ah, Ok, almost everything. Great, here it is. Oh, wait, after you installed you changed your mind and want only the bare OS because you want to get rid of the cruft? Done. A different windows manager? Ok, glad I could help.
Windows installation goes like this:
Hi, I'm Windows. I've already decided everything for you. Oh, after installation you decided you want to remove your browser? Sorry. Win7 -- You want your classic desktop back? Sorry. We don't provide any facility for that.
So sue me.
First things first:
He said Microsoft's move in March 2006 to put former head of Office development Steven Sinofsky in charge of Windows development was a key driver of changes in the process. Sinofsky is now senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, and Nash credits him for bringing order to the group.
They need to fire that guy, and hire me. I'll do it for half the money, and pump out an OS that people actually want. It might even resemble Windows 2000 in its simplicity, and Linux in its features.
Gavriella Schuster, a senior director of Windows product management, cited the "stop-and-start nature" of Vista's development process as contributing to partners' lack of preparedness for the final release. Microsoft stopped Vista's development in the middle of the process to overhaul the security of the OS, a move that delayed its final release.
Wrong, they didn't overhaul security, they overhauled the whole damn thing because an OS made out of .NET wouldn't actually run any applications. What's it called when someone re-writes history?
I still didn't see anything specific to "How Vista mistakes guided blah blah". Guided? Guided? Not even close. "Vista mistakes" didn't exist until Win7 was announced. All I saw in this article was this: "Hey, look, we have a new and BETTAR one, LOOKIES! It's safer, more secure, faster, more reliable than any other" what? propogadvertisement we've ever seen before while installing it, that's what.
I know I sound like I have a chip on my shoulder. I do. It's because my clients, friends, family, and I have been forced into this crap if we plan to run the applications we are familiar with, or buy a computer from a big box store. I tried, oh how I tried, to get family on Linux...endless support calls later, they're all back on XP. Yes, XP. I like Linux dearly, it's close to market, but just not yet...I can operate a computer in the dark, under water, wearing blindfold with one hand behind my back. >95% of all other people can't, which precludes them from that platform.
As an aside, and completely off-topic, who the hell started the standard of making the non-functional progress bar? The first time I recall seeing it was during the XP installation. Now, it's everywhere. Is nothing sacred? Obfuscate! They must not know!