Erm, developers have to code for those 'set of options you can fiddle with'.
Don't let the simplicity of the interface which which you adjust those options fool you into thinking the code behind it is similarly simple. Usually, the more simple the interface, the harder the developer had to work to make it so.
Piracy is killing PC gaming like home taping killed the music industry.
That is: Not really a problem, but a great whipping-boy argument when you run out of other excuses.
Nintendo should be bankrupt if piracy was the single biggest problem facing the computer game industry. DS games are ridiculously easy to pirate. Strange then, that bona fide DS games seem to fly off the shelves at any price.
Perhaps somewhat obvious, but you will never achieve 100% protection against malware unless you unhook the internet connections, block the USB ports, optical drive, floppy drive, multi-media card reader etc.
The worth of any IT support company comes not from the level of prevention they can provide against outages, it's how quickly and effectively they respond to bring systems back in line after a problem occurs.
Assuming you cannot prevent a botnet infestation, you minimally need a documented procedure on how you're going to deal with the cleanup.
In a more direct answer to your question though... put systems in place that are supported by big companies, e.g. Checkpoint firewalls at boundaries, Symantec/F-Secure/ESET AV throughout (with solidly applied policies and installed by a certified provider).
Users will/not/ read error messages. Office workers are the worst for this.
We use a horrible bespoke system which I've somehow managed to end up supporting. Most of the error messages which pop up are cryptic, internally specific, standard Delphi error messages. That's if we even get to/see/ an error. Sometimes the app just silently fails and you have to know that clicking on another action button will allow you to switch away from the failed task.
If you want users to act appropriately in an error situation, it's best to (and this is in order of preference, highest first): -
1) Not end up in an error situation. 2) Make it very difficult for users to create an error situation. 3) Inline-highlight any user entry which may cause an error situation, before the commit a task. Potentially with a little tooltip/warning/ (not a blocking error dialog!). 4) Suggest alternate values for user-input where they have entered an erroneous value. At least provide an example. 5) Show a very context-specific message which explains the error. Provide a link to the help text.
The main idea is to avoid interrupting the user's train of thought whilst they are (trying) to use your software. If every error results in a 'blah blah blah, click OK to continue' dialog, it pisses people off.
Users see errors as the fault of the software first. I suppose what we're talking about here is interface etiquette. You shouldn't insult users or make them feel stupid. The best example I can think of is in Google's "did you mean....?" interaction. It doesn't get more elegant than that.
If you absolutely must interrupt the user's workflow due to an uncorrectible error, tell them exactly what happened, suggest how it can be fixed and make the thing easy to read. Tall, narrow window is easier to read than wide, short window full of error text. Highlight very clearly the steps the user needs to take to get rid of your error message and continue on with their work. Most likely, this is the only text they will read. How many times have you heard "how do I get rid of this?" or "something came up on the screen and I don't know what to do"?
OK, granted, some people are still so blind/dumb that they won't take any notice. Those people will either call their tech, or at least nudge someone in the same office 'who knows a bit about computer stuff' to come over and take a look.
A netbook that ticks all my boxes. ION was almost there and now ION2 is going to fit the bill.
I suppose I really wanted one of those >£1,000 10 or 12 inch laptops, but was too put off by the price.
Thing is, the Atom processor is more than capable of running everything I want it to run. I didn't need a ULV Core2Duo (which seems to be the only defining factor between netbooks and uber-expensive mini-laptops).
Graphics - well, I do like my HD content and as for gaming... I like my indie titles. Some of them do 3D stuff that looks nice and simple, but still needs a bit of GPU grunt behind it.
This little Asus will fit in my rucksack (I do cycling to places to get some peace and quiet whilst working), can plug into my HD telly and has just enough screen real-estate to let me run the IDE's and editors I like.
There doesn't seem to be a great deal of control over the actual transparency. It seems that fully white pixels are as opaque as can be whilst fully black are transparent.
I can't really see a point in the transparency, but maybe that's just a result of my underactive imagination. Still, if I were designing something to utilise a transparent display, I'd want to hardware and software to support varying transparency using an alpha channel. RGBA really just makes sense to me as something you'd use on a transparent display.
There's no OS support for such a thing, of course, but apps and drivers could be written to take advantage until OS support were available.
You noticed the depth of those head-mounted displays? Needed due to all the optics focussing the image into your eyeball (because you're eyes can't manage it due to aforementioned closeness).
Oh come on, farting at the table is probably against the TOS of some ISP's contracts. For the unclever, that's an exaggeration to illustrate that ISP's bung quite a lot of "Don't do this" clauses in contracts in order to cover their collective arses if they have to take the fairly ultimate step of asking a customer to politely piss-off somewhere else.
It's honestly not as bad as it used to be (e.g. 95->98). Most of the upgrade woes came from a messy registry. Registry cleaners (the free ones) do a great job.
DLL's just take up disk space. Vista and Win 7 do quite a reasonable job of managing DLL hell now anyway. I don't see it's a big issue.
Of course, being an IT guru of sorts, I always clean install. I'd feel as uncomfortable as an OCD sufferer in a randomised library if I did an upgrade on my own PC;-)
Microsoft wouldn't have much of a business model if everyone just wanted "XP, but better".
Backwards compatability is really there to ease a transition. DOS compatability ceased to be an issue ever since DOSBox became stable. You can even launch Win 3.11 using it, if you were so inclined/masochistic!
If you switch to Apple or Linux, I think you'll be happier. If I understand your point correctly, being able to do an in-place upgrade from one OS version to the next without reinstalling everything will suit you perfectly.
You can do this with Windows, of course. XP upgrades to Vista upgrades to 7. Costs a bit more than the Linux option though;-)
Nvidia and laptop drivers have been a little bit mired in licensing issues, esppecially around this time 2 years ago. It used to be that Nvidia *couldn't* supply me a driver for the SLI 8700M's in my Dell, only Dell could.
Thankfully, that situation has changed and we're all able to download mobile video drivers from Nvidia, as nature intended. I do wonder if your missing 8400M GT driver is a byproduct of that era, perhaps?
Mind you, Win 7 doesn't exactly install a driver on my laptop. It works, and at native res (1920x1200) but acceleration is minimal. I think I might be tempted to point my finger at Sony for fudging your brightness controls problem.
I've supported a couple of Sony laptops in my time, and they've never been the easiest to deal with. Sony are somewhat lax in their driver support. They do like to innovate with their hardware features, but their software boys seem to run out of steam when it comes to implementing all the bells and whistles needed to carry it off.
I don't actually recognise TPM as relevant to my day-to-day activities using Windows 7. DRM and TPM are countered by P2P.
The only media I have issues with, regarding playback, is my Play.com purchase of a region 1 superbit DVD of The Fifth Element. Though as I downloaded the full HD version many moons ago, even this point is now entirely moot.
My regular DVD's play fine. Everything I download plays fine. Everything I download copies and converts automatically onto my Nokia phone.
DRM is only an issue for the damn unfortunate consumer masses. Even then, there are options. Amazon's mp3 downloads are not DRM'd. ISTR Apple was going to go the same way?
It'll happen for video too, at some point. Probably as bandwidth costs reduce for the tier-2 and 3 carriers.
Still, if you want to argue how TPM and DRM are going to screw me over eventually, I'll be interested to hear how (especially as my PC doesn't have a TPM).
If I pretend Vista never happened and I'm going straight from XP to 7, 7 is good.
I could do everything I need to do using just XP, but it wouldn't get done quite as rapidly or elegantly. The whole side-by-side window thing wins a bunch of gratitude from me to Microsoft. Windows key + left/right arrow = definite winner. Anything that reduces my interation with my mouse is a good thing. Works great with side-by-side monitors too:)
Windows 7 improves things *just* enough for me to have little moments of 'ooh, that's nice', which is something missing from XP and Vista.
USB device recognition: Fast. Very fast. Multi-monitor support: Slick. Unobtrusive. A no-brainer. UI interactions: Rapid. Responsive. Highly configurable. -- I tend to turn off all the animations / slide effects. Me click close gadget = window gone instantly. Thus my productivity goes up a small percentage. Hardware support: Inconspicuous. Works just like magic. -- My Nokia N97 (with or without installation of Nokia's Ovi application suite) works exactly as I need it to when I hook it up. Firewall: I will never need a 3rd-party firewall. Windows 7's firewall (once you get at its interface) is nothing short of perfect. Networking: Again, it just works. No need to faff about with it. Even recognised my nForce 4 based motherboard's Nvidia ethernet port. Not just recognised, but supports TCP offloading. Not that I needed to know this, but I went poking around;)
OK, I had to install graphics drivers to get any reasonable performance, but if I hadn't, I could still use my 1920x1200 native resolution and not really suffer *too* great a performance loss in office apps.
Windows 7 will see me through the next 6 years quite happily.
What truth? That Windows includes DRM enabling underpinnings?
I don't agree with the FSF's argument that this is a bad thing. I can see how *they* think it is a bad thing, but they'll never be able to communicate their argument in a way that gives it any impact.
Yes but maybe the argument that people who do it mainly do it because they want to try before they buy still hold.
Bullshit. If they've got a copy which seemingly works 100%, most of them won't bother buying it because whats the point? In a month or so, the stats will be even worse. Guaranteed. So already IN ONE SINGLE WEEK, Gas Powered Games and Stardock have lost 80% of the potential revenue of the game and had its reputation tarnished by the freeloaders because of the server load issue.
You assume those 80% of people would have purchased the game, had it been impossible for them to obtain a pirate copy.
I find this a difficult concept to accept. There are a whole bunch of digital media on my laptop and desktop that I would never have purchased, had free copies not been available.
I buy things that are good. If I pay e.g. £24.99 for something, it's because I want to reward people with their hard work. I guess a lot of non-pirates pay for many things which they later feel were not worth the money? I'm not happy to accept this.
It sort-of does apply to probes though. They can't communicate with Earth, we can't communicate with it. Someone would have to do the risk analysis and work out the probability of the probe successfully scouting the remote target and returning within transmit distance of Earth.
Whatever that figure is, we would have to send out multiple probes to give any reasonable chance of a successful mission.
I'm currently evaluating the cost-effectiveness of a DroBo (http://www.drobo.com/) for archival VS ease-of-access storage. It's not an inexpensive item, exacerbated by its storage method which gives you 2.7TB actual storage when fed with 4x 1TB drives.
However, the unit is far more resilient than any conventional RAID solution.
Connectivity is via Firewire or USB, with ethernet via an add-on. I'm more interested in this than any other long-term archival method.
I will feed it with some 640GB drives, with a set of spares taken from different vendors. Job done.
When will people learn that Monsieur Molyneux has a head full of ideas but no real talent in applying them? Anyone *with any talent* thinking up "let's make the trees actually grow" realises immediately how futile, irrelevant and costly (in resources) such a feature would be.
He's like a kid with an active imagination. Don't write him off completely though, occasionally he will come up with something quite excellent.
...and the more 120GB drives they can sell (as part of the Elite SKU or separately) when people realise that Xbox 1 games can be fairly big.
Or is that just me being far too cynical?
250GB drives within the next 18 months, anyone?
fixing some of the broken compatability with the likes of PGR2? Blanking some of the menu screens, weird car shadows, odd sound effects... these things do not impress.
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Erm, developers have to code for those 'set of options you can fiddle with'.
Don't let the simplicity of the interface which which you adjust those options fool you into thinking the code behind it is similarly simple. Usually, the more simple the interface, the harder the developer had to work to make it so.
Right-on.
Piracy is killing PC gaming like home taping killed the music industry.
That is: Not really a problem, but a great whipping-boy argument when you run out of other excuses.
Nintendo should be bankrupt if piracy was the single biggest problem facing the computer game industry. DS games are ridiculously easy to pirate. Strange then, that bona fide DS games seem to fly off the shelves at any price.
Perhaps somewhat obvious, but you will never achieve 100% protection against malware unless you unhook the internet connections, block the USB ports, optical drive, floppy drive, multi-media card reader etc.
The worth of any IT support company comes not from the level of prevention they can provide against outages, it's how quickly and effectively they respond to bring systems back in line after a problem occurs.
Assuming you cannot prevent a botnet infestation, you minimally need a documented procedure on how you're going to deal with the cleanup.
In a more direct answer to your question though... put systems in place that are supported by big companies, e.g. Checkpoint firewalls at boundaries, Symantec/F-Secure/ESET AV throughout (with solidly applied policies and installed by a certified provider).
Users will /not/ read error messages. Office workers are the worst for this.
We use a horrible bespoke system which I've somehow managed to end up supporting. Most of the error messages which pop up are cryptic, internally specific, standard Delphi error messages. That's if we even get to /see/ an error. Sometimes the app just silently fails and you have to know that clicking on another action button will allow you to switch away from the failed task.
If you want users to act appropriately in an error situation, it's best to (and this is in order of preference, highest first): -
1) Not end up in an error situation. /warning/ (not a blocking error dialog!).
2) Make it very difficult for users to create an error situation.
3) Inline-highlight any user entry which may cause an error situation, before the commit a task. Potentially with a little tooltip
4) Suggest alternate values for user-input where they have entered an erroneous value. At least provide an example.
5) Show a very context-specific message which explains the error. Provide a link to the help text.
The main idea is to avoid interrupting the user's train of thought whilst they are (trying) to use your software. If every error results in a 'blah blah blah, click OK to continue' dialog, it pisses people off.
Users see errors as the fault of the software first. I suppose what we're talking about here is interface etiquette. You shouldn't insult users or make them feel stupid. The best example I can think of is in Google's "did you mean ....?" interaction. It doesn't get more elegant than that.
If you absolutely must interrupt the user's workflow due to an uncorrectible error, tell them exactly what happened, suggest how it can be fixed and make the thing easy to read. Tall, narrow window is easier to read than wide, short window full of error text. Highlight very clearly the steps the user needs to take to get rid of your error message and continue on with their work. Most likely, this is the only text they will read. How many times have you heard "how do I get rid of this?" or "something came up on the screen and I don't know what to do"?
OK, granted, some people are still so blind/dumb that they won't take any notice. Those people will either call their tech, or at least nudge someone in the same office 'who knows a bit about computer stuff' to come over and take a look.
I've not yet found a combination that Win 7 x64 + Media Player Classic x64 won't play. District 9 HD with external subtitles file rendered flawlessly.
I stand dejected. That sounds like quite a good deal.
I suppose I should just confess that I have an allergy to Intel. Especially their integrated graphics.
Mind you, if the price is right, the pragmatist in me will win over.
A netbook that ticks all my boxes. ION was almost there and now ION2 is going to fit the bill.
I suppose I really wanted one of those >£1,000 10 or 12 inch laptops, but was too put off by the price.
Thing is, the Atom processor is more than capable of running everything I want it to run. I didn't need a ULV Core2Duo (which seems to be the only defining factor between netbooks and uber-expensive mini-laptops).
Graphics - well, I do like my HD content and as for gaming... I like my indie titles. Some of them do 3D stuff that looks nice and simple, but still needs a bit of GPU grunt behind it.
This little Asus will fit in my rucksack (I do cycling to places to get some peace and quiet whilst working), can plug into my HD telly and has just enough screen real-estate to let me run the IDE's and editors I like.
If I see somewhere to pre-order, Job Done.
There doesn't seem to be a great deal of control over the actual transparency. It seems that fully white pixels are as opaque as can be whilst fully black are transparent.
I can't really see a point in the transparency, but maybe that's just a result of my underactive imagination. Still, if I were designing something to utilise a transparent display, I'd want to hardware and software to support varying transparency using an alpha channel. RGBA really just makes sense to me as something you'd use on a transparent display.
There's no OS support for such a thing, of course, but apps and drivers could be written to take advantage until OS support were available.
You noticed the depth of those head-mounted displays? Needed due to all the optics focussing the image into your eyeball (because you're eyes can't manage it due to aforementioned closeness).
You're dealing with nerds, here. Coming up with 'Ogg' was probably a defining moment in that young person's life.
Rejected names were "ReallyGoodVideoCodec", "VideoOpenSource" and "dvxiddidvxd".
Oh come on, farting at the table is probably against the TOS of some ISP's contracts. For the unclever, that's an exaggeration to illustrate that ISP's bung quite a lot of "Don't do this" clauses in contracts in order to cover their collective arses if they have to take the fairly ultimate step of asking a customer to politely piss-off somewhere else.
It's honestly not as bad as it used to be (e.g. 95->98). Most of the upgrade woes came from a messy registry. Registry cleaners (the free ones) do a great job.
DLL's just take up disk space. Vista and Win 7 do quite a reasonable job of managing DLL hell now anyway. I don't see it's a big issue.
Of course, being an IT guru of sorts, I always clean install. I'd feel as uncomfortable as an OCD sufferer in a randomised library if I did an upgrade on my own PC ;-)
Microsoft wouldn't have much of a business model if everyone just wanted "XP, but better".
Backwards compatability is really there to ease a transition. DOS compatability ceased to be an issue ever since DOSBox became stable. You can even launch Win 3.11 using it, if you were so inclined/masochistic!
If you switch to Apple or Linux, I think you'll be happier. If I understand your point correctly, being able to do an in-place upgrade from one OS version to the next without reinstalling everything will suit you perfectly.
You can do this with Windows, of course. XP upgrades to Vista upgrades to 7. Costs a bit more than the Linux option though ;-)
Nvidia and laptop drivers have been a little bit mired in licensing issues, esppecially around this time 2 years ago. It used to be that Nvidia *couldn't* supply me a driver for the SLI 8700M's in my Dell, only Dell could.
Thankfully, that situation has changed and we're all able to download mobile video drivers from Nvidia, as nature intended. I do wonder if your missing 8400M GT driver is a byproduct of that era, perhaps?
Mind you, Win 7 doesn't exactly install a driver on my laptop. It works, and at native res (1920x1200) but acceleration is minimal. I think I might be tempted to point my finger at Sony for fudging your brightness controls problem.
I've supported a couple of Sony laptops in my time, and they've never been the easiest to deal with. Sony are somewhat lax in their driver support. They do like to innovate with their hardware features, but their software boys seem to run out of steam when it comes to implementing all the bells and whistles needed to carry it off.
I don't actually recognise TPM as relevant to my day-to-day activities using Windows 7. DRM and TPM are countered by P2P.
The only media I have issues with, regarding playback, is my Play.com purchase of a region 1 superbit DVD of The Fifth Element. Though as I downloaded the full HD version many moons ago, even this point is now entirely moot.
My regular DVD's play fine. Everything I download plays fine. Everything I download copies and converts automatically onto my Nokia phone.
DRM is only an issue for the damn unfortunate consumer masses. Even then, there are options. Amazon's mp3 downloads are not DRM'd. ISTR Apple was going to go the same way?
It'll happen for video too, at some point. Probably as bandwidth costs reduce for the tier-2 and 3 carriers.
Still, if you want to argue how TPM and DRM are going to screw me over eventually, I'll be interested to hear how (especially as my PC doesn't have a TPM).
If I pretend Vista never happened and I'm going straight from XP to 7, 7 is good.
I could do everything I need to do using just XP, but it wouldn't get done quite as rapidly or elegantly. The whole side-by-side window thing wins a bunch of gratitude from me to Microsoft. Windows key + left/right arrow = definite winner. Anything that reduces my interation with my mouse is a good thing. Works great with side-by-side monitors too :)
Windows 7 improves things *just* enough for me to have little moments of 'ooh, that's nice', which is something missing from XP and Vista.
USB device recognition: Fast. Very fast. ;)
Multi-monitor support: Slick. Unobtrusive. A no-brainer.
UI interactions: Rapid. Responsive. Highly configurable. -- I tend to turn off all the animations / slide effects. Me click close gadget = window gone instantly. Thus my productivity goes up a small percentage.
Hardware support: Inconspicuous. Works just like magic. -- My Nokia N97 (with or without installation of Nokia's Ovi application suite) works exactly as I need it to when I hook it up.
Firewall: I will never need a 3rd-party firewall. Windows 7's firewall (once you get at its interface) is nothing short of perfect.
Networking: Again, it just works. No need to faff about with it. Even recognised my nForce 4 based motherboard's Nvidia ethernet port. Not just recognised, but supports TCP offloading. Not that I needed to know this, but I went poking around
OK, I had to install graphics drivers to get any reasonable performance, but if I hadn't, I could still use my 1920x1200 native resolution and not really suffer *too* great a performance loss in office apps.
Windows 7 will see me through the next 6 years quite happily.
What truth? That Windows includes DRM enabling underpinnings?
I don't agree with the FSF's argument that this is a bad thing. I can see how *they* think it is a bad thing, but they'll never be able to communicate their argument in a way that gives it any impact.
Who is the campaign aimed at? I'm struggling to imagine.
It can't be aimed at the general populous, about to walk into PC World to buy a new computer. They wouldn't know the difference between DRM and FUD.
It can't be aimed at the tech-savvy crowd, they all know that the "DRM issue" is a non-issue.
Who does this leave?
Yes but maybe the argument that people who do it mainly do it because they want to try before they buy still hold.
Bullshit. If they've got a copy which seemingly works 100%, most of them won't bother buying it because whats the point? In a month or so, the stats will be even worse. Guaranteed. So already IN ONE SINGLE WEEK, Gas Powered Games and Stardock have lost 80% of the potential revenue of the game and had its reputation tarnished by the freeloaders because of the server load issue.
You assume those 80% of people would have purchased the game, had it been impossible for them to obtain a pirate copy.
I find this a difficult concept to accept. There are a whole bunch of digital media on my laptop and desktop that I would never have purchased, had free copies not been available.
I buy things that are good. If I pay e.g. £24.99 for something, it's because I want to reward people with their hard work. I guess a lot of non-pirates pay for many things which they later feel were not worth the money? I'm not happy to accept this.
It sort-of does apply to probes though. They can't communicate with Earth, we can't communicate with it. Someone would have to do the risk analysis and work out the probability of the probe successfully scouting the remote target and returning within transmit distance of Earth.
Whatever that figure is, we would have to send out multiple probes to give any reasonable chance of a successful mission.
Replicating blokes feelings is hardly complex. Hunger, anger, happiness, boredom-level... after that it's just combinations of the 4.
I'm currently evaluating the cost-effectiveness of a DroBo (http://www.drobo.com/) for archival VS ease-of-access storage. It's not an inexpensive item, exacerbated by its storage method which gives you 2.7TB actual storage when fed with 4x 1TB drives.
However, the unit is far more resilient than any conventional RAID solution.
Connectivity is via Firewire or USB, with ethernet via an add-on. I'm more interested in this than any other long-term archival method.
I will feed it with some 640GB drives, with a set of spares taken from different vendors. Job done.
When will people learn that Monsieur Molyneux has a head full of ideas but no real talent in applying them? Anyone *with any talent* thinking up "let's make the trees actually grow" realises immediately how futile, irrelevant and costly (in resources) such a feature would be.
He's like a kid with an active imagination. Don't write him off completely though, occasionally he will come up with something quite excellent.
I think it was called Populous.
...and the more 120GB drives they can sell (as part of the Elite SKU or separately) when people realise that Xbox 1 games can be fairly big. Or is that just me being far too cynical? 250GB drives within the next 18 months, anyone?
fixing some of the broken compatability with the likes of PGR2? Blanking some of the menu screens, weird car shadows, odd sound effects... these things do not impress.