It becomes real sad when you look to those general public computers and see the "cute looking" (but horribly programmed) screensaver using MORE processing/memory/disk (trust me!) than seti@home or folding@home.
If he gets sued, his lawyer should use this fact. Only remaining low power stand by devices are non smart phones, that is -if- they didn't enable flash lite or animated gif screensaver with lights on.
I will have a fresh Windows install tomorrow and I am not taking any kernel level security risks. I will simply enable "system restore" and will just enable all updates automatically installed. I can't really bother with some blaster like issue while Windows only purpose will be firmware updating my devices etc.
Whatever... Funny thing is, we can't even theorize on what is actually happening let alone having a clue about what to do if it happens. Thanks to Slashdot's needless "digg like" random moderation point distribution and horde of MSCE/Mono/Moonlight/Novell whatever commentators, there is a huge noise here.
I can easily talk on such weird issues since I am the person who found a very strange/unthinkable (before) issue hitting a OS X Update causing a black screen like situation myself. All I got from Apple was "thanks", the company who produced the component thanked too and updated their stuff, couple of Mac hint sites found it themselves already and issue was gone, forever. That is the Apple for you. I am still shocked since I was expecting denial, loss of bug reporting account, flames on IRC etc.
It is like parallel universe now, MS and the idiot unpaid Web 2 abusers are in denial mode.
I have some theories on this weirdness but as I am constantly marked troll, I keep them to myself. As someone reported the "screen backlight is turned off but it actually displays things", it became a very interesting thing to follow. Don't be surprised if it has something to do with beta version of a rare GPU driver.
Think you are an Application developer for Windows. Your "uninstall code" also has a routine to empty the program's registry entries and switching back the entries you changed at install (file associations etc.) along with its entire "tree" in registry.
For 80% of users, you did a great job. You cleaned up well. For the 20%, they were just "re-installing" or "accidentally clicked uninstall" so they "lost all their preferences!!!".
That is why developers like to leave their prefs behind (exact same thing happens on OS X) but on Windows, it has a effect on overall OS because of a centric database file. On OS X, besides some clutter on disk, nothing changes. That is one of the reasons why "format and re-install" in some period, on same major OS version (10.3,10.6 etc) is considered needless and proven several times to be a pseudo speed enhancement.
I don't either love or hate both operating systems, both of them have their powers. It is just that "registry" which MS _insists_ for some reason which we mortal users doesn't really get. Apple has some similar acts too but not really insisting on them when some alternative/proposal exists. They also prove that even if one changes the entire OS architecture, even the kernel, some kind of backwards compatibility may exist. For example, I was really surprised when I found the reason of this "mini [0x0-0x1b01b].com.operasoftware.Opera[264]: Unknown argument: -psn_0_110619" entry in my system logs. That is some very interesting way of maintaining backwards compatibility. Hell they are still using ":" as directory separator internally.
I have 700-800 plist files in my Preferences directory. All those widgets I tried, apps I installed, removed, run one time.
It must be like 1 line of command on Terminal or basic "Finder" order by date to find the old/unneeded ones and delete them but I don't bother. Why? Because it has zero effect on OS X. OS X wouldn't really care if there were 1000000 pref files there since it is not its business to maintain them let alone read them.
On Windows, while I hate the idea from the beginning, if you don't clean up your registry, OS will do it for you. Last time it was like 20% overhead required to clean it up at boot. If you get enough junk on that already huge, complex file, it will effect the entire performance of system. Windows _has to read_ that gigantic database to function and find its way in it.
ps: Now you understand why Windows technical user switchers insist on having "uninstall tool" or be amazed at "no add remove programs" on OS X? They generally think having redundant, old files, needless files will somehow effect their system. You can even add "universal binary haters" to that camp. I don't blame them, I blame Windows.
1) This thing happens although not as described by that vendor but somehow happens.
2) This is a major conspiracy by a major rival (e.g. Apple) to spread FUD about MS especially after Win 7 release.
3) This is the always mentioned (in theory) "evil virus" that is so good that it can't be even detected by current technology. (theorized since MS DOS)
4) This is a hoax by a large troll organization who can manage to send thousands of people, including slashdot account holders to say "yes, it happened to me too."
Trust me, even Apple can't get away with such a BSOD after update, even the "cult" won't let it. If you claim otherwise, you must be claiming one of the conspiracy theories above. This thing exists, it happens, it is not a major conspiracy and you do no good on behalf of MS when you claim "couple of random people" having it.
The side effect will hit US as usual, as Windows users now have second perfect excuse to turn off automatic updates. The first excuse was a damn legitimate one BTW, check WGA on Google. They installed it like a freaking trojan to their own users computers masking as something else.
ps: Black screen reminds me one of the "punishments" WGA does. Blacking the desktop background. Some routine got falsely triggered? Eh MS?
Please, enough really... Especially on Mac. Mac _always_ had Preferences in some sensible place, even in Pre OS X times.
If you want to trust your entire settings to a single bulky file which is also known to fragment&get redundant over time, it is fine but please stop this "random files" bullshit... No, nothing is at random place. Especially on OS X. Put your.plist file to some "random" place and see what happens.
So now, with a browser having 100% perfect Acid 3 score even on mobile/ARM flavor, I should be able to use Google sites in their full function not missing a single feature, no quirks, no "browser.js" hacks.
Basically I should be able to use Opera 10.10 and I shouldn't be thinking a second about Google Chrome which wasn't released for PowerPC anyway.
Every single day, another OS X developer gives up iPhone. They aren't all famous nor they bother to write some whining (in eyes of apple fans) blog entries.
Some tools, who got awarded by Apple themselves haven't even bothered to attempt to release on iPhone, guessing they would never, ever get "allowed" to app store and those pro guys can't really bother with 1% of hacked/insecure iPhone stores with piracy coming with culture itself.
It is 1984 all over again, they are making the exact same mistakes which really costed them (and entire IT) some decade. Their attitude towards developers, even the major ones like Adobe hasn't changed a bit and yet there is Microsoft on other side even helping shareware game developers for free.
I play a massive simulation game and game developer, which is a small company almost gave up on OS X when Apple didn't just refuse to fix an OpenAL bug but made it even worse. As Apple acts like some psycho stalker sometimes, I am not naming any names.
I am not targeting you on this but it is really interesting that Apple "fanboy" (!) phenomenon is not just users, it is developers too. There are developers (as you see on this thread) who sides with gigantic censoring, controlling company instead of little guy.
It is not like I hate OS X or Apple, hell I hate the idea of.NET let alone some portable runtime of it. I just know who to side with when a large company abuses their dominant position with huge PR scheme.
Since the early days, monitors signal to system you know. Especially if I had that issue and a digitally connected monitor, I would try recycling (power on/off) monitor or carefully replugging it.
It may cause display to refresh. As people say monitor actually displays things, just the backlight is off. I haven't got a slightest clue how can one manage to do it. Is it in DPMI specs? DVI specs?
MS hasn't learned from Vista at all. One of the biggest mistakes they did with Vista was not admitting people are actually having problems and treated them (their customers) as bunch of morons not knowing how to use their OS.
Windows 7 shipped and MS really got some credit from media this time, even from Mac fanatics. This thing happens and if you read MS responses, they are in denial mode just like first days of Vista.
How many Stanford etc. geniuses it takes to do a basic thing like "We hear you, we will investigate the issue and we aren't going home until we figure it out.". Forget official announcement, what about a fake leak on some easy to find site that will signal that you are aware of the issue?
Does MS believe in some evil plot against them now? Like, all those comments etc. are written by Steve Jobs&Linus together?
ps: Could you imagine a Quicktime component could prevent OS X from booting? I saw it, reported, Apple thanked me and fixed it overnight.
With the competition or some other reason, GPU manufacturers started to push beta graphics drivers to users more than ever. If user gets greeted with some beta version of driver on official site and his fellow gamer friends keep telling how great the latest unstable driver is, you can't blame him.
There are expensive services/sites who just tracks beta/unstable/bleeding edge drivers and provide you updates. 99% of times, you don't need to take such risk but they -of course- sell you that service.
People expects some sort of magic from those unstable/beta drivers. At least on Windows 7, MS is supposed to be in charge of WHQL driver updates of popular cards. I would stick with them until SP1 at least.
Apple once owned 50% desktop market. If you read the history, even from sources like Wikipedia, you will see it isn't exactly "evil Microsoft" put them in bad position, it is their bad treatment to developers, especially tiny ones.
From that site, I was led to that portable.NET game engine community and reading the legimate developer's comments, I really felt sad. There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed. I speak about not being able to buy bread to your home. I feel ashamed on behalf of Apple and I am not linking it directly, one can find it easily if digs enough.
It is the same story on Desktop, they make Developers _hate_ them, not fixing any reported bugs and with 10% approaching market share, companies like EA say "fsck it, lets convert our directx code instead of using their frameworks". Don't you watch application/game scene recently? What ships other than copy/paste windows converted junk? Apple switched to i386, ending the decade old endianness issues/not being able to use same code and game releases became _less_. There must be a reason for it you know.
As Slashdot is open source, Perl based, it won't be a problem.
Lets merge Slashdot code to Wikipedia so people, semi-randomly selected can moderate Wiki editor responses. It will have karma system too. If an editor does too much flamebait or "troll", his karma will go negative and by default, his editing powers will be reduced to normal levels and eventually taken off.
You have no clue how your type of editor responses makes users and the real deal (one off editors) feel right?
Reading your lengthy post shows anectodal evidence of why people doesn't like Wikipedia editing.
Trust me, people likes Feynman, Einstein, Hawking like scientists not just because their amazing breakthroughs... They like them because they were friendly to average people.
"Editing an article, dealing with editors feels something like snail mailing a typed letter to Britannica HQ in 1980s. At least, Britannica guys were polite people."
Here is another "anecdotal" evidence, a quote told to me by a very very important Scientist who were horrified by some issues on articles and tried to fix them. As citation, what would you need? Name? Home address? Phone? On web? No, thank you, I better stay as another anecdotal guy.
You know the tiny fastmail.fm Aussie company who just does mail business and stays afloat with their fast, simple, modern UI and advanced/up to date tech/software usage?
Someone dared to write the unique features of Fastmail, when I referenced it to a server admin (in mail business) friend, he joked back at me for using a "spammer mail company"... I asked "how?", some idiot "citation needed" type went to article and marked it as spam. Imagine you claim your local pharmacy to sell drugs, it is the same thing for a company who just stays up with mail. Like, "do business with us, check wiki article, it accuses us to be spammers of a free encyclopedia".
Fastmail guys didn't care much, I cared (as user) and reminding the nazi editor what would happen if it wasn't wikipedia and if they accused a big evil mail provider to be a spammer on a large dotcom didn't help much. "no legal threats" policy.
If I was in mail business and if Wiki did similar thing to me, I would find that editor/user and sue him for hurting my image and putting my business to risk. Their NPVO or whatever self claimed terms wouldn't matter a second. Who the hell are them and what makes them different from other dotcoms?
We should give up creating our own monopolies really...
Nokia E71 here, upgraded from E65 (to get rid of ipod touch).
Nokia phones now have "app store" you know, I joked with it a lot (and don't like the idea) but that "app store", run by Nokia shows the entire difference betweeen Nokia and Apple in 1 line.
In "Nokia staff picks", there is "tethering" application which allows you to use your Nokia as a wireless router to the internet. Nokia execs, personnel, whoever in Nokia picked it. That single application being a staff pick shows why Nokia (and entire Symbian) must live. Remember the soap opera when one dared to ship it to Apple iPhone?
Oh I got the E71 somehow free (like American system but cheaper). If it was a "free Google phone", I would know I would trade my privacy, my contacts privacy, my data privacy for $30 a month so I would do everything to inform OTHERS just by asking "Is your life worth $30?".
See the scoop? It has "advanced voice recognition to render voice mails to e-mails".... What a great invention, just like Echelon...
At least Apple, Nokia, Microsoft purpose is clear. They want to sell you a device for maximum possible profit or at least brand recognition for future generations. MS sounds more like "Oh we can do a mobile OS too" since first Win MO. It is not like they care about your private data/voice data and in fact, they do everything possible to keep it secure. E.g. Symbian Signed programme is another reason why Nokia doesn't have 100.000 apps in store right now besides their weird C.
I lost my trust to EFF long time ago when they put "Google search" to their front page like no other open source, free engine exists. Now, I just wonder what will California do when Google offers free phone to teenagers in trade for their privacy... You know, your Californian rights... The stupid "I am 13 or older" forms... Will the the Arnold stand up?
In some parallel universe, Gmail could be a big success but IMHO they really lost the sense of privacy right when Google mail shipped.
Also Yahoo mail has some 250 million users, AOL started to wake up from dead once more (Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit to their image), MS really started to figure they run live.com, not windows.com and started to run a real dotcom style business...
One question: How many active users of gmail? Not in Nerddom, in real World.
Just tomorrow, some genius kid from a unheard country can setup something like "betterengine.sourceforge.net" search engine project page, some high end developers would see something unique in it like the Google engine compared to others back in 1990s, pay some "large money" and setup their "zongle.com".
This has happened in some similar form and made Google the Google of today... In a very short time. We would see what happens to that huge looking market cap in 1 year.
Check finance.yahoo.com and check AOL historical prices, Yahoo historical prices and even, Enron.
You know, they asked you to give up a right which you naturally had on those "old fashion" services. In fact, if you were a friend of mine and I mailed my secrets to you, I would lose that right too, just like whoever mails you without knowing how Google mail can offer 4GB for free.
When someone gives you something sounds amazingly cheap, unbelievably free, always read between the lines. And no, you don't become a Google sized company by not being evil.
You can keep your "4GB" or whatever now sized non private, machine analyze for junk ads mail, I keep a real mail (you know, with its real purpose) and I will use technologies like WebDAV or (s)FTP to share 10 MB files.
With Google's arrogance and ignorance on privacy, shipping applications that "auto update" non critical, free junk every 2 hours resulted in ban of Google software on large company networks, they don't need high end/complex campaigns.
Google started to look like an unstoppable data monster in average users eyes too. Signs are everywhere, like the flames directed to end user friendly RSS reader to switch "free" to Google reader powered news reading.
If Google doesn't wake up from their "but we aren't evil" dream and start acting like a privacy respecting, seriously managed company, at least attempt to do it, their glory days will be remembered soon.
I can setup a SEO hacked site right now distributing malware and rely the entire business to Google's services like not controlled adwords, somehow "top of the list" Google blog services and the Adwords _inside_ my scam operation.
It really seems Google trusts to ignorance of end user Joe Sixpack. They want all the planet's data and keep it. Now it is "voice", it was "free maps!" (but send your loc. to us), google mail (but we will analyze your private mails), office (but we keep your docs)...
I just want to hear A WORD from those privacy freaks posting "spyware! spyware!" when the software _they paid for, using cc!_ checks for updates.
I guess their real plan is put that technology to Mobile version of Opera. Opera 10 Mobile beta is already out and it is absolutely amazing. Why amazing? Well, it works with same engine as Opera 10 on my poor Nokia E65 which is absolutely unsupported:)
I am sure this "plugin" was written in highly (amazingly) portable way and it will end up in mobile devices/game consoles.
Nokia already has a Webserver for Symbian devices. Believe or not, it doesn't use that much battery and RAM. Less than a very high end multi purpose messenger. If you haven't heard about it, blame nobody else than Nokia.
I have seen some amazing, absolutely amazing things made by IBM and got wasted by "mainframe like" marketing.
One of recent examples is XL Compiler stuff, last time I checked, some mainframe reseller was trying to sell it for $600 with horribly designed (front page!) page. Until PowerPC developers on Mac could trial it, damn Apple switched to Intel:) I use it as good example why that sad decision to switch to Intel was right thing.
I have seen MPEG4 decoder/player written in Java, in JVM 1.1 ages. Imagine what would happen if a company other than IBM did it. Funny enough, it still exists in Alphaworks site and it uses _less_ CPU than Adobe Flash:)
Their "Via Voice", coming free with OS/2 4.0 was already amazing, right before it got totally wasted, some clever company bought the engine rights, mixed with another engine and still does extremely well with "naturally speaking".
I think Nuance (owner of T9) would do great job marketing this technology. It is their line of business.
Hardware vendor like Nokia or RIM would imprison into their devices ROM, they aren't really better than IBM for such purposes. I am a Nokia owner and I see some real pathetic stuff going on. Apple is out of question even.
Samsung recently decided (wisely) to switch to Opera in all their handsets, including smart phones. Imagine what would Chinese Govt. do to handsets including Opera browser in device ROM. That would send Samsung from Number 2 mobile maker to "others" immediately. I guess shareholders would send Samsung CEO to enjoy some Tibet hippie living with Opera CEO in no time.
Basically, it is not possible. There is private/public key encryption built in, that is why browser (shell in fact) asks you to press random keys or "move mouse" (in touchscreen) when first installed.
If you want to set up a conspiracy theory, don't look anywhere other than some popular search engines who bowed to China.
Slashdot Mirror
It becomes real sad when you look to those general public computers and see the "cute looking" (but horribly programmed) screensaver using MORE processing/memory/disk (trust me!) than seti@home or folding@home.
If he gets sued, his lawyer should use this fact. Only remaining low power stand by devices are non smart phones, that is -if- they didn't enable flash lite or animated gif screensaver with lights on.
I will have a fresh Windows install tomorrow and I am not taking any kernel level security risks. I will simply enable "system restore" and will just enable all updates automatically installed. I can't really bother with some blaster like issue while Windows only purpose will be firmware updating my devices etc.
Whatever... Funny thing is, we can't even theorize on what is actually happening let alone having a clue about what to do if it happens. Thanks to Slashdot's needless "digg like" random moderation point distribution and horde of MSCE/Mono/Moonlight/Novell whatever commentators, there is a huge noise here.
I can easily talk on such weird issues since I am the person who found a very strange/unthinkable (before) issue hitting a OS X Update causing a black screen like situation myself. All I got from Apple was "thanks", the company who produced the component thanked too and updated their stuff, couple of Mac hint sites found it themselves already and issue was gone, forever. That is the Apple for you. I am still shocked since I was expecting denial, loss of bug reporting account, flames on IRC etc.
It is like parallel universe now, MS and the idiot unpaid Web 2 abusers are in denial mode.
I have some theories on this weirdness but as I am constantly marked troll, I keep them to myself. As someone reported the "screen backlight is turned off but it actually displays things", it became a very interesting thing to follow. Don't be surprised if it has something to do with beta version of a rare GPU driver.
Think you are an Application developer for Windows. Your "uninstall code" also has a routine to empty the program's registry entries and switching back the entries you changed at install (file associations etc.) along with its entire "tree" in registry.
For 80% of users, you did a great job. You cleaned up well. For the 20%, they were just "re-installing" or "accidentally clicked uninstall" so they "lost all their preferences!!!".
That is why developers like to leave their prefs behind (exact same thing happens on OS X) but on Windows, it has a effect on overall OS because of a centric database file. On OS X, besides some clutter on disk, nothing changes. That is one of the reasons why "format and re-install" in some period, on same major OS version (10.3,10.6 etc) is considered needless and proven several times to be a pseudo speed enhancement.
I don't either love or hate both operating systems, both of them have their powers. It is just that "registry" which MS _insists_ for some reason which we mortal users doesn't really get. Apple has some similar acts too but not really insisting on them when some alternative/proposal exists. They also prove that even if one changes the entire OS architecture, even the kernel, some kind of backwards compatibility may exist. For example, I was really surprised when I found the reason of this "mini [0x0-0x1b01b].com.operasoftware.Opera[264]: Unknown argument: -psn_0_110619" entry in my system logs. That is some very interesting way of maintaining backwards compatibility. Hell they are still using ":" as directory separator internally.
Installers, Games, Utility programs, Firmware updaters and even the Windows update itself.
Don't blame those users, blame the OS vendor for stealing everything from Apple but not stealing "Enter your administrator password to continue".
I have 700-800 plist files in my Preferences directory. All those widgets I tried, apps I installed, removed, run one time.
It must be like 1 line of command on Terminal or basic "Finder" order by date to find the old/unneeded ones and delete them but I don't bother. Why? Because it has zero effect on OS X. OS X wouldn't really care if there were 1000000 pref files there since it is not its business to maintain them let alone read them.
On Windows, while I hate the idea from the beginning, if you don't clean up your registry, OS will do it for you. Last time it was like 20% overhead required to clean it up at boot. If you get enough junk on that already huge, complex file, it will effect the entire performance of system. Windows _has to read_ that gigantic database to function and find its way in it.
ps: Now you understand why Windows technical user switchers insist on having "uninstall tool" or be amazed at "no add remove programs" on OS X? They generally think having redundant, old files, needless files will somehow effect their system. You can even add "universal binary haters" to that camp. I don't blame them, I blame Windows.
1) This thing happens although not as described by that vendor but somehow happens.
2) This is a major conspiracy by a major rival (e.g. Apple) to spread FUD about MS especially after Win 7 release.
3) This is the always mentioned (in theory) "evil virus" that is so good that it can't be even detected by current technology. (theorized since MS DOS)
4) This is a hoax by a large troll organization who can manage to send thousands of people, including slashdot account holders to say "yes, it happened to me too."
Trust me, even Apple can't get away with such a BSOD after update, even the "cult" won't let it. If you claim otherwise, you must be claiming one of the conspiracy theories above. This thing exists, it happens, it is not a major conspiracy and you do no good on behalf of MS when you claim "couple of random people" having it.
The side effect will hit US as usual, as Windows users now have second perfect excuse to turn off automatic updates. The first excuse was a damn legitimate one BTW, check WGA on Google. They installed it like a freaking trojan to their own users computers masking as something else.
ps: Black screen reminds me one of the "punishments" WGA does. Blacking the desktop background. Some routine got falsely triggered? Eh MS?
/etc
($HOME)/Library/Preferences
Please, enough really... Especially on Mac. Mac _always_ had Preferences in some sensible place, even in Pre OS X times.
If you want to trust your entire settings to a single bulky file which is also known to fragment&get redundant over time, it is fine but please stop this "random files" bullshit... No, nothing is at random place. Especially on OS X. Put your .plist file to some "random" place and see what happens.
So now, with a browser having 100% perfect Acid 3 score even on mobile/ARM flavor, I should be able to use Google sites in their full function not missing a single feature, no quirks, no "browser.js" hacks.
Basically I should be able to use Opera 10.10 and I shouldn't be thinking a second about Google Chrome which wasn't released for PowerPC anyway.
Somehow, I have hard time believing that.
Every single day, another OS X developer gives up iPhone. They aren't all famous nor they bother to write some whining (in eyes of apple fans) blog entries.
Some tools, who got awarded by Apple themselves haven't even bothered to attempt to release on iPhone, guessing they would never, ever get "allowed" to app store and those pro guys can't really bother with 1% of hacked/insecure iPhone stores with piracy coming with culture itself.
It is 1984 all over again, they are making the exact same mistakes which really costed them (and entire IT) some decade. Their attitude towards developers, even the major ones like Adobe hasn't changed a bit and yet there is Microsoft on other side even helping shareware game developers for free.
I play a massive simulation game and game developer, which is a small company almost gave up on OS X when Apple didn't just refuse to fix an OpenAL bug but made it even worse. As Apple acts like some psycho stalker sometimes, I am not naming any names.
I am not targeting you on this but it is really interesting that Apple "fanboy" (!) phenomenon is not just users, it is developers too. There are developers (as you see on this thread) who sides with gigantic censoring, controlling company instead of little guy.
It is not like I hate OS X or Apple, hell I hate the idea of .NET let alone some portable runtime of it. I just know who to side with when a large company abuses their dominant position with huge PR scheme.
Since the early days, monitors signal to system you know. Especially if I had that issue and a digitally connected monitor, I would try recycling (power on/off) monitor or carefully replugging it.
It may cause display to refresh. As people say monitor actually displays things, just the backlight is off. I haven't got a slightest clue how can one manage to do it. Is it in DPMI specs? DVI specs?
MS hasn't learned from Vista at all. One of the biggest mistakes they did with Vista was not admitting people are actually having problems and treated them (their customers) as bunch of morons not knowing how to use their OS.
Windows 7 shipped and MS really got some credit from media this time, even from Mac fanatics. This thing happens and if you read MS responses, they are in denial mode just like first days of Vista.
How many Stanford etc. geniuses it takes to do a basic thing like "We hear you, we will investigate the issue and we aren't going home until we figure it out.". Forget official announcement, what about a fake leak on some easy to find site that will signal that you are aware of the issue?
Does MS believe in some evil plot against them now? Like, all those comments etc. are written by Steve Jobs&Linus together?
ps: Could you imagine a Quicktime component could prevent OS X from booting? I saw it, reported, Apple thanked me and fixed it overnight.
With the competition or some other reason, GPU manufacturers started to push beta graphics drivers to users more than ever. If user gets greeted with some beta version of driver on official site and his fellow gamer friends keep telling how great the latest unstable driver is, you can't blame him.
There are expensive services/sites who just tracks beta/unstable/bleeding edge drivers and provide you updates. 99% of times, you don't need to take such risk but they -of course- sell you that service.
People expects some sort of magic from those unstable/beta drivers. At least on Windows 7, MS is supposed to be in charge of WHQL driver updates of popular cards. I would stick with them until SP1 at least.
Apple once owned 50% desktop market. If you read the history, even from sources like Wikipedia, you will see it isn't exactly "evil Microsoft" put them in bad position, it is their bad treatment to developers, especially tiny ones.
From that site, I was led to that portable .NET game engine community and reading the legimate developer's comments, I really felt sad. There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed. I speak about not being able to buy bread to your home. I feel ashamed on behalf of Apple and I am not linking it directly, one can find it easily if digs enough.
It is the same story on Desktop, they make Developers _hate_ them, not fixing any reported bugs and with 10% approaching market share, companies like EA say "fsck it, lets convert our directx code instead of using their frameworks". Don't you watch application/game scene recently? What ships other than copy/paste windows converted junk? Apple switched to i386, ending the decade old endianness issues/not being able to use same code and game releases became _less_. There must be a reason for it you know.
As Slashdot is open source, Perl based, it won't be a problem.
Lets merge Slashdot code to Wikipedia so people, semi-randomly selected can moderate Wiki editor responses. It will have karma system too. If an editor does too much flamebait or "troll", his karma will go negative and by default, his editing powers will be reduced to normal levels and eventually taken off.
You have no clue how your type of editor responses makes users and the real deal (one off editors) feel right?
Reading your lengthy post shows anectodal evidence of why people doesn't like Wikipedia editing.
Trust me, people likes Feynman, Einstein, Hawking like scientists not just because their amazing breakthroughs... They like them because they were friendly to average people.
"Editing an article, dealing with editors feels something like snail mailing a typed letter to Britannica HQ in 1980s. At least, Britannica guys were polite people."
Here is another "anecdotal" evidence, a quote told to me by a very very important Scientist who were horrified by some issues on articles and tried to fix them. As citation, what would you need? Name? Home address? Phone? On web? No, thank you, I better stay as another anecdotal guy.
You know the tiny fastmail.fm Aussie company who just does mail business and stays afloat with their fast, simple, modern UI and advanced/up to date tech/software usage?
Someone dared to write the unique features of Fastmail, when I referenced it to a server admin (in mail business) friend, he joked back at me for using a "spammer mail company"... I asked "how?", some idiot "citation needed" type went to article and marked it as spam. Imagine you claim your local pharmacy to sell drugs, it is the same thing for a company who just stays up with mail. Like, "do business with us, check wiki article, it accuses us to be spammers of a free encyclopedia".
Fastmail guys didn't care much, I cared (as user) and reminding the nazi editor what would happen if it wasn't wikipedia and if they accused a big evil mail provider to be a spammer on a large dotcom didn't help much. "no legal threats" policy.
If I was in mail business and if Wiki did similar thing to me, I would find that editor/user and sue him for hurting my image and putting my business to risk. Their NPVO or whatever self claimed terms wouldn't matter a second. Who the hell are them and what makes them different from other dotcoms?
We should give up creating our own monopolies really...
Nokia E71 here, upgraded from E65 (to get rid of ipod touch).
Nokia phones now have "app store" you know, I joked with it a lot (and don't like the idea) but that "app store", run by Nokia shows the entire difference betweeen Nokia and Apple in 1 line.
In "Nokia staff picks", there is "tethering" application which allows you to use your Nokia as a wireless router to the internet. Nokia execs, personnel, whoever in Nokia picked it. That single application being a staff pick shows why Nokia (and entire Symbian) must live. Remember the soap opera when one dared to ship it to Apple iPhone?
Oh I got the E71 somehow free (like American system but cheaper). If it was a "free Google phone", I would know I would trade my privacy, my contacts privacy, my data privacy for $30 a month so I would do everything to inform OTHERS just by asking "Is your life worth $30?".
See the scoop? It has "advanced voice recognition to render voice mails to e-mails".... What a great invention, just like Echelon...
At least Apple, Nokia, Microsoft purpose is clear. They want to sell you a device for maximum possible profit or at least brand recognition for future generations. MS sounds more like "Oh we can do a mobile OS too" since first Win MO. It is not like they care about your private data/voice data and in fact, they do everything possible to keep it secure. E.g. Symbian Signed programme is another reason why Nokia doesn't have 100.000 apps in store right now besides their weird C.
I lost my trust to EFF long time ago when they put "Google search" to their front page like no other open source, free engine exists. Now, I just wonder what will California do when Google offers free phone to teenagers in trade for their privacy... You know, your Californian rights... The stupid "I am 13 or older" forms... Will the the Arnold stand up?
In some parallel universe, Gmail could be a big success but IMHO they really lost the sense of privacy right when Google mail shipped.
Also Yahoo mail has some 250 million users, AOL started to wake up from dead once more (Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit to their image), MS really started to figure they run live.com, not windows.com and started to run a real dotcom style business...
One question: How many active users of gmail? Not in Nerddom, in real World.
Just tomorrow, some genius kid from a unheard country can setup something like "betterengine.sourceforge.net" search engine project page, some high end developers would see something unique in it like the Google engine compared to others back in 1990s, pay some "large money" and setup their "zongle.com".
This has happened in some similar form and made Google the Google of today... In a very short time. We would see what happens to that huge looking market cap in 1 year.
Check finance.yahoo.com and check AOL historical prices, Yahoo historical prices and even, Enron.
You know, they asked you to give up a right which you naturally had on those "old fashion" services. In fact, if you were a friend of mine and I mailed my secrets to you, I would lose that right too, just like whoever mails you without knowing how Google mail can offer 4GB for free.
When someone gives you something sounds amazingly cheap, unbelievably free, always read between the lines. And no, you don't become a Google sized company by not being evil.
You can keep your "4GB" or whatever now sized non private, machine analyze for junk ads mail, I keep a real mail (you know, with its real purpose) and I will use technologies like WebDAV or (s)FTP to share 10 MB files.
With Google's arrogance and ignorance on privacy, shipping applications that "auto update" non critical, free junk every 2 hours resulted in ban of Google software on large company networks, they don't need high end/complex campaigns.
Google started to look like an unstoppable data monster in average users eyes too. Signs are everywhere, like the flames directed to end user friendly RSS reader to switch "free" to Google reader powered news reading.
If Google doesn't wake up from their "but we aren't evil" dream and start acting like a privacy respecting, seriously managed company, at least attempt to do it, their glory days will be remembered soon.
I can setup a SEO hacked site right now distributing malware and rely the entire business to Google's services like not controlled adwords, somehow "top of the list" Google blog services and the Adwords _inside_ my scam operation.
It really seems Google trusts to ignorance of end user Joe Sixpack. They want all the planet's data and keep it. Now it is "voice", it was "free maps!" (but send your loc. to us), google mail (but we will analyze your private mails), office (but we keep your docs)...
I just want to hear A WORD from those privacy freaks posting "spyware! spyware!" when the software _they paid for, using cc!_ checks for updates.
I guess their real plan is put that technology to Mobile version of Opera. Opera 10 Mobile beta is already out and it is absolutely amazing. Why amazing? Well, it works with same engine as Opera 10 on my poor Nokia E65 which is absolutely unsupported :)
I am sure this "plugin" was written in highly (amazingly) portable way and it will end up in mobile devices/game consoles.
Nokia already has a Webserver for Symbian devices. Believe or not, it doesn't use that much battery and RAM. Less than a very high end multi purpose messenger. If you haven't heard about it, blame nobody else than Nokia.
http://mymobilesite.net/
It worked fine under 24MB RAM/200Mhz ARM powered E65.
I have seen some amazing, absolutely amazing things made by IBM and got wasted by "mainframe like" marketing.
One of recent examples is XL Compiler stuff, last time I checked, some mainframe reseller was trying to sell it for $600 with horribly designed (front page!) page. Until PowerPC developers on Mac could trial it, damn Apple switched to Intel :) I use it as good example why that sad decision to switch to Intel was right thing.
I have seen MPEG4 decoder/player written in Java, in JVM 1.1 ages. Imagine what would happen if a company other than IBM did it. Funny enough, it still exists in Alphaworks site and it uses _less_ CPU than Adobe Flash :)
Their "Via Voice", coming free with OS/2 4.0 was already amazing, right before it got totally wasted, some clever company bought the engine rights, mixed with another engine and still does extremely well with "naturally speaking".
I think Nuance (owner of T9) would do great job marketing this technology. It is their line of business.
Hardware vendor like Nokia or RIM would imprison into their devices ROM, they aren't really better than IBM for such purposes. I am a Nokia owner and I see some real pathetic stuff going on. Apple is out of question even.
Samsung recently decided (wisely) to switch to Opera in all their handsets, including smart phones. Imagine what would Chinese Govt. do to handsets including Opera browser in device ROM. That would send Samsung from Number 2 mobile maker to "others" immediately. I guess shareholders would send Samsung CEO to enjoy some Tibet hippie living with Opera CEO in no time.
Basically, it is not possible. There is private/public key encryption built in, that is why browser (shell in fact) asks you to press random keys or "move mouse" (in touchscreen) when first installed.
If you want to set up a conspiracy theory, don't look anywhere other than some popular search engines who bowed to China.