I stop arguing with someone's post once I see a 'M$'. It's obvious that they're either 12, a zealot, or a karma whore making up stuff that moderators want to hear. (It worked well here, the GP is at +4 interesting right now).
This is really starting to get on my nerves. Speak friggin english, don't use random coding shortcuts in your everyday speech. It's lazy and it makes you appear to have below average intelligence when speaking to anybody who doesn't know the reference, and even to some people who do get the reference (like me). We aren't talking code, we aren't referencing code, why the hell would you use "this" for something other than what it means in the current context?
The slowness on Vista capable machines was only the tip of iceberg. People had a lot complaints about Windows 7 'not supporting' their printers, scanners, VPN clients etc. A full 29% of all Windows Vista crashes were caused by Nvidia drivers and I suspect a significat percentage by ATI drivers. People had a lot of complaints about games and programs like Quickbooks not working because MS cleaned up the user files in Program Files mess into a/User directory. The software companies totally failed to support it inspite of years of notice. Cisco still has issues with 64bit driver code in their VPN clients.
I agree with you on the IE settings, and some control panel changes but disagree with charts in Excel. There are some people who benefit a lot from them but you don't seem to , so why not just ignore it and use it as normal? I've seen a lot of business users for whom the charts feature is a big boon, not just a marketing ploy. It's like Emacs reading your email. I strongly disagree on the Office Ribbon too, it's really a big step forward for new and casual users and power users seem to like it better after a few weeks of getting used to it. Infact, OpenOffie is planning to move to the Ribbon interface as well.
I put "upgrade" in quotes because when they get a new OS (usually on a new machine) at work, or a newer version of an office app it almost never runs faster, seldom has any new features that I would actually use, and I've never seen a real useability improvement in any of them
I think that's too strong of a statement to make. I think you're just too annoyed by having to change your habits and muscle memory that you ignore all the other benefits. For example, the new start menu in Vista/7 itself is worth the upgrade from XP(compatibility and slow hardware issues aside).
True, but OP is over the top with calling for EU action on undocumented features. It's an internal hack that's not meant for public distribution and might not work after a patch. (They won't be testing if this feature works for every code change they make in Windows, if they document it, they have to).
God bless their souls. I would want Grandma to be atleast 3 clicks away from the desktop from settings such as "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions". Me? I just put the folder on the desktop as a easy way to tweak my gaming desktop.
All of the microsoft stuff is there, but I suppose there's nothing stopping a program from not using it (UAC perhaps would complain about an app trying to create files in Program Files).
Starting with Vista, all write calls by a non Admin program to the program startup folder (Program Files) are virtualized to C:\Users\Username\LocalSettings etc. etc. folder. Same with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry folder This works for some programs but other badly written ones broke and needed elevation to admin with a UAC prompt.
If your developers are making themselves obscure shortcuts, you might want to have your UI team rethink their design.
Unfortunately, it seems they do, since with every "upgrade" of their OS and apps you have to relearn the thing all over again. More unfortunately, they're just not very good at UI or they wouldn't have to.
People bitch that's it not good and when it's made better(like in Vista/7), (same or different) people bitch that it's too different from Windows 95. It's like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Same with the Office Ribbon, Vista cleaned up a lot of underlying bits, like graphics, printer and network subsystems but companies like Nvidia, ATI, HP and Cisco dropped the ball on Graphic, Printer and VPN drivers and MS got the shaft for that one resulting in people like you putting 'upgrade' in double quotes.
You have to consider the userbase too. It became steadily non-technical and only the technically inclined would even open the manual. Just like car manuals, TV manuals, etc. Not to mention the growth of the internet which made it easy to get up-to-date documents with a click. Printing out the whole of MSDN(which will outdated quick) into telephone directory sized books and distributing it with every computer is a colossal waste of rainforest.
That last remark of you was totally useless and unrelated.
Quite true. Microsoft was more practical, sacrificing correctness for ship dates. On the other end of the spectrum we have GNU/Hurd, which might be never finished because it is too ideological and ambitious. But if finished, would it be the Holy Grail of computing? Doubtful at best. MS always was more practical and it's blind focus on backwards compatibility and shipping products quickly was one of the big reasons it succeeded, at the cost of bloat and kludges.When Vista broke the trend and cleaned up a lot of things like the graphics subsystem, network drivers, printer subsystem, instead of appreciation around these parts, it was all "OH NOEZ VISTA DOESN'T SUPPORT MY HP PRINTER" when it was the other way around, HP didn't update the drivers inspite of having years of notice. "Vista 64-bit doesn't support Cisco VPN" should be read as "Cisco sat on it's ass for 4 years doing nothing". A lot of Vista hate was misdirected at MS. Sacrificing a little of bit backward compatibility almost killed MS off, if OS X was sold for beige boxes, it might have been the end of MS, so I think MS learnt a lesson. Same with the Ribbon in Office, although it was a better design overall for casual and new users(probably around 95% of Office users), people hate having to relearn.
GP wrote:
Thank God at least they put your whole user profile in the c:\users\ directory - wait, do they, or is user crap still sprinkled around in c:\program files\blah ?
I hope (s)he realizes that change was one of the big reasons for "Vista sux" complaints. Calls to the program directory were virtualized to the Users folder, which broke many kludgy applications some of which had to be run with Admin permissions resulting in UAC dialogs which were hated by most people.
And all the stupid posts like the GP are simply anti-M$ zealots that are just trying to get karma points. (Seeing how it is at +4 insightful right now shows how successful they are at gaming the moderator system). This is old news too.
If all of the features are in the Control Panel, why do the developers need shortcuts?
In other words, what's wrong with the Control Panel interface that hinders developers to the point where they have to hack in these types of kludges?
And, yes, I consider a directory with a "special string" a horrible kludge. Think of all the behind-the-scenes complications that this brings on. Every directory creation/access has to be checked for these modes. How does a godmode directory interact with a random app?
The mind reels.
I think 'developers' in that context meant Microsoft Developers who develop Windows and possibly testers of the OS. They would need it to quickly test something instead of going through an additional step. And no, it's not a kludge, atleast it wasn't created for the GodMode features. Control Panel items have been 'special' folders internally with those 'special strings' internally ever since atleast Windows 95.. All it does is call a COM component with that Class ID as a GUID which populates the folder with the special functionality. Asking how a GodMode directory interacts with a random app is like asking how does a app interact with Control Panel. I am guess Microsoft just left it internally because there would no point stripping out a working feature that's is not easily user accessible unless they take special action to do so.
Maybe you should tell all those sites that.NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.
Businesses however, have the resources to continue to create more advanced and complicated iPhone versions of their products. They also have the resources to better manage the approval process, both by building carefully to the API, and (for bigger businesses) by having a phone call relationship with Apple.
Much good it did Google for Google Voice. And they even had their CEO sitting on the board of directors for Apple.
Psystar is a bad actor, trying to use the law to bludgeon an innocent competitor. —> Anti-Psystar.
See, that wasn't so hard.
Considering that Apple is the big bad guy here that filed the lawsuit, it's more like
Apple is a bad actor, trying to use the law to bludgeon an innocent competitor.
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft
on
Psystar Crushed In Court
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Oh really? Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Zune, Microsoft Store, the new "iPhone killer" windows mobile, etc, etc
Apple could be a very serious threat to Microsoft if they changed their attitude towards businesses.
Microsoft's bread and butter is Windows and Office. The iPhone, iPod, App store that you mention do nothing to dent that. MS is just trying to build a bigger business by trying to get into those markets, not to counter a threat to their cash cows.
And to those who argue that all that matters is that open source is a better way to develop code, let this case be a warning message. Apple makes fabulous code. Of course, the BSD community did a lot of it for them, but Apple makes it all just work for end users, and they do that beautifully. So no one can argue that for end users it is not fabulous code. It is.
Huh? How is this case a warning message to the people who argue that FOSS is a better way to develop code? I think PJ has lost it and from reading the rest of the articles on the site, seems to have become a rabid anti-MS Apple fangirl.
And she comes across as pretty weak in the law department as well. Look at how she skirts an important question
I know. They'll say, but, but, but... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out.
Erm what? Can't she shed some light on a very relevant and interesting theoretical instead of evading it just because it can be against her conclusion that Psystar got crushed? I don't see any insight in her article, just meaningless gloating that Apple won.
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I stop arguing with someone's post once I see a 'M$'. It's obvious that they're either 12, a zealot, or a karma whore making up stuff that moderators want to hear. (It worked well here, the GP is at +4 interesting right now).
TLA overload. Since the summary is so short, couldn't the submitter or editor expand them?
This is nothing new, remember all the hot air over the Macbook Air? It disappeared into thin air soon enough.
Remember similar hype over the Macbook Air? Just search a couple of fanboy sites for the Macbook Air and see how it was portrayed.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/01/22/how-the-macbook-air-stacks-up-against-other-ultra-light-notebooks/
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/01/30/is-the-macbook-air-another-cube/
Choice quote:
Asus, best known for its popular $350 EEE PC toy notebook , is also making inroads into the light notebook business.
I would suggest looking at the "Steve" era mostly and I would also disagree with this assertion.
Macbook Air ?
Basically, this.
This is really starting to get on my nerves. Speak friggin english, don't use random coding shortcuts in your everyday speech. It's lazy and it makes you appear to have below average intelligence when speaking to anybody who doesn't know the reference, and even to some people who do get the reference (like me). We aren't talking code, we aren't referencing code, why the hell would you use "this" for something other than what it means in the current context?
There is a 'this' command in Basic? Like
10 poke this
20 REMove that
??
The slowness on Vista capable machines was only the tip of iceberg. People had a lot complaints about Windows 7 'not supporting' their printers, scanners, VPN clients etc. A full 29% of all Windows Vista crashes were caused by Nvidia drivers and I suspect a significat percentage by ATI drivers. People had a lot of complaints about games and programs like Quickbooks not working because MS cleaned up the user files in Program Files mess into a /User directory. The software companies totally failed to support it inspite of years of notice. Cisco still has issues with 64bit driver code in their VPN clients.
I agree with you on the IE settings, and some control panel changes but disagree with charts in Excel. There are some people who benefit a lot from them but you don't seem to , so why not just ignore it and use it as normal? I've seen a lot of business users for whom the charts feature is a big boon, not just a marketing ploy. It's like Emacs reading your email. I strongly disagree on the Office Ribbon too, it's really a big step forward for new and casual users and power users seem to like it better after a few weeks of getting used to it. Infact, OpenOffie is planning to move to the Ribbon interface as well.
I put "upgrade" in quotes because when they get a new OS (usually on a new machine) at work, or a newer version of an office app it almost never runs faster, seldom has any new features that I would actually use, and I've never seen a real useability improvement in any of them
I think that's too strong of a statement to make. I think you're just too annoyed by having to change your habits and muscle memory that you ignore all the other benefits. For example, the new start menu in Vista/7 itself is worth the upgrade from XP(compatibility and slow hardware issues aside).
Err, why not just go to Start -> Help or press F1?
True, but OP is over the top with calling for EU action on undocumented features. It's an internal hack that's not meant for public distribution and might not work after a patch. (They won't be testing if this feature works for every code change they make in Windows, if they document it, they have to).
God bless their souls. I would want Grandma to be atleast 3 clicks away from the desktop from settings such as "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions". Me? I just put the folder on the desktop as a easy way to tweak my gaming desktop.
All of the microsoft stuff is there, but I suppose there's nothing stopping a program from not using it (UAC perhaps would complain about an app trying to create files in Program Files).
Starting with Vista, all write calls by a non Admin program to the program startup folder (Program Files) are virtualized to C:\Users\Username\LocalSettings etc. etc. folder. Same with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry folder This works for some programs but other badly written ones broke and needed elevation to admin with a UAC prompt.
If your developers are making themselves obscure shortcuts, you might want to have your UI team rethink their design.
Unfortunately, it seems they do, since with every "upgrade" of their OS and apps you have to relearn the thing all over again. More unfortunately, they're just not very good at UI or they wouldn't have to.
People bitch that's it not good and when it's made better(like in Vista/7), (same or different) people bitch that it's too different from Windows 95. It's like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Same with the Office Ribbon, Vista cleaned up a lot of underlying bits, like graphics, printer and network subsystems but companies like Nvidia, ATI, HP and Cisco dropped the ball on Graphic, Printer and VPN drivers and MS got the shaft for that one resulting in people like you putting 'upgrade' in double quotes.
You have to consider the userbase too. It became steadily non-technical and only the technically inclined would even open the manual. Just like car manuals, TV manuals, etc. Not to mention the growth of the internet which made it easy to get up-to-date documents with a click. Printing out the whole of MSDN(which will outdated quick) into telephone directory sized books and distributing it with every computer is a colossal waste of rainforest.
That last remark of you was totally useless and unrelated.
Quite true. Microsoft was more practical, sacrificing correctness for ship dates. On the other end of the spectrum we have GNU/Hurd, which might be never finished because it is too ideological and ambitious. But if finished, would it be the Holy Grail of computing? Doubtful at best. MS always was more practical and it's blind focus on backwards compatibility and shipping products quickly was one of the big reasons it succeeded, at the cost of bloat and kludges .When Vista broke the trend and cleaned up a lot of things like the graphics subsystem, network drivers, printer subsystem, instead of appreciation around these parts, it was all "OH NOEZ VISTA DOESN'T SUPPORT MY HP PRINTER" when it was the other way around, HP didn't update the drivers inspite of having years of notice. "Vista 64-bit doesn't support Cisco VPN" should be read as "Cisco sat on it's ass for 4 years doing nothing". A lot of Vista hate was misdirected at MS. Sacrificing a little of bit backward compatibility almost killed MS off, if OS X was sold for beige boxes, it might have been the end of MS, so I think MS learnt a lesson. Same with the Ribbon in Office, although it was a better design overall for casual and new users(probably around 95% of Office users), people hate having to relearn.
GP wrote:
Thank God at least they put your whole user profile in the c:\users\ directory - wait, do they, or is user crap still sprinkled around in c:\program files\blah ?
I hope (s)he realizes that change was one of the big reasons for "Vista sux" complaints. Calls to the program directory were virtualized to the Users folder, which broke many kludgy applications some of which had to be run with Admin permissions resulting in UAC dialogs which were hated by most people.
I think they're referring to Microsoft developers developing the OS, not other developers developing for the OS.
And all the stupid posts like the GP are simply anti-M$ zealots that are just trying to get karma points. (Seeing how it is at +4 insightful right now shows how successful they are at gaming the moderator system). This is old news too.
If all of the features are in the Control Panel, why do the developers need shortcuts?
In other words, what's wrong with the Control Panel interface that hinders developers to the point where they have to hack in these types of kludges?
And, yes, I consider a directory with a "special string" a horrible kludge. Think of all the behind-the-scenes complications that this brings on. Every directory creation/access has to be checked for these modes. How does a godmode directory interact with a random app?
The mind reels.
I think 'developers' in that context meant Microsoft Developers who develop Windows and possibly testers of the OS. They would need it to quickly test something instead of going through an additional step. And no, it's not a kludge, atleast it wasn't created for the GodMode features. Control Panel items have been 'special' folders internally with those 'special strings' internally ever since atleast Windows 95.. All it does is call a COM component with that Class ID as a GUID which populates the folder with the special functionality. Asking how a GodMode directory interacts with a random app is like asking how does a app interact with Control Panel. I am guess Microsoft just left it internally because there would no point stripping out a working feature that's is not easily user accessible unless they take special action to do so.
Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.
A few web sites that use .NET technology:
Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Maybe you should tell all those sites that .NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.
I think you speak for all the modpoint-milking karma whores...
Businesses however, have the resources to continue to create more advanced and complicated iPhone versions of their products. They also have the resources to better manage the approval process, both by building carefully to the API, and (for bigger businesses) by having a phone call relationship with Apple.
Much good it did Google for Google Voice. And they even had their CEO sitting on the board of directors for Apple.
Wrong. The biggest benefit to Apple is the forced 30% cut of every App's cost.
Psystar is a bad actor, trying to use the law to bludgeon an innocent competitor. —> Anti-Psystar.
See, that wasn't so hard.
Considering that Apple is the big bad guy here that filed the lawsuit, it's more like
Apple is a bad actor, trying to use the law to bludgeon an innocent competitor.
Oh really? Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Zune, Microsoft Store, the new "iPhone killer" windows mobile, etc, etc
Apple could be a very serious threat to Microsoft if they changed their attitude towards businesses.
Microsoft's bread and butter is Windows and Office. The iPhone, iPod, App store that you mention do nothing to dent that. MS is just trying to build a bigger business by trying to get into those markets, not to counter a threat to their cash cows.
Exactly. WTF is up with this quote from TFA:
And to those who argue that all that matters is that open source is a better way to develop code, let this case be a warning message. Apple makes fabulous code. Of course, the BSD community did a lot of it for them, but Apple makes it all just work for end users, and they do that beautifully. So no one can argue that for end users it is not fabulous code. It is.
Huh? How is this case a warning message to the people who argue that FOSS is a better way to develop code? I think PJ has lost it and from reading the rest of the articles on the site, seems to have become a rabid anti-MS Apple fangirl.
And she comes across as pretty weak in the law department as well. Look at how she skirts an important question
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out.
Erm what? Can't she shed some light on a very relevant and interesting theoretical instead of evading it just because it can be against her conclusion that Psystar got crushed? I don't see any insight in her article, just meaningless gloating that Apple won.
Windows 7 is still clunky, slow, and unstable.
Citation needed. I use Windows 7 and it's certainly not one of those.