Also you're shooting yourself with low profit margins - look at Motorola and Nokia nowadays - they were selling decent phones a while ago and decided to go for the low hanging fruit of cheap phones. That didn't leave enough focus/resources on the smartphones.
And thats why Nokia has large market penitration in "the rest of the world", the US is the only one where they skipped out on because of wanting to many rights for the end users when it came to carrier deals. All of Apples 'inovation' is based on other peoples work (Nokia and others for the actual ability to work as a phone), they are really just skilled collage makers pasting together technologies that other people have made into their own product.
Incorrect, BES talks to RIM's servers which in turn talk to the Blackberry devices. if this was not the case then why previously when the RIM servers went down for a couple of days was everyone including BES users up in arms about their email not working and being so reliant on an external system.
Nokia E series, Windows Mobile, iPhone etc all use a system which works by a direct connection to your provider/companies server over Microsofts ActiveSync protocol to provide push email, calander, etc along with SMS sync in later versions.
These may seem safer untill you realise that most are encrypted using keys from certification providers that can be compelled by governments to give out your encryption key rendering your own encryption transparent to them. The best bet is private keys generated by a trusted internal certification server if you actually want some form of privacy.
Big deal schools in the UK and NZ have been using this method for checking out books for ages. You try to get a six year old to remember a pin number or library card. Many also use public barcode lists of users instead due to the cost of fingerprint scanners and in some rare cases privacy concerns.
Mod parent up!
I agree fully apart from the 2xDL380s, we use a couple more servers than that for extras like Terminal Services (to run god aweful school managment software - MUSAC) and one for all the internet/email filtering and security.
Everything else like email, av control, centralized video library, library software, centralized applications etc are virtualized.
Every school that I have encountered using a non-windows/mac system for both clients and servers is filled with unhappy teachers and students with half functional IT that they can't figure out how to use or has other issues that make it more work than it should be. These schools usually with some media savy attention seeker at the helm who usually appear to care far more about their social position than providing a learning environment.
Have seen plenty happy with linux server side even though they are stuck using XP because of incompatibilities in the way the preffered supported dist is made.
It does not help that TFA is wrong, only schools that sign up are included and paid for by the government. If this retard signed up then went linux it is not the governments fault.
Rubbish I work in a NZ school as an IT admin and schools have to sign up each three years (was each year). Only these schools are included in the deal and they have to activly sign up to it. This is the usual Slashdot FUD, if they don't sign up then the school is not included in the agreement and the government pays nothing.
There are simmilar deals as stated above with Apple and even at one point a major linux distribution/support provider. As far as I can tell this deal is no longer open to new schools but is still maintained for those that did sign up.
Apple has a long history of threatening decenters against its 'grand vision', there have been multiple instances where large chunks of their own support forums have been purged because users were critisizing Apple for their laptops keys melting (suspend issue) or their ipods burning or their laptop power adapters failing or their timecapsule powerbricks dieing after almost exactly a year. All of these took massive user lashback to get fixed inside warrenty in some cases these defective products never were.
The story of the iPod above retells that in order to get a replacement they had to agree not to reveal that the product had a fault ever. This is the kind of behaviour that is acceptable to you? How many other stories have never been told thanks to Apple raverous lawyers?
If you think that the arrogance of Apple only exists in my mind then you need to get your rampant fanboyisum in check and read more of the internet than what is released in Apple press releases.
Apple's arrogance shines through again as they deny that rules apply to them. They are quite happy to crush people, products and companies for even mentioning Apple in a less than positive light but refuse to accept that other companies have rights to. Nokia made more of the sodding iPhone than Apple did in terms of R&D and now as usuall are getting bitchy that people are actually expecting them to play by the rules. Something they have mostly avoided or lawyer mobbed their way out of until now.
I hope that Nokia epicly crushes Apple on the legal front to finally put Apple in its place for once. Chances are though that the usual Apple chroneisum will triumph when the standard issue iPod equiped, narrow minded US legal system gets its incompetant mitts on it.
I agree that they should take it to the EU, not that I usually support the EU's special brand of crazy that gives them liscence to print money from other peoples accounts (Intel, Microsoft) but it would be fantastic to finally see Apple being held to the same standard as everyone else. Hell the EU even questioned the mighty iTunes, maybe this time they will actually take action.
Much better use of multicore CPUs There is a little more power mgmt stuff, but I wouldn't call it "much better".
-> The task scheduler is better allowing for more efficient usage of more cores than XP.
GPU acceleration of the GUI Windows NT has always supported GPU acceleration of the GUI through the display driver. The DWM just uses it differently, mostly for 3d effects and caching window contents.
-> It also offloads the graphics into faster dedicated memory and composets each window seporatly meaning crashes do not cause screen corruption.
DLL seperation What does this mean? DLLs have always been mapped COW in processes, and SXS was introduced in XP.
-> DLLs of the same name for different apps do not nessisarily overwrite each other meaning that program conflicts are less likely. I think that this may be in XP to but this is slashdot and the public perseption is that it is still just like NT4.
vastly better RDP You can use the fancy aero and desktop composition effects in RDP6, in Vista, plus support for more device redirection. This is nice, but mainly eye candy. Not a vast improvement. There isn't much substantive that you can do with RDP 6.1 that you couldn't in 5.1. Or NT4 TSE for that matter.
-> The new RDP uses far less bandwidth and allows the sending of documents to a printer using a generic driver so that each printer does not need to be installed on both sides. It also supports transport over SSL inside the base program which pipes it easily over the web. It can serve up individual applications and composite them with the other local windows. It also has full support for multiple moniters and video streaming which may be eye candy but is useful.
vastly improved central managment and deployment features for businesses Group policy, with MSI installation, net boot installation, etc. existed in their current form since Windows 2000. There have been improvements, but no vast revolutions.
-> The group policy templates now cover many more things and are more reliable. MSI installs are also faster due to better integration of Windows installer. Not revolutions but definatly better.
Easy 64 bit usage with drivers XP had AMD64 support first (albeit with the WS2003 code base). The drivers are finally catching up. This is mainly the job of IHVs, not Microsoft. The drivers that Microsoft traditionally provides (most of them, really) were ready in XP64.
-> Of course XP had 64bit first as it was released earlier but from all accounts it was not fantastic and drivers were a nightmare, with Vista/7 this is not a big concern.
Faster installs Yes, Vista now uses an image based install that supposed to be much faster.
-> Correction, in general are much faster. Over the hundreds of machines I have deployed Vista or 7 to the install routine has taken less time than a compareable XP install.
Better power managment and usage of hardware suspend 2000 fully supported ACPI power modes. There have been minor refinements since then, but noting major.
-> Vista/7 propperly use the S3 suspend states making resuming much faster, the new power managment in 7 is able to quickly switch on or off various parts of modern CPUs to save heat production and in some cases power giving the machine overall better performance.
better usage of memory (cacheing for very noticible speed gains) SuperFetch (new in Vista) does pre-emptively fill unused memory with things that were paged out or the OS otherwise thinks you may use. To support this, the kernel now has 8 memory priorities, which help a lot in determining what should go first when memory gets tight.
Media center! XP had MCE first.
-> Yes it did but it was only avalible to OEMs and was a seporate edition not included in the main consumer version. Basic XP could not do this so this is a new feature for the mainstream OS.
transparent Bitlocker hard drive encryption (in pro and ultimate) with TPM Note that per-file enc
There are a few things that have improved, most of which were avalible in Vista too:
Much better use of multicore CPUs GPU acceleration of the GUI self healing system files(in some instances) OS aware of SMART HD readings and able to prompt user DLL seperation vastly better RDP vastly improved central managment and deployment features for businesses Easy 64 bit usage with drivers Faster installs Better power managment and usage of hardware suspend better usage of memory (cacheing for very noticible speed gains) Media center! transparent Bitlocker hard drive encryption (in pro and ultimate) with TPM program execution isolation that redirects reg and file system calls to safe locations epiclly better wireless support support for propper GUI scaleing on high DPI LCDs Integrated Touch support and Speech Recognition(not fantastic but alright) Automatic driver retrival for most hardware right of Windows update without searching Fast search and indexing Document libraries for easy organisation Faster boot times and UI responce on semi-decent hardware (compared to XP) Better moniter support for HD TVs and multi moniters/GPUs (by default) Child restricted accounts to limit games and allow usage limits for children.
Just to name a few, it has been a long time since XP and things have progressed.
On the cons side I still don't like the superbar much, you can change it to be simmilar to the Vista one quite easily though. They have also removed the email client probably due to the EUs meddeling but live mail is still avalible.
The average teacher simply will not accept training from anyone who is not themselves a teacher and will often flat out refuse it if it threatens to take them any more of their time. I have to support these people and some are great but most are neanderthols when it comes to technology and refuse to learn about it as they do not consider it important at all.
It is simply insane that they were expected to unpack and setup whiteboards and that no training was offered in that case but that may well be a symptom of having training refused or ignored in other schools. Technology is important even if it is just taught or allowed to a basic level in schools, one of the major things preventing this is the teachers. Their training does not include computer skills at most universities short of a single paper on word, because of this and the prevailing attitude at least among many of the older teachers they view it as unimportant and don't even try no matter how much support they have access to.
Again there are really good teachers that do make use of the technology. Also technology is not a heavy weight subject like maths or english but surely the teacher should be teaching them in a way that integrates the tools that they will actually use to do the task. Not all the time or anything but at least once or twice to give them an experience of the real world rather than the standard 1950's time warp of a usual school (at least in this country and in others that I have heard about from an IT standpoint).
Get an Android phone then, this kind of stuff would work on your iPhone if Apple actually allowed it on its app store. They just don't want you to have it yet, how cool of them is that???
Apple strikes again, you still need to jailbreak it if you don't want to be controlled by Apples corporate opinion of what the general public is allowed to have on phones that they purchased.
What would happen to a car company if they built a car that could only drive west. Apple can only get away with it because of the masses of image obsessed sheep that flock to its kool-aid drinking sessions.
I have to agree, the mini-series was fantastic and season one was also really good. Season 2 was pretty good but when season three rolled around it just lost momentum, it became so much about reflecting politics and current events that it became harder to stay interested in. It dragged and slowed down then really just became a pre-staging area for season four.
I do hope that they pick up the ball for the last season because it was fantastic and still can be if they pick it up a little and mirror current events subtly rather than just adding special effects and a loose plot to the daily news.
Apple includes all of the software why should MS have to make users download it seperatly. Apple integrates Safari into the OS to make it run faster, why can't MS. I call a double standard, maybe the EU's competition regulation department is run by Apple fanboys, or bribed by Jobbs.
"Poor Microsoft, if they ever marketed a secure OC Norton and McAffee would sue for anticompetitive monopoly practices and the EU wouldn't let them sell Windows in Europe any more."
I totally agree. Its just the same as people saying that Linux and OSX come with everything that you need and Windows doesn't. A good reason for that is because if MS packaged half of the stuff into the OS that Apple did they would be sued for anticompetitive practices. It is a bullshit double standard which has gone on to long.
It ok, one thing will save us all from the onslaught of terminator style robots. Batteries not included, we cant even make independent walking robots that don't require external power to last for any real amount of time.
Our crappy battery technology will save us all.
Start -> Run : msconfig
then just un-tick all of the stuff you don't want to run. Simple. You can't blame Microsoft for all the crap you choose to install.
Slashdot Mirror
Flash, What better platform is there for simulating something that takes billions of years.
Also you're shooting yourself with low profit margins - look at Motorola and Nokia nowadays - they were selling decent phones a while ago and decided to go for the low hanging fruit of cheap phones. That didn't leave enough focus/resources on the smartphones.
And thats why Nokia has large market penitration in "the rest of the world", the US is the only one where they skipped out on because of wanting to many rights for the end users when it came to carrier deals. All of Apples 'inovation' is based on other peoples work (Nokia and others for the actual ability to work as a phone), they are really just skilled collage makers pasting together technologies that other people have made into their own product.
All I can say is that India better hope like hell that Apple doesn't have nukes yet.
Epic comment, you should have been modded both insightful and funny for that one :)
Damn, even the spys are just phoning it in now.
Incorrect, BES talks to RIM's servers which in turn talk to the Blackberry devices. if this was not the case then why previously when the RIM servers went down for a couple of days was everyone including BES users up in arms about their email not working and being so reliant on an external system.
Nokia E series, Windows Mobile, iPhone etc all use a system which works by a direct connection to your provider/companies server over Microsofts ActiveSync protocol to provide push email, calander, etc along with SMS sync in later versions.
These may seem safer untill you realise that most are encrypted using keys from certification providers that can be compelled by governments to give out your encryption key rendering your own encryption transparent to them. The best bet is private keys generated by a trusted internal certification server if you actually want some form of privacy.
Big deal schools in the UK and NZ have been using this method for checking out books for ages. You try to get a six year old to remember a pin number or library card. Many also use public barcode lists of users instead due to the cost of fingerprint scanners and in some rare cases privacy concerns.
Ah, yes, and of course the grammer and spelling of my speedy typing invalidated my point completely. Just what I would expect from an Australian.
Mod parent up! I agree fully apart from the 2xDL380s, we use a couple more servers than that for extras like Terminal Services (to run god aweful school managment software - MUSAC) and one for all the internet/email filtering and security. Everything else like email, av control, centralized video library, library software, centralized applications etc are virtualized. Every school that I have encountered using a non-windows/mac system for both clients and servers is filled with unhappy teachers and students with half functional IT that they can't figure out how to use or has other issues that make it more work than it should be. These schools usually with some media savy attention seeker at the helm who usually appear to care far more about their social position than providing a learning environment. Have seen plenty happy with linux server side even though they are stuck using XP because of incompatibilities in the way the preffered supported dist is made.
It does not help that TFA is wrong, only schools that sign up are included and paid for by the government. If this retard signed up then went linux it is not the governments fault.
Rubbish I work in a NZ school as an IT admin and schools have to sign up each three years (was each year). Only these schools are included in the deal and they have to activly sign up to it. This is the usual Slashdot FUD, if they don't sign up then the school is not included in the agreement and the government pays nothing. There are simmilar deals as stated above with Apple and even at one point a major linux distribution/support provider. As far as I can tell this deal is no longer open to new schools but is still maintained for those that did sign up.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10302038-37.html
http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/missing-prototype-iphone-leads-to-chinese-workers-death/
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/14/211242
http://timecapsuledead.org/
Apple has a long history of threatening decenters against its 'grand vision', there have been multiple instances where large chunks of their own support forums have been purged because users were critisizing Apple for their laptops keys melting (suspend issue) or their ipods burning or their laptop power adapters failing or their timecapsule powerbricks dieing after almost exactly a year. All of these took massive user lashback to get fixed inside warrenty in some cases these defective products never were.
The story of the iPod above retells that in order to get a replacement they had to agree not to reveal that the product had a fault ever. This is the kind of behaviour that is acceptable to you? How many other stories have never been told thanks to Apple raverous lawyers?
If you think that the arrogance of Apple only exists in my mind then you need to get your rampant fanboyisum in check and read more of the internet than what is released in Apple press releases.
Apple's arrogance shines through again as they deny that rules apply to them. They are quite happy to crush people, products and companies for even mentioning Apple in a less than positive light but refuse to accept that other companies have rights to. Nokia made more of the sodding iPhone than Apple did in terms of R&D and now as usuall are getting bitchy that people are actually expecting them to play by the rules. Something they have mostly avoided or lawyer mobbed their way out of until now.
I hope that Nokia epicly crushes Apple on the legal front to finally put Apple in its place for once. Chances are though that the usual Apple chroneisum will triumph when the standard issue iPod equiped, narrow minded US legal system gets its incompetant mitts on it.
I agree that they should take it to the EU, not that I usually support the EU's special brand of crazy that gives them liscence to print money from other peoples accounts (Intel, Microsoft) but it would be fantastic to finally see Apple being held to the same standard as everyone else. Hell the EU even questioned the mighty iTunes, maybe this time they will actually take action.
It's the public sector, in government terms NASA has just invented the deployment warp reactor.
Much better use of multicore CPUs
There is a little more power mgmt stuff, but I wouldn't call it "much better".
-> The task scheduler is better allowing for more efficient usage of more cores than XP.
GPU acceleration of the GUI
Windows NT has always supported GPU acceleration of the GUI through the display driver. The DWM just uses it differently, mostly for 3d effects and caching window contents.
-> It also offloads the graphics into faster dedicated memory and composets each window seporatly meaning crashes do not cause screen corruption.
DLL seperation
What does this mean? DLLs have always been mapped COW in processes, and SXS was introduced in XP.
-> DLLs of the same name for different apps do not nessisarily overwrite each other meaning that program conflicts are less likely. I think that this may be in XP to but this is slashdot and the public perseption is that it is still just like NT4.
vastly better RDP
You can use the fancy aero and desktop composition effects in RDP6, in Vista, plus support for more device redirection. This is nice, but mainly eye candy. Not a vast improvement. There isn't much substantive that you can do with RDP 6.1 that you couldn't in 5.1. Or NT4 TSE for that matter.
-> The new RDP uses far less bandwidth and allows the sending of documents to a printer using a generic driver so that each printer does not need to be installed on both sides. It also supports transport over SSL inside the base program which pipes it easily over the web. It can serve up individual applications and composite them with the other local windows. It also has full support for multiple moniters and video streaming which may be eye candy but is useful.
vastly improved central managment and deployment features for businesses
Group policy, with MSI installation, net boot installation, etc. existed in their current form since Windows 2000. There have been improvements, but no vast revolutions.
-> The group policy templates now cover many more things and are more reliable. MSI installs are also faster due to better integration of Windows installer. Not revolutions but definatly better.
Easy 64 bit usage with drivers
XP had AMD64 support first (albeit with the WS2003 code base). The drivers are finally catching up. This is mainly the job of IHVs, not Microsoft. The drivers that Microsoft traditionally provides (most of them, really) were ready in XP64.
-> Of course XP had 64bit first as it was released earlier but from all accounts it was not fantastic and drivers were a nightmare, with Vista/7 this is not a big concern.
Faster installs
Yes, Vista now uses an image based install that supposed to be much faster.
-> Correction, in general are much faster. Over the hundreds of machines I have deployed Vista or 7 to the install routine has taken less time than a compareable XP install.
Better power managment and usage of hardware suspend
2000 fully supported ACPI power modes. There have been minor refinements since then, but noting major.
-> Vista/7 propperly use the S3 suspend states making resuming much faster, the new power managment in 7 is able to quickly switch on or off various parts of modern CPUs to save heat production and in some cases power giving the machine overall better performance.
better usage of memory (cacheing for very noticible speed gains)
SuperFetch (new in Vista) does pre-emptively fill unused memory with things that were paged out or the OS otherwise thinks you may use. To support this, the kernel now has 8 memory priorities, which help a lot in determining what should go first when memory gets tight.
Media center!
XP had MCE first.
-> Yes it did but it was only avalible to OEMs and was a seporate edition not included in the main consumer version. Basic XP could not do this so this is a new feature for the mainstream OS.
transparent Bitlocker hard drive encryption (in pro and ultimate) with TPM
Note that per-file enc
There are a few things that have improved, most of which were avalible in Vista too:
Much better use of multicore CPUs
GPU acceleration of the GUI
self healing system files(in some instances)
OS aware of SMART HD readings and able to prompt user
DLL seperation
vastly better RDP
vastly improved central managment and deployment features for businesses
Easy 64 bit usage with drivers
Faster installs
Better power managment and usage of hardware suspend
better usage of memory (cacheing for very noticible speed gains)
Media center!
transparent Bitlocker hard drive encryption (in pro and ultimate) with TPM
program execution isolation that redirects reg and file system calls to safe locations
epiclly better wireless support
support for propper GUI scaleing on high DPI LCDs
Integrated Touch support and Speech Recognition(not fantastic but alright)
Automatic driver retrival for most hardware right of Windows update without searching
Fast search and indexing
Document libraries for easy organisation
Faster boot times and UI responce on semi-decent hardware (compared to XP)
Better moniter support for HD TVs and multi moniters/GPUs (by default)
Child restricted accounts to limit games and allow usage limits for children.
Just to name a few, it has been a long time since XP and things have progressed.
On the cons side I still don't like the superbar much, you can change it to be simmilar to the Vista one quite easily though. They have also removed the email client probably due to the EUs meddeling but live mail is still avalible.
The average teacher simply will not accept training from anyone who is not themselves a teacher and will often flat out refuse it if it threatens to take them any more of their time. I have to support these people and some are great but most are neanderthols when it comes to technology and refuse to learn about it as they do not consider it important at all.
It is simply insane that they were expected to unpack and setup whiteboards and that no training was offered in that case but that may well be a symptom of having training refused or ignored in other schools. Technology is important even if it is just taught or allowed to a basic level in schools, one of the major things preventing this is the teachers. Their training does not include computer skills at most universities short of a single paper on word, because of this and the prevailing attitude at least among many of the older teachers they view it as unimportant and don't even try no matter how much support they have access to.
Again there are really good teachers that do make use of the technology. Also technology is not a heavy weight subject like maths or english but surely the teacher should be teaching them in a way that integrates the tools that they will actually use to do the task. Not all the time or anything but at least once or twice to give them an experience of the real world rather than the standard 1950's time warp of a usual school (at least in this country and in others that I have heard about from an IT standpoint).
I agree, I'm not installing CrapTime player on my machine for that. VLC FTW, just need to jump through the usual BS Apple hoops to get to the content.
Americans like paying more that way they feel they get a better product, look at healthcare...
Or Apple :)
Get an Android phone then, this kind of stuff would work on your iPhone if Apple actually allowed it on its app store. They just don't want you to have it yet, how cool of them is that???
What would happen to a car company if they built a car that could only drive west. Apple can only get away with it because of the masses of image obsessed sheep that flock to its kool-aid drinking sessions.
I do hope that they pick up the ball for the last season because it was fantastic and still can be if they pick it up a little and mirror current events subtly rather than just adding special effects and a loose plot to the daily news.
Apple includes all of the software why should MS have to make users download it seperatly. Apple integrates Safari into the OS to make it run faster, why can't MS. I call a double standard, maybe the EU's competition regulation department is run by Apple fanboys, or bribed by Jobbs.
"Poor Microsoft, if they ever marketed a secure OC Norton and McAffee would sue for anticompetitive monopoly practices and the EU wouldn't let them sell Windows in Europe any more." I totally agree. Its just the same as people saying that Linux and OSX come with everything that you need and Windows doesn't. A good reason for that is because if MS packaged half of the stuff into the OS that Apple did they would be sued for anticompetitive practices. It is a bullshit double standard which has gone on to long.
It ok, one thing will save us all from the onslaught of terminator style robots. Batteries not included, we cant even make independent walking robots that don't require external power to last for any real amount of time. Our crappy battery technology will save us all.
Start -> Run : msconfig then just un-tick all of the stuff you don't want to run. Simple. You can't blame Microsoft for all the crap you choose to install.