With Vista I found UAC VERY annoying. Sometimes I'd get one warning from UAC, click OK, then get another one for the same program. This seems to have been ironed out in Windows 7. It's still there, but it's less annoying.
What WAS annoying is that the box I'm testing Windows 7 on has an old Dell CRT attached to it. Windows 7 got the screen refresh rate wrong (75 when it should have been 60) and screwed up the display from 3/4 into the install process till I was able to get into settings and change it. To be fair, Ubuntu on NVidia restricted drivers does the same damned thing.
Second annoyance was sleep mode. With my aging monitor (or maybe its the video card) coming back from sleep mode corrupts the display, and cannot be fixed short of a restart. In the default configuration, the computer goes into sleep mode after 30 minutes. Easily enough fixed, but still I didn't like it.
Another problem I found, was I found it hard to locate some things in the control panel. It's different than XP.
The last issue was a driver problem, that computer's onboard sound didn't even have a Vista driver. Fortunately I was able to get the XP driver to work.
I have yet to find any other real problems with it at this point. All in all MS seems to have learned from a lot of Vista's mistakes and made improvements. I'm not sure I'll buy a copy at this point, but I'm not ruling it out either.
am I going to read while stuck on the toilet? Maybe it's time to install a computer in there, and hope the cat doesn't knock the mouse into the water....
On a related note, I fortunately still have a few copies of a certain Scientology magazine squirreled away in case I run out of toilet paper...
In most single-player games in-game advertisement is absolutely silly. Likewise in subscription-supported online games - you pay to use the servers, you deserve to be free of ads. But what about those games that are NOT subscription supported and have an online component, like say Diablo 2? Or any other game where the company runs their own servers free-to-play? They have to pay for that somehow, and I seriously doubt that $50-60 you spend on a game will last for as long as, say, Blizzard's battle.net has. If done right, the ads won't be all that noticeable, or won't be in the actual game at all (similar to how battle.net has them in the chat screens, but doesn't have them in game). In this case, I would have no problem buying such a game. However, in the event that they are horribly out of place and serve only to lessen the value of the game, I'll be the first to tell them where to stick their ads.
Hmm. Well WildBlue where we live, is $89.95 per month for the top speed/bandwidth package (it's what I have)
There's a $149.95 activation fee
Equipment is either $5.95/month for 24 months, or $99.95 one time.
So not exactly the least expensive of options. But the download speed more than makes up for it (though if you want games online, you'll still have to have dialup).
I'm not gonna get into right and wrong here, cause they really should provide a tool (I know other ISP's with limits do), but there are (free) ways to monitor your bandwidth.
I recommend FreeMeter for Windows XP which has a Totals Log function that does exactly that. If you think you might cross the line on bandwith, download it.
You obviously haven't done your research on HughesNet. Their bandwidth cap is FAR FAR FAR lower. 500MB a day for their top home user account. That works out to about 15 gigs in a 30 day period. If you're a business, you can get a connection that gives twice that, for substantially more. That 250GB cap isn't looking so bad, once you know what those of us out in the boonies get screwed with, huh?
I have WildBlue Satellite for internet, as I live out in the boonies where there is no cable or DSL. I am restricted to 17 gigs download, 5 gigs upload, the least restrictive option available to me (Hughes Net and Starband are worse in that regard). At this point, I would fucking kill for a 250gig cap.
That said, most people won't ever come close to hitting it. I don't use P2P (it simply doesn't work on a satellite connection) but I do a reasonable amount of downloading, and I manage to keep around 11 gigs download.
That said, Comcast definitely needs to provide a bandwidth meter. They're obviously metering bandwidth to employ the cap, it would be a simple matter to provide a web interface for their customers. Hell, every satellite ISP does it. Comcast must just be lazy, incompetent, or both.
Your workplace is probably about to go to hell. So why not have some fun with it?
First off, update your resume. This is perhaps the most important step herein.
Next, recommend tools that are as bad for the job as possible while still not raising objections from your colleagues, or better yet, get them to go along with it.
Watch it fail utterly, quit in disgust, and watch as the company falls apart....
This potentially sets a broader precedent than just using a fake name. What it does is imbues a website's Terms of Service with the power of law. This is a very bad idea on a number of levels.
Let's start with a far-out example, simply because I feel like it. If a website for sushi lovers demands that all its users enjoy sushi, and some troll joins up and says they hate sushi, that person under this reasoning would be a criminal who would potentially face 5 years in prison.
Terms of Service do NOT have the rule of law. There are very few bodies with the power to make laws in this country, and the lawyers and idiots that craft EULA's and Terms of Service are NOT among them. This does not mean you can always violate them at will - there are laws regarding contracts that apply, and if you agree to them you may be liable there - but these are not felonies.
To state that breaking a Terms of Service, which is NOT even reviewed by congress or any other legislative body, can subject a person to 5 years in prison is simply wrong. Even if it is to cause emotional harm. Say I discover a remarkably stupid post on a blog, register to post comments, and flame the author for its blatant stupidity. I could go to jail for 5 years.
What this woman did was wrong, there is no debating that, but the fact is that this a precedent-setting charge and, if it goes forward, stands to impact all of us. Find a real charge, something that is actually illegal, and charge her with that. If you can't find a law, let her go and pass one to make sure you catch the next person. Don't allow non-legislators to legislate law. Otherwise the ToS of my website is going to say that you all have to become my personal slaves and serve my every whim in order to access my website.
My dad used to be a family farmer. He quit that and went to work at the landfill (he works with industrial waste, not garbage). Hasn't regretted it for a second.
As someone this affects, I can say that this definitely is a serious problem. I live about 7 miles out of a small town in Arkansas. I've lived here all my life, I own the home, and don't have the money to move anywhere else. In town they have DSL. On our rural phone exchange, there is nothing. Zero, zip, nada. There was a wireless offering advertised a while back, but that too was restricted to city limits.
About the only real game in town is satellite internet. There are three choices: Starband, HughesNet, and Wild Blue. All apparently have two major issues. The first is latency, so you can't play any online games on these services. The second is bandwidth limits. Starband is the worst, with a measly 750 megs a week. Hughesnet is slightly better. Wild Blue, which I use, gives about 17GB in a sliding, 30-day period. And they advertise these as "high speed".
There really needs to be something more out here, and if the federal government has to step in and mandate it, then so be it. Every American citizen should have access to broadband internet, just as every American citizen has access to electricity.
There is one major difference. The average person can probably tell if they're being overpaid by an ATM, whereas I doubt the average person can tell the difference between a faulty machine and a winning streak. It should be the duty of a casino to make sure their machines aren't faulty, and if they are then they should eat the cost. Joe Gambler is NOT a casino machine tech and the limits of his knowledge is typically that you put coins in and sometimes coins come back out, but he could more than likely figure out that if he withdrew $20, he shouldn't be getting $200.
Did you even read the articles? They are only asking to have those magazines removed that display ads soliciting illegal activity - in this case cockfighting. And that's aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise. They are NOT asking to have a third magazine, which does not feature such ads, removed. It's kind of like this - if I set up a website dedicated to matching people to their local drug dealer, so long as the drug dealers paid me to advertise for them, I'd be doing pretty much the same thing, and I doubt the cops would buy the "free speech" excuse.
The DVD's are another matter - animals were abused, tortured, and killed making them and it is very clearly defined in federal law that you cannot sell or even possess such videos for profit. This is not a case of stifling free speech either - it is an effort to make it unprofitable to torture animals for money.
I'm definitely in support of freedom of speech, but it's a crime to profit from videos of animal cruelty, and likewise it is a crime to profit from soliciting illegal activity. If the two magazines simply removed the advertisements that solicited people to come to the illegal events, that portion of the complaint would go away, as the remainder would be clearly protected speech.
Microsoft has been getting a lot of flak about not being inter operable with other operating systems. However, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In a business environment, you WILL be dealing with Windows computers, even if you do not want to, because they are so prevalent in our society. Even a full-scale switch to Linux will not save you, because most other businesses will still use Windows, and thus you will have to support it at one level or another when dealing with your partners. In my opinion, both the Linux and Microsoft camps need to get over themselves and start working to make things work together. Because until you can make the choice you want without having to worry about this or that being incompatible, you can never really have a true choice when it comes to your choice of an Operating System.
What
open source alternatives are there to Exchange/Outlook?
Before
you answer, keep in mind that I am looking for a single application and
a single server that will provide all of the functions and such, will
be cross-platform (a client capable ofrunning on Windows and
Mac, as well as Linux, is a must), must be enterprise-ready, and most
importantly must be at least as easy to configure and use as their
proprietary counterparts.
I don't want to use
separate applications for the individual components, I don't want to
use applications that are more annoying to use than Microsoft's
offerings, I don't want something you need a degree in computer science
to set up and use, and I don't want something that I will have to
provide an inordinate amount of support to my users for.
There are a number of other qualifiers I could add, but to
keep things short, I want something that will at least do everything
Exchange and Outlook can do.
I can say I probably will install Vista when I build my next PC sometime next year. The fact that DX10 won't be available on XP pretty much seals the deal alone, a fact that won't be lost on gamers like me.
Now will I be rolling it out across all 4 of my PC's? Would I install it on my current PC? Absolutely not. There is no need, either for myself or for businesses, to go to the expense and hassle when existing Windows XP installations work just fine. But for a new PC, especially a top-end gaming machine, there is no reason NOT to go to Vista if you intend to run Windows.
There are 3 types of people in this world. The first is those with a clue. Many of these probably downloaded both IE7 and Firefox. After all, there are sites that still require Internet Explorer, so it's best to have it, even though Firefox is better. Then there's the slightly larger number with half a clue, who will probably download IE7 when it hits Windows Update. These people aren't too much of a problem. Then there's the majority of the user population, who are probably running unpatched Windows XP with IE6 and wondering why they are getting popup ads and viruses. I think I had a point somewhere in there...
The main problem is that I support people running on dialup. It's easy enough to download Windows XP SP2 and distribute it to those that need it, but the problem comes when I try to distribute the updates SINCE then. Also I have several computers. I would like to be able to fully update them without a whole lot of fuss, BEFORE I connect to the internet. As I have really bad luck with hardware, I've reinstalled a lot, and it's never fun seeing if I get the updates or the worm first.
I live in a rural area where most of the people are on dialup. I like to provide my friends and family with the security patches so they need so they don't have to spend weeks downloading them through dialup. A service pack would make this job a LOT easier, but as it is I have to rely on AutoPatcher to handle this.
Microsoft doesn't seem to want to make it easy. If you want to get your patches from
Microsoft, you have to either use Windows Update on every single machine, or sift through hundreds of pages to individually download the updates you need. It shouldn't be that hard.
I
have four computers running Windows. I want to download updates ONCE for all of them, without wasting bandwidth and without all the hassle that Microsoft wants to put you through to do that. AutoPatcher does this (and hats off to those guys for doing so) so why can't Microsoft get their act together and start putting out something similar?
Slashdot Mirror
With Vista I found UAC VERY annoying. Sometimes I'd get one warning from UAC, click OK, then get another one for the same program. This seems to have been ironed out in Windows 7. It's still there, but it's less annoying.
What WAS annoying is that the box I'm testing Windows 7 on has an old Dell CRT attached to it. Windows 7 got the screen refresh rate wrong (75 when it should have been 60) and screwed up the display from 3/4 into the install process till I was able to get into settings and change it. To be fair, Ubuntu on NVidia restricted drivers does the same damned thing.
Second annoyance was sleep mode. With my aging monitor (or maybe its the video card) coming back from sleep mode corrupts the display, and cannot be fixed short of a restart. In the default configuration, the computer goes into sleep mode after 30 minutes. Easily enough fixed, but still I didn't like it.
Another problem I found, was I found it hard to locate some things in the control panel. It's different than XP.
The last issue was a driver problem, that computer's onboard sound didn't even have a Vista driver. Fortunately I was able to get the XP driver to work.
I have yet to find any other real problems with it at this point. All in all MS seems to have learned from a lot of Vista's mistakes and made improvements. I'm not sure I'll buy a copy at this point, but I'm not ruling it out either.
am I going to read while stuck on the toilet? Maybe it's time to install a computer in there, and hope the cat doesn't knock the mouse into the water....
On a related note, I fortunately still have a few copies of a certain Scientology magazine squirreled away in case I run out of toilet paper...
In most single-player games in-game advertisement is absolutely silly. Likewise in subscription-supported online games - you pay to use the servers, you deserve to be free of ads. But what about those games that are NOT subscription supported and have an online component, like say Diablo 2? Or any other game where the company runs their own servers free-to-play? They have to pay for that somehow, and I seriously doubt that $50-60 you spend on a game will last for as long as, say, Blizzard's battle.net has. If done right, the ads won't be all that noticeable, or won't be in the actual game at all (similar to how battle.net has them in the chat screens, but doesn't have them in game). In this case, I would have no problem buying such a game. However, in the event that they are horribly out of place and serve only to lessen the value of the game, I'll be the first to tell them where to stick their ads.
Since so many people are having trouble accessing the front page of their site, here is where to download the fully unlocked builds
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/lameduck/crossover-pro-7.1.0.dmg
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/lameduck/crossover-games-7.1.1.dmg
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/lameduck/install-crossover-pro-7.1.0.sh
http://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/lameduck/install-crossover-games-7.1.2.sh
You can get a serial number from the one below, but good luck getting it to work!
http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/free/
Hmm. Well WildBlue where we live, is $89.95 per month for the top speed/bandwidth package (it's what I have) There's a $149.95 activation fee Equipment is either $5.95/month for 24 months, or $99.95 one time. So not exactly the least expensive of options. But the download speed more than makes up for it (though if you want games online, you'll still have to have dialup).
I'm not gonna get into right and wrong here, cause they really should provide a tool (I know other ISP's with limits do), but there are (free) ways to monitor your bandwidth.
I recommend FreeMeter for Windows XP which has a Totals Log function that does exactly that. If you think you might cross the line on bandwith, download it.
You obviously haven't done your research on HughesNet. Their bandwidth cap is FAR FAR FAR lower. 500MB a day for their top home user account. That works out to about 15 gigs in a 30 day period. If you're a business, you can get a connection that gives twice that, for substantially more. That 250GB cap isn't looking so bad, once you know what those of us out in the boonies get screwed with, huh?
I have WildBlue Satellite for internet, as I live out in the boonies where there is no cable or DSL. I am restricted to 17 gigs download, 5 gigs upload, the least restrictive option available to me (Hughes Net and Starband are worse in that regard). At this point, I would fucking kill for a 250gig cap.
That said, most people won't ever come close to hitting it. I don't use P2P (it simply doesn't work on a satellite connection) but I do a reasonable amount of downloading, and I manage to keep around 11 gigs download.
That said, Comcast definitely needs to provide a bandwidth meter. They're obviously metering bandwidth to employ the cap, it would be a simple matter to provide a web interface for their customers. Hell, every satellite ISP does it. Comcast must just be lazy, incompetent, or both.
Jar Jar Binks and an Ewok walk into a bar
Bartender says "What is this some kind of a joke"
Ewok say "Nope, George Lucas's idea for the next Star Wars movie"
The google earth maps may not be updated, but the maps are just a backdrop upon which the data is displayed.
Your workplace is probably about to go to hell. So why not have some fun with it?
First off, update your resume. This is perhaps the most important step herein.
Next, recommend tools that are as bad for the job as possible while still not raising objections from your colleagues, or better yet, get them to go along with it.
Watch it fail utterly, quit in disgust, and watch as the company falls apart. ...
Profit.
This potentially sets a broader precedent than just using a fake name. What it does is imbues a website's Terms of Service with the power of law. This is a very bad idea on a number of levels.
Let's start with a far-out example, simply because I feel like it. If a website for sushi lovers demands that all its users enjoy sushi, and some troll joins up and says they hate sushi, that person under this reasoning would be a criminal who would potentially face 5 years in prison.
Terms of Service do NOT have the rule of law. There are very few bodies with the power to make laws in this country, and the lawyers and idiots that craft EULA's and Terms of Service are NOT among them. This does not mean you can always violate them at will - there are laws regarding contracts that apply, and if you agree to them you may be liable there - but these are not felonies.
To state that breaking a Terms of Service, which is NOT even reviewed by congress or any other legislative body, can subject a person to 5 years in prison is simply wrong. Even if it is to cause emotional harm. Say I discover a remarkably stupid post on a blog, register to post comments, and flame the author for its blatant stupidity. I could go to jail for 5 years.
What this woman did was wrong, there is no debating that, but the fact is that this a precedent-setting charge and, if it goes forward, stands to impact all of us. Find a real charge, something that is actually illegal, and charge her with that. If you can't find a law, let her go and pass one to make sure you catch the next person. Don't allow non-legislators to legislate law. Otherwise the ToS of my website is going to say that you all have to become my personal slaves and serve my every whim in order to access my website.
My dad used to be a family farmer. He quit that and went to work at the landfill (he works with industrial waste, not garbage). Hasn't regretted it for a second.
All your base are belong to us.
You are on the way to destruction.
As someone this affects, I can say that this definitely is a serious problem. I live about 7 miles out of a small town in Arkansas. I've lived here all my life, I own the home, and don't have the money to move anywhere else. In town they have DSL. On our rural phone exchange, there is nothing. Zero, zip, nada. There was a wireless offering advertised a while back, but that too was restricted to city limits. About the only real game in town is satellite internet. There are three choices: Starband, HughesNet, and Wild Blue. All apparently have two major issues. The first is latency, so you can't play any online games on these services. The second is bandwidth limits. Starband is the worst, with a measly 750 megs a week. Hughesnet is slightly better. Wild Blue, which I use, gives about 17GB in a sliding, 30-day period. And they advertise these as "high speed". There really needs to be something more out here, and if the federal government has to step in and mandate it, then so be it. Every American citizen should have access to broadband internet, just as every American citizen has access to electricity.
There is one major difference. The average person can probably tell if they're being overpaid by an ATM, whereas I doubt the average person can tell the difference between a faulty machine and a winning streak. It should be the duty of a casino to make sure their machines aren't faulty, and if they are then they should eat the cost. Joe Gambler is NOT a casino machine tech and the limits of his knowledge is typically that you put coins in and sometimes coins come back out, but he could more than likely figure out that if he withdrew $20, he shouldn't be getting $200.
I want to use this thing to roll my d20's.
If only they'd give us refunds for bad service here in the US...
Did you even read the articles? They are only asking to have those magazines removed that display ads soliciting illegal activity - in this case cockfighting. And that's aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise. They are NOT asking to have a third magazine, which does not feature such ads, removed. It's kind of like this - if I set up a website dedicated to matching people to their local drug dealer, so long as the drug dealers paid me to advertise for them, I'd be doing pretty much the same thing, and I doubt the cops would buy the "free speech" excuse.
The DVD's are another matter - animals were abused, tortured, and killed making them and it is very clearly defined in federal law that you cannot sell or even possess such videos for profit. This is not a case of stifling free speech either - it is an effort to make it unprofitable to torture animals for money.
I'm definitely in support of freedom of speech, but it's a crime to profit from videos of animal cruelty, and likewise it is a crime to profit from soliciting illegal activity. If the two magazines simply removed the advertisements that solicited people to come to the illegal events, that portion of the complaint would go away, as the remainder would be clearly protected speech.
Microsoft has been getting a lot of flak about not being inter operable with other operating systems. However, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In a business environment, you WILL be dealing with Windows computers, even if you do not want to, because they are so prevalent in our society. Even a full-scale switch to Linux will not save you, because most other businesses will still use Windows, and thus you will have to support it at one level or another when dealing with your partners. In my opinion, both the Linux and Microsoft camps need to get over themselves and start working to make things work together. Because until you can make the choice you want without having to worry about this or that being incompatible, you can never really have a true choice when it comes to your choice of an Operating System.
What open source alternatives are there to Exchange/Outlook?
Before you answer, keep in mind that I am looking for a single application and a single server that will provide all of the functions and such, will be cross-platform (a client capable ofrunning on Windows and Mac, as well as Linux, is a must), must be enterprise-ready, and most importantly must be at least as easy to configure and use as their proprietary counterparts.
I don't want to use separate applications for the individual components, I don't want to use applications that are more annoying to use than Microsoft's offerings, I don't want something you need a degree in computer science to set up and use, and I don't want something that I will have to provide an inordinate amount of support to my users for. There are a number of other qualifiers I could add, but to keep things short, I want something that will at least do everything Exchange and Outlook can do.
I can say I probably will install Vista when I build my next PC sometime next year. The fact that DX10 won't be available on XP pretty much seals the deal alone, a fact that won't be lost on gamers like me. Now will I be rolling it out across all 4 of my PC's? Would I install it on my current PC? Absolutely not. There is no need, either for myself or for businesses, to go to the expense and hassle when existing Windows XP installations work just fine. But for a new PC, especially a top-end gaming machine, there is no reason NOT to go to Vista if you intend to run Windows.
There are 3 types of people in this world. The first is those with a clue. Many of these probably downloaded both IE7 and Firefox. After all, there are sites that still require Internet Explorer, so it's best to have it, even though Firefox is better. Then there's the slightly larger number with half a clue, who will probably download IE7 when it hits Windows Update. These people aren't too much of a problem. Then there's the majority of the user population, who are probably running unpatched Windows XP with IE6 and wondering why they are getting popup ads and viruses. I think I had a point somewhere in there...
The main problem is that I support people running on dialup. It's easy enough to download Windows XP SP2 and distribute it to those that need it, but the problem comes when I try to distribute the updates SINCE then. Also I have several computers. I would like to be able to fully update them without a whole lot of fuss, BEFORE I connect to the internet. As I have really bad luck with hardware, I've reinstalled a lot, and it's never fun seeing if I get the updates or the worm first.
I live in a rural area where most of the people are on dialup. I like to provide my friends and family with the security patches so they need so they don't have to spend weeks downloading them through dialup. A service pack would make this job a LOT easier, but as it is I have to rely on AutoPatcher to handle this.
Microsoft doesn't seem to want to make it easy. If you want to get your patches from Microsoft, you have to either use Windows Update on every single machine, or sift through hundreds of pages to individually download the updates you need. It shouldn't be that hard.
I have four computers running Windows. I want to download updates ONCE for all of them, without wasting bandwidth and without all the hassle that Microsoft wants to put you through to do that. AutoPatcher does this (and hats off to those guys for doing so) so why can't Microsoft get their act together and start putting out something similar?