If you have a disk-to-disk backup solution, most likely both sets of data will be hosed from this virus. Unless backups take place on tape, or the drives are rotated for off-site safety, the victim is fucked!
Any backup being it tape, disk or CD/DVD/BD/HVD or any backup media will still backup mall-ware and if you recover you are still going to get that mall-ware back. The only way you can recover from mall-ware is to have backed up data that does not have it on and that can be difficult once the target machine has been infected because normally you won't know when you got infected.
For many infected PC's or any computer for that matter the best recovery is one you know that does not contain any mall-ware or if unsure actually do a fresh build. For MS machines that may be the initial (one time) backup if this was originally done. Of course your data would most likely be compromised or even deleted and a bare metal recovery will just get back the base OS not the data. Even if you use Virtualisation you should have a pristine snapshot but you may only be able to get back compromised user data.
Regular backups are really required for the OS and the user's data however once an MS machine is compromised the users are in trouble especially if the person who downloaded the mall-ware is working with Admin privileges which unfortunately most MS Windows users do.
As far as RAID or even SAN go you are dead right, once storage devices are seen by the mall-ware they can be easily compromised providing the mall-ware has the necessary privileges. This is not to say Linux/Unix systems can't be comprised, they can but most (hopefully) users on *nix systems (OSF-X is Unix) don't work with Admin privileges and therefore any damage that could be inflicted by mall-ware is dramatically reduced. Actually another thing that does reduce the possibility of mall-ware attacks on *nix machines is the fact that it is very hard for mall-ware to hide itself against a determined System Admin.
Symantec Exec to board members:"Holy underwear! Free Antivirus! From Microsoft! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
Actually that probably is how it went but if I remember correctly the reason that Microsoft did not provide free Anti Virus software was due to the fact that the other Anti Virus software vendors threatened to take Microsoft to court over antitrust practices especially since they were convicted of being a monopoly.
Actually the way Microsoft can possibly get around antitrust practices is to make sure that their Anti-Virus software is only available as a download that the user must initiate (massive advertising does not count). If Microsoft forced the download via an update then they could be litigated against. Again Microsoft has to tread carefully otherwise (from my reference).
Antitrust regulators in the U.S. have tended to focus on harm to consumers as opposed to competitors. Authorities in Europe and Korea have taken a broader view, taking action against Microsoft for actions deemed to hurt competitors, such as bundling its media player into Windows.
The above can easily apply to free Anti-Virus software as well.
I don't need anti-virus because I use Linux (Ubuntu, Puppy, PCLinuxOS)!
"Malware", Virus, Worms, Trojans, etc., do not effect my PCs.
I run Linux as well, however what you just said applies to a Linux user not running as root. Unfortunately many people I know who should know better are quite happy logging in as root and this can lead to issues not unlike those affecting a Microsoft OS. All machines I set-up or even manage are set-up such that you cannot login as root either via telnet (now depreciated) or ssh. Of course that won't stop people logging in as root on the console in the case of a personal computer or workstation.
From personal experience Linux in the enterprise requires Anti Virus protection at least for those machines that are internet facing not because Linux is actually affected by mall-ware associated with Microsoft OS's and applications but because you need to protect any Microsoft products that may connect to the Linux machines. It has never ceased to amaze me that many businesses see this as normal and it is utterly pointless to try an explain to them what is wrong with this picture.
Does the competition actually require you to send in your plan as a.doc file? You should be able to send it in as a pdf or postscript.
When you send a information to anyone that you don't want changed you should never send that information in a format that can easily be modified. Sending in PostScript is not really appropriate either since PostScript can easily be modified as well. PDF is by far the best method for the above.
In a collaborative project plain text can be ok since this easily lends itself to version control, however this depends on what the project leader has dictated. In many cases even project leaders don't know the basics of version control relying on the so called catch all of Microsoft Office which to them is "good enough". Don't get me started on "SharePoint" which as far as I am concerned is a good concept (not unique though) but horrible when there is no policy on managing it.
The only time.doc files should be getting sent around is within a single team or corporation, where you have a reasonable expection that your coworkers have the same program available that you do.
I agree with the single team although I normally send ASCII but if you have a large corporation you can still have problems. Actually large corporation normally send web based documents.
If you have a PS3 then you can import a PS3 game from anywhere since no PS3 game is region locked. Some Xbox360 games are also not region locked although it does pay to check and like the PS3 if you have a High Definition TV (rather pointless if you only had a SDTV) then there is no issue displaying the game. In addition most modern TV's can easily display PAL and NTSC be they HDTV's or SDTV's.
You have pointed out one of the biggest issues of importing, the shipping cost. If you are going to import then you need to take the shipping and import tax (if applicable) into account. Some agents do actually provide fee shipping for purchases over a certain amount so a little research is required.
Getting back on topic if you are going to import Windows 7 from the US to the UK or Europe then you will have to be careful of the shipping cost and possible import tax. Of course if you have a friend or even yourself that visits the US then import tax may not be an issue.
Give me a compelling reason to move from (DRM free) 2K Pro, and we can talk.
Easy. Just install a nice stable distribution of Linux (there are plenty) then install Win 2000 or even XP under virtualisation and you get the best of all worlds. Who knows you actually might like Linux. Total cost for Linux is $0 and for for your Windows OS and applications that you already have also $0. Cheap if you ask me.:)
There is no need to get upset at the rip-off costs of Windows 7 just tell Microsoft that you are thinking of installing Linux and watch the price of Windows 7 plummet.:)
You live in EU? Then you definitely don't need American cars!!
I think many Europeans actually buy European cars such as in no particular order Audi, Alpha Romeo, BMW, Citroen, Fiat, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault, VW, Volvo... etc with about 40% of the market being diesel. Of course Japanese and East European cars are also popular.:)
Im after downloading it for free and getting a legal key valid till 2010
My son did the same thing for his HP tablet which had Vista Home premium which he found annoying, however come the crunch in 2010 he will just get the latest crack. If Microsoft think he will pay for a legitimate version of Windows 7 after foisting Vista on him then they can live in hope.
Me, well I use Fedora but if I absolutely need any Microsoft product I have a corporate laptop. Of course I can run a virtual machine under Fedora which can sand box MS Windows and allows me if I wish to run any Microsoft centric product. The total cost of this is the same as it costs most people who use Microsoft products. The exception is I don't run virus protection.
It normally takes about 20 minutes to install a customised version of Linux for a known desktop. You can even connect to a build server so you don't have to lug around distribution CD's or DVD's. I will concede that making a customised Linux distribution can take a few days (as will a MS Windows custom installation) but rolling that out is simple and quick. Total cost for the non commercial Linux distribution plus Office and ancillary software is effectively zero dollars. Total cost of Microsoft OS plus Office and Microsoft extras is what massive discount Microsoft is willing to give you just so a Linux distribution is not used.
From the blog:
According to vice director SchieÃYl, an upgrade of the then-existing Windows NT4 operating system to Windows XP would have been as much as two million euros cheaper.
Hmm I wonder how they arrived at that figure? If the blog said Windows 2000 to Windows XP then I might concede however NT4 is normally used on servers (it's a bit expensive for the desktop) I would have expected NT4 to Windows 2003. Are we talking servers here or the desktop and why XP did not Microsoft want firms to upgrade to Vista? Even if the figure they gave is true well that is Government for you and for a city like Munich then 2 million Euros is not that much for a one time cost..
The biggest obstacle to installing a Linux Distribution on the desktop is actually middle management not the rank and file worker. If your business has locked themselves into Microsoft solutions then shifting to Linux solutions is going to be hard be it server or desktop and in many ways expensive because there are many proprietary Microsoft solutions that make integration with other operating systems difficult. It must be noted that this is not the fault of other operating systems but of Microsoft, after-all it is not as if Linux solutions hide their API's and source code.
I tried the V8 benchmark on my laptop (1.8GHz Centrino dual core, 2 GB memory) with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 64 bit on Fedoral 11 64 bit and got 150 first and 142 second. Not that good, but then again is this really a problem since getting Firefox 3.5 subjectively my web browsing appears much faster and for the majority of users quicker browsing is more important.
This is part of the reason why 64bit distros seem so much faster, because the lowest possible 64bit machine is still a lot closer to today's tech.
I agree with you but to be sure I tried running the benchmark on my laptop (1.8GHz Intel Centrino dual core 64 bit with 2GB memory) running the 64 bit Fedora 11 and Firefox 3.5 beta 4 and got a really abysmal result on my machine. The first is my results:
I won't bore you with the rest but needless to say Firefox 3.5 RC 2 running the SunSpider javaScript test on MS Windows XP SP3 32 bit and Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit appears to be a better performer than Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 64 bit on Fefora 11 64 bit. Still this only means that this benchmark is slower but going from Firefox 3 to 3.5 definitely appeared faster although this is a bit subjective and not a statistical proof.
I would add: Developers shouldn't be in charge of platforms, especially if those platforms are intended for end-users.
Sigh! have to ever gone to an end-user and asked them what they wanted? I give you a hint "they have no idea". When I design a form or program I normally get the opinion of the end-user although in the majority of cases I normally know what is required and how to go about doing it in a much more efficient manner than the actual end-user. You could call that "elitist" if you want but when I consult I try to find out everything that is required to do my job and in many cases I need to know the complete work flow of the department. I am going to do the design for.
Why do I even ask the end-users opinion when I already know what to do? In answer as far as I am concerned the opinion of the end-user is important because they are the ones that are actually going to use your product (not management) so you also need to look at ascetics as well. In addition a second, third or as many options as possible can actually make for a much more efficient product. Yes I am always willing to accept constructive criticism but you can not please everyone. Unfortunately there are consultants or designers who don't even bother with the end-users' opinions and only get management approval because their product is "shiny".
In fact most end-users are actually told you will do something this way and to hell with your opinions. This attitude makes for very poor moral and at best mediocre work is the result of this.
As a side note, KDE 4.0 was never meant to be seen by normal users, and the KDE developers did everything they could to make that clear.
No they didn't; they could have called it "KDE 3.99 Alpha 2!"
Err no. KDE 4 was a major rewrite so it could never be called 3.?? something. BTW that is the way versioning works you have a major number and minor numbers which are changes or add-ons to the major release. Once you change the major release you really have to change the major number and the minors number(s) start from zero. It must be noted that zero in a minor version number should indicate to the user that this is an alpha or beta version. Some software (in fact too many) does not conform to this and confusion normally occurs.
While I can't comment on KUbuntu , I doubt SuSE shipped with KDE 4 since SuSE is the distribution (Redhat is the same) you pay for support and as such would not or should not have beta (actually KDE 4 was IMHO alpha) software. OpenSuSE and Fedora are what I would call "bleeding edge" and therefore anyone using them should be aware that they are going to get issues although to be honest I was surprised when I saw KDE 4 for the first time. Still it was easy switching to Gnome until I could switch back when KDE 4.2 came out.
I can understand using Ubuntu and/or CentOS in a production environment if you want a free reliable distribution but not a "bleeding edge" distribution like OpenSuSE or Fedora, that is really asking for trouble. Personally I would not like to explain to senior management why their IT department chose a development distribution over a stable or even a supported distribution.
Personally I also like KDE over Gnome however when I install a new version of a Linux distribution I always put on KDE and Gnome which was quite fortuitous when I installed Fedora 10. Using KDE 4 was painful and that is being nice so I had to quickly switch my wife to Gnome. I did persevere with KDE 4 for another few days but just gave up and switched to Gnome.
Once KDE 4.2 came out I quickly switched back and have been happy with the result although I will admit that KDE 3.5 was still the best from a nostalgia point of view, Still the new version of KDE while different does grow on you. My wife does not really have any issue with KDE 4.2 (she now uses it as well) or even Gnome for that matter since she only uses the browser and on the odd occasion messaging, so her needs are very simple (no desktop effects) which would be what most average users want.
From the article:
Yet in the middle of all these experiments, nobody seems to be asking a basic question: Does the average user want any of these things?
I think a simple answer would be to say if the average user does not want them then they don't have to use them. If they do they are available. In fact if you don't like KDE you can always use Gnome, fvwm or any other window manager. You could even use "gasp" the command line which is what you would normally use if you are managing servers. You do have the choice.
I have weird-ass artifacts on Firefox here at home, and I'm using Vista. It is very jarring to have the site look better in Opera (and MUCH better in IE) than in Firefox.
What version of Firefox? You know we are discussing Firefox 3.5.:)
My experience with Firefox has been exactly the opposite. I am now running Fedora 11 which comes standard with Firefox 3.5b4, however since my laptop (2GB memory) acts as a server it is not unusual to have my son and wife logged in and in addition to myself they are all running Firefox. We all run multiple tabs (at least four or more) and I have not had any performance issues. See the following after almost three days of use.
Running Firefox or any non system application as root is really asking for trouble. Try use in "useradd" or your admin GUI and create a normal user name and use that. You only need root access when administrating your machine and that should only be on rare occasions at least for non MS Windows OS's.:)
I want a kunfu game where my actions dodge or hit the enemies. And I don't want it to be cheesy where my moves are interpreted into a set move that could have been done with a joystick or keyboard. I want my punch's(or kick) velocity and hit placement to determine the damage dealt.
Err won't it be better joining a Kung Fu group or club. The exercise and immersion not to mention the forced feed back is to die for:)
Actually the first time I used the six axis for a grenade toss in Uncharted I ended up getting blown up. The next time I stood up and got shot to pieces. With a little practice I found that could use the six axis to lob grenades to great effect and when I unlocked "crushing" being able to rapidly switch between weapons and grenades was the only way I could make it through the "cistern". Balancing on a log felt "tacked on" but the grenade toss was really appropriate.
While Killzone is not my type of game I did like Ratchet and Clank (ToD) and Folklore and IMHO the use of the six axis was not overdone. Even games like Grand Theft Auto IV do make use of the six axis but you are not forced to use this if you don't want to. There are plenty of other PS3 games that do make use of the six axis but do give you the option of not using it if you find it too hard or just annoying. I think Lair was the exception and forced you to use the six axis to fly (R&C ToD do this and it was IMHO very easy and relaxing to do) although this is not a game that I like I have seen demonstrations of using the six axis on this game that are quite impressive and very easy to do. After seeing this I question the skill of the reviewers and the people who panned the game.
Microsoft Money is the one app I still miss from the Microsoft platform. There's nothing like it for Linux.
Well if you really want to run Linux on your PC and still want to lock yourself into products that only run under an Microsoft OS there are two ways of approaching this problem. Obviously the first step is to install a recent Linux distribution on your PC then.
Run Microsoft Money under Wine (it does work) or
Run a (cough!) legitimate version of MS Windows under virtualisation such as Vmware or Virtualbox (there are others as well) and install MS Money as normal. At least the installed MS Windows will be sand boxed.
The total cost of installing MS Money under Linux is exactly the same as if you installed it under MS Windows and the same is true for all MS Windows centric software.
Of course a quick Google search will display Linux software equivalents to MS Windows software. In the case of MS Money you have GnuCash, KMyMoney, jGnash, MoneyDance, Grisbi, PLCash, CrossOver Office with Quicken, lazy8ledger. All run natively under Linux on the Intel architecture and if you don't like the free solutions you can pay for a proprietary solution that will work under Linux.
It is about making games that are fun... and you can CERTAINLY do that within the confines of just about any machine. Remember the IBM XT? NES? Gameboy? Some of the best games I ever played had nothing but text, running on a 10mhz processor.
I totally agree but what really constitutes a fun game since a game that is fun for one person may not be fun to another. Ever played a game called Rogue now that was an addictive fun game dating form the very early 1980's. If you want you can still play it today in all its high resolution ASCII character graphics. What really made Rogue fun (again subjective) was that every time you played the game it played differently.
I will use a better car analogy. The Wii is a Subaru Impreza RS and the Xbox and PS3 are Subaru Impreza WRX STI's. Both are of the same family (ie power PC) and are all wheel drive. I will leave it up to you to decide which has the better performance and is more fun to drive:)
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If you have a disk-to-disk backup solution, most likely both sets of data will be hosed from this virus. Unless backups take place on tape, or the drives are rotated for off-site safety, the victim is fucked!
Any backup being it tape, disk or CD/DVD/BD/HVD or any backup media will still backup mall-ware and if you recover you are still going to get that mall-ware back. The only way you can recover from mall-ware is to have backed up data that does not have it on and that can be difficult once the target machine has been infected because normally you won't know when you got infected.
For many infected PC's or any computer for that matter the best recovery is one you know that does not contain any mall-ware or if unsure actually do a fresh build. For MS machines that may be the initial (one time) backup if this was originally done. Of course your data would most likely be compromised or even deleted and a bare metal recovery will just get back the base OS not the data. Even if you use Virtualisation you should have a pristine snapshot but you may only be able to get back compromised user data.
Regular backups are really required for the OS and the user's data however once an MS machine is compromised the users are in trouble especially if the person who downloaded the mall-ware is working with Admin privileges which unfortunately most MS Windows users do.
As far as RAID or even SAN go you are dead right, once storage devices are seen by the mall-ware they can be easily compromised providing the mall-ware has the necessary privileges. This is not to say Linux/Unix systems can't be comprised, they can but most (hopefully) users on *nix systems (OSF-X is Unix) don't work with Admin privileges and therefore any damage that could be inflicted by mall-ware is dramatically reduced. Actually another thing that does reduce the possibility of mall-ware attacks on *nix machines is the fact that it is very hard for mall-ware to hide itself against a determined System Admin.
Symantec Exec to board members: "Holy underwear! Free Antivirus! From Microsoft! We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
Actually that probably is how it went but if I remember correctly the reason that Microsoft did not provide free Anti Virus software was due to the fact that the other Anti Virus software vendors threatened to take Microsoft to court over antitrust practices especially since they were convicted of being a monopoly.
Actually the way Microsoft can possibly get around antitrust practices is to make sure that their Anti-Virus software is only available as a download that the user must initiate (massive advertising does not count). If Microsoft forced the download via an update then they could be litigated against. Again Microsoft has to tread carefully otherwise (from my reference).
Antitrust regulators in the U.S. have tended to focus on harm to consumers as opposed to competitors. Authorities in Europe and Korea have taken a broader view, taking action against Microsoft for actions deemed to hurt competitors, such as bundling its media player into Windows.
The above can easily apply to free Anti-Virus software as well.
I don't need anti-virus because I use Linux (Ubuntu, Puppy, PCLinuxOS)! "Malware", Virus, Worms, Trojans, etc., do not effect my PCs.
I run Linux as well, however what you just said applies to a Linux user not running as root. Unfortunately many people I know who should know better are quite happy logging in as root and this can lead to issues not unlike those affecting a Microsoft OS. All machines I set-up or even manage are set-up such that you cannot login as root either via telnet (now depreciated) or ssh. Of course that won't stop people logging in as root on the console in the case of a personal computer or workstation.
From personal experience Linux in the enterprise requires Anti Virus protection at least for those machines that are internet facing not because Linux is actually affected by mall-ware associated with Microsoft OS's and applications but because you need to protect any Microsoft products that may connect to the Linux machines. It has never ceased to amaze me that many businesses see this as normal and it is utterly pointless to try an explain to them what is wrong with this picture.
Does the competition actually require you to send in your plan as a .doc file? You should be able to send it in as a pdf or postscript.
When you send a information to anyone that you don't want changed you should never send that information in a format that can easily be modified. Sending in PostScript is not really appropriate either since PostScript can easily be modified as well. PDF is by far the best method for the above.
In a collaborative project plain text can be ok since this easily lends itself to version control, however this depends on what the project leader has dictated. In many cases even project leaders don't know the basics of version control relying on the so called catch all of Microsoft Office which to them is "good enough". Don't get me started on "SharePoint" which as far as I am concerned is a good concept (not unique though) but horrible when there is no policy on managing it.
The only time .doc files should be getting sent around is within a single team or corporation, where you have a reasonable expection that your coworkers have the same program available that you do.
I agree with the single team although I normally send ASCII but if you have a large corporation you can still have problems. Actually large corporation normally send web based documents.
If you have a PS3 then you can import a PS3 game from anywhere since no PS3 game is region locked. Some Xbox360 games are also not region locked although it does pay to check and like the PS3 if you have a High Definition TV (rather pointless if you only had a SDTV) then there is no issue displaying the game. In addition most modern TV's can easily display PAL and NTSC be they HDTV's or SDTV's.
You have pointed out one of the biggest issues of importing, the shipping cost. If you are going to import then you need to take the shipping and import tax (if applicable) into account. Some agents do actually provide fee shipping for purchases over a certain amount so a little research is required.
Getting back on topic if you are going to import Windows 7 from the US to the UK or Europe then you will have to be careful of the shipping cost and possible import tax. Of course if you have a friend or even yourself that visits the US then import tax may not be an issue.
Give me a compelling reason to move from (DRM free) 2K Pro, and we can talk.
Easy. Just install a nice stable distribution of Linux (there are plenty) then install Win 2000 or even XP under virtualisation and you get the best of all worlds. Who knows you actually might like Linux. Total cost for Linux is $0 and for for your Windows OS and applications that you already have also $0. Cheap if you ask me. :)
There is no need to get upset at the rip-off costs of Windows 7 just tell Microsoft that you are thinking of installing Linux and watch the price of Windows 7 plummet. :)
You live in EU? Then you definitely don't need American cars!!
I think many Europeans actually buy European cars such as in no particular order Audi, Alpha Romeo, BMW, Citroen, Fiat, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault, VW, Volvo ... etc with about 40% of the market being diesel. Of course Japanese and East European cars are also popular. :)
Im after downloading it for free and getting a legal key valid till 2010
My son did the same thing for his HP tablet which had Vista Home premium which he found annoying, however come the crunch in 2010 he will just get the latest crack. If Microsoft think he will pay for a legitimate version of Windows 7 after foisting Vista on him then they can live in hope.
Me, well I use Fedora but if I absolutely need any Microsoft product I have a corporate laptop. Of course I can run a virtual machine under Fedora which can sand box MS Windows and allows me if I wish to run any Microsoft centric product. The total cost of this is the same as it costs most people who use Microsoft products. The exception is I don't run virus protection.
The project will not be complete until they have a logo with Tux the Linux Penguin lofting a good German beer.
Then the project must almost be complete. Here it is . :)
From the blog:
According to vice director SchieÃYl, an upgrade of the then-existing Windows NT4 operating system to Windows XP would have been as much as two million euros cheaper.
Hmm I wonder how they arrived at that figure? If the blog said Windows 2000 to Windows XP then I might concede however NT4 is normally used on servers (it's a bit expensive for the desktop) I would have expected NT4 to Windows 2003. Are we talking servers here or the desktop and why XP did not Microsoft want firms to upgrade to Vista? Even if the figure they gave is true well that is Government for you and for a city like Munich then 2 million Euros is not that much for a one time cost..
The biggest obstacle to installing a Linux Distribution on the desktop is actually middle management not the rank and file worker. If your business has locked themselves into Microsoft solutions then shifting to Linux solutions is going to be hard be it server or desktop and in many ways expensive because there are many proprietary Microsoft solutions that make integration with other operating systems difficult. It must be noted that this is not the fault of other operating systems but of Microsoft, after-all it is not as if Linux solutions hide their API's and source code.
It has nothing to do with Ubuntu. Here are benchmarks from Firefox on Fedora: The issue is just as bad on Fedora: http://www.tuxradar.com/content/browser-benchmarks-2-even-wine-beats-linux-firefox. That's only from a few months
I tried the V8 benchmark on my laptop (1.8GHz Centrino dual core, 2 GB memory) with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 64 bit on Fedoral 11 64 bit and got 150 first and 142 second. Not that good, but then again is this really a problem since getting Firefox 3.5 subjectively my web browsing appears much faster and for the majority of users quicker browsing is more important.
This is part of the reason why 64bit distros seem so much faster, because the lowest possible 64bit machine is still a lot closer to today's tech.
I agree with you but to be sure I tried running the benchmark on my laptop (1.8GHz Intel Centrino dual core 64 bit with 2GB memory) running the 64 bit Fedora 11 and Firefox 3.5 beta 4 and got a really abysmal result on my machine. The first is my results:
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
Total: 3848.4ms +/- 1.3%
3d: 482.2ms +/- 10.1%
cube: 157.8ms +/- 21.5%
morph: 150.0ms +/- 11.8%
raytrace: 174.4ms +/- 15.9%
The next is the 32 bit Win XP version.
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
Total: 2076.4ms +/- 5.2%
3d: 243.2ms +/- 8.9%
cube: 61.6ms +/- 20.1%
morph: 70.8ms +/- 7.8%
raytrace: 110.8ms +/- 15.5%
I won't bore you with the rest but needless to say Firefox 3.5 RC 2 running the SunSpider javaScript test on MS Windows XP SP3 32 bit and Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit appears to be a better performer than Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 64 bit on Fefora 11 64 bit. Still this only means that this benchmark is slower but going from Firefox 3 to 3.5 definitely appeared faster although this is a bit subjective and not a statistical proof.
I would add: Developers shouldn't be in charge of platforms, especially if those platforms are intended for end-users.
Sigh! have to ever gone to an end-user and asked them what they wanted? I give you a hint "they have no idea". When I design a form or program I normally get the opinion of the end-user although in the majority of cases I normally know what is required and how to go about doing it in a much more efficient manner than the actual end-user. You could call that "elitist" if you want but when I consult I try to find out everything that is required to do my job and in many cases I need to know the complete work flow of the department. I am going to do the design for.
Why do I even ask the end-users opinion when I already know what to do? In answer as far as I am concerned the opinion of the end-user is important because they are the ones that are actually going to use your product (not management) so you also need to look at ascetics as well. In addition a second, third or as many options as possible can actually make for a much more efficient product. Yes I am always willing to accept constructive criticism but you can not please everyone. Unfortunately there are consultants or designers who don't even bother with the end-users' opinions and only get management approval because their product is "shiny".
In fact most end-users are actually told you will do something this way and to hell with your opinions. This attitude makes for very poor moral and at best mediocre work is the result of this.
No they didn't; they could have called it "KDE 3.99 Alpha 2!"
Err no. KDE 4 was a major rewrite so it could never be called 3.?? something. BTW that is the way versioning works you have a major number and minor numbers which are changes or add-ons to the major release. Once you change the major release you really have to change the major number and the minors number(s) start from zero. It must be noted that zero in a minor version number should indicate to the user that this is an alpha or beta version. Some software (in fact too many) does not conform to this and confusion normally occurs.
While I can't comment on KUbuntu , I doubt SuSE shipped with KDE 4 since SuSE is the distribution (Redhat is the same) you pay for support and as such would not or should not have beta (actually KDE 4 was IMHO alpha) software. OpenSuSE and Fedora are what I would call "bleeding edge" and therefore anyone using them should be aware that they are going to get issues although to be honest I was surprised when I saw KDE 4 for the first time. Still it was easy switching to Gnome until I could switch back when KDE 4.2 came out.
I can understand using Ubuntu and/or CentOS in a production environment if you want a free reliable distribution but not a "bleeding edge" distribution like OpenSuSE or Fedora, that is really asking for trouble. Personally I would not like to explain to senior management why their IT department chose a development distribution over a stable or even a supported distribution.
Once KDE 4.2 came out I quickly switched back and have been happy with the result although I will admit that KDE 3.5 was still the best from a nostalgia point of view, Still the new version of KDE while different does grow on you. My wife does not really have any issue with KDE 4.2 (she now uses it as well) or even Gnome for that matter since she only uses the browser and on the odd occasion messaging, so her needs are very simple (no desktop effects) which would be what most average users want.
From the article:
Yet in the middle of all these experiments, nobody seems to be asking a basic question: Does the average user want any of these things?
I think a simple answer would be to say if the average user does not want them then they don't have to use them. If they do they are available. In fact if you don't like KDE you can always use Gnome, fvwm or any other window manager. You could even use "gasp" the command line which is what you would normally use if you are managing servers. You do have the choice.
Choice is a good thing, right?
I could not agree more.
I have weird-ass artifacts on Firefox here at home, and I'm using Vista. It is very jarring to have the site look better in Opera (and MUCH better in IE) than in Firefox.
What version of Firefox? You know we are discussing Firefox 3.5. :)
top - 20:42:01 up 2 days, 22:38, 7 users, load average: 0.10, 0.16, 0.20
Tasks: 224 total, 5 running, 216 sleeping, 3 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 3.5%us, 2.4%sy, 0.0%ni, 94.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.2%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2037912k total, 1965812k used, 72100k free, 101852k buffers
Swap: 2097144k total, 26020k used, 2071124k free, 939908k cached
Running Firefox or any non system application as root is really asking for trouble. Try use in "useradd" or your admin GUI and create a normal user name and use that. You only need root access when administrating your machine and that should only be on rare occasions at least for non MS Windows OS's. :)
I want a kunfu game where my actions dodge or hit the enemies. And I don't want it to be cheesy where my moves are interpreted into a set move that could have been done with a joystick or keyboard. I want my punch's(or kick) velocity and hit placement to determine the damage dealt.
Err won't it be better joining a Kung Fu group or club. The exercise and immersion not to mention the forced feed back is to die for :)
Yes. Action games bore me. Action games where I have to actually DO the action actively irritate me.
When you say this, please state what games you like so we the unwashed masses can abuse your choice in games :)
Actually the first time I used the six axis for a grenade toss in Uncharted I ended up getting blown up. The next time I stood up and got shot to pieces. With a little practice I found that could use the six axis to lob grenades to great effect and when I unlocked "crushing" being able to rapidly switch between weapons and grenades was the only way I could make it through the "cistern". Balancing on a log felt "tacked on" but the grenade toss was really appropriate.
While Killzone is not my type of game I did like Ratchet and Clank (ToD) and Folklore and IMHO the use of the six axis was not overdone. Even games like Grand Theft Auto IV do make use of the six axis but you are not forced to use this if you don't want to. There are plenty of other PS3 games that do make use of the six axis but do give you the option of not using it if you find it too hard or just annoying. I think Lair was the exception and forced you to use the six axis to fly (R&C ToD do this and it was IMHO very easy and relaxing to do) although this is not a game that I like I have seen demonstrations of using the six axis on this game that are quite impressive and very easy to do. After seeing this I question the skill of the reviewers and the people who panned the game.
Microsoft Money is the one app I still miss from the Microsoft platform. There's nothing like it for Linux.
Well if you really want to run Linux on your PC and still want to lock yourself into products that only run under an Microsoft OS there are two ways of approaching this problem. Obviously the first step is to install a recent Linux distribution on your PC then.
The total cost of installing MS Money under Linux is exactly the same as if you installed it under MS Windows and the same is true for all MS Windows centric software.
Of course a quick Google search will display Linux software equivalents to MS Windows software. In the case of MS Money you have GnuCash, KMyMoney, jGnash, MoneyDance, Grisbi, PLCash, CrossOver Office with Quicken, lazy8ledger. All run natively under Linux on the Intel architecture and if you don't like the free solutions you can pay for a proprietary solution that will work under Linux.
It is about making games that are fun... and you can CERTAINLY do that within the confines of just about any machine. Remember the IBM XT? NES? Gameboy? Some of the best games I ever played had nothing but text, running on a 10mhz processor.
I totally agree but what really constitutes a fun game since a game that is fun for one person may not be fun to another. Ever played a game called Rogue now that was an addictive fun game dating form the very early 1980's. If you want you can still play it today in all its high resolution ASCII character graphics. What really made Rogue fun (again subjective) was that every time you played the game it played differently.
I will use a better car analogy. The Wii is a Subaru Impreza RS and the Xbox and PS3 are Subaru Impreza WRX STI's. Both are of the same family (ie power PC) and are all wheel drive. I will leave it up to you to decide which has the better performance and is more fun to drive :)