IME those are invariably driver issues. That's not a flaw of vista per se though. Doesn't make it any less annoying though. And the only solution is not use the hardware or not to use vista, until fixed drivers are released.
It would have been nice if it didn't nag me every time I started an application which I pre-configured to be run in administrative mode. That would at least solve some of the problems I have with UAC.
Microsoft should not allow that. Their are SEVERAL issues with that.
First its a security hole that malicious software can exploit. They'll just scan your system for programs that are known to need admin mode, and then launch them and crash them, to get admin mode for themselves.
Second it won't solve the real problem. Developers need to write software that doesn't need admin privs. If they can get around UAC nagging by simply having users create a one time 'run as admin' setting they won't fix their software. But if users complain that their software constantly nags them they will maybe finally be motiviated to fix it. It sucks for legacy apps that will never be updated, but its the only hope that current and new apps will be written properly.
The UAC blackout thingy actually wrecks havoc with multi screen setups and DirectDraw applications. Or at least, it did for me.
Again, sounds like driver issues. UAC supports directdraw and multimonitor just fine. I know that many games have issues with UAC coming up while they are running but UAC shouldn't be comming up while a full screen FPS is going anyway. (And games flip out over a lot of things, not just UAC)
Y'know, foldier view does the same thing. And with folder fiew, I can already select multiple levels of heirarchy AND select a folder that isn't even in the heirarchy of whatever folder I currently happen to be in.
Folder view is really big, and often the 'one folder up' isn't on screen. And one up from that might not be onscreen either.
No, it's just a different way of doing it. For no real reason except to appear different.
That's your opinion. I happen to think its a better way of doing it. My productivity has increased.
No, that's not bad. That's horrible. That's moving away from a one-hand operation to a two-hand operation.
The new shortcut is logical. And if I've got my hands on the keyboard, really what difference does it make? And if I've got my hands on the mouse, I'll just press the folder above the one I'm in in the 'bread crumb'.
Backspace was uninituitive, why should backspace go *up*? It should go *back*. And now it does.
Many people have hand and wrist motion problems, whether it's full disability or just lingering pain/stiffness.
For you to argue that the new mapping is somehow going to aggravate RSI without demonstrating that the new mapping actually increases hand wrist motion is pretty weak.
Maybe it turned out that most people go back and forth not up. So maybe using the backspace for back is REDUCING hand write motion.
Why do I need to use registry hacks to make a simple change to the UI?
Why can't I have the folder pane on the right? Why can't I get rid of the search box? Why do I have to put up with yellow folders? You can -always- find some feature in software you can't completely control via the settings. Some you can change via hidden settings like the registry, some you just can't change at all. Its true for every piece of software ever written. Deal with it.
I do have to admit, the pre-Vista file manager is an easy-to-use program, much easier to use than anything I've tried in Linux. But that could be my own expectation of navigating in a text-based format on Linux. Any deviation from what Microsoft had is most likely a step in the wrong direction.
Lets try a controlled experiment where 100 people who have never used xp use Vista's file explorer for a few years and then get shifted to XP, will they find it an improvement, or will they be annoyed by all the arbitrary changes and some of the missing features? Will they bitch that 'backspace' goes up not 'back' as it shoud? I'm open to the possibility they might prefer XP, but I doubt it.
From the reports from Microsoft's own executives, Vista does not have the same resource requirements as XP. It is MUCH heavier, MUCH more overweight,
Yeah and windows 98 ran comfortably in 32MB-64MB of RAM. XPSP2 only needs around 10x that much to run smoothly. I know I'd flip out if someone tried to get me to use XPSP2 with less than 512MB. Vista from XP needs what 1GB min, 2G comfortable? So around double-triple what XP needed? Hardly the end of the world... oh yeah... and it needs a video card with some key features.
and can turn a brand-new $2100 laptop into just an email machine, instead of a productive tool for getting work done.
For $1999 you can get a macbook pro, which recently won the 'award' for being the best Vista laptop on the market. My point here is that its not what you spend, its what you buy. You can get a VERY competent Vista laptop for $1000, provided you buy the RIGHT laptop, one with enough ram and an appropriate video card.
And if you want to change the way you work whenever Microsoft releases a new product, then by all means, please do that.
I -have- to expose myself to new OSes when they are released because I develop for and support users who use these oses. For the most part Windows has always improved from release to release, and Vista is no exception. 'ME' on the other hand was a true dog. (And even it had a few redeeming features
A simple example is the new explorer thing. It no longer has a drop down box with all the parent directories, it shows some kind of history.
This is one of those things that you really have to spend time with and adust too, because in actual fact, Vista really improved on this.
If you click on the 'location bar' or whatever its called, it shows you the current path, eg. c:\users\documents\whatver... and has a history drop down of the last several folders. I agree this is sort of lame. There is also a back/forward button which behaves as it would in a browser; and the back/forward buttons aren't all that bad.
But the real magic is when you have a folder/file in one of the lower panes (left or right) selected, then the location bar displayes a sort of breadcrumb view. eg: [myname] > documents > whatever >
clicking on the myname / documents / whatever will take you directly to that folder. So that's our up button. Not only is there a button that goes 'up one level', but you can also usually go up 2 or 3 or more levels directly.
On top of that clicking on the '>' bring drop down lists of the folders within that folder... so if I'm in 'whatever', and I click the '>' next to 'myname' I get a list of the subfolders of myname... so without leaving where I am, with 2 clicks I can navigate directly to an 'uncle folder' (alternate child of the parent of the parent). You gotta admit that's pretty slick.
So we've got easy navigation up one, two, three, or even more levels, as well as directly into the children of any those levels.
Backspace no longer goes to the parent directory.
Its now: alt-uparrow
That's not so bad.
Frankly, compared to most file explorers I've used including Mac OSX's finder and Windows XP, Vista's is pretty good - once you take the time to learn its quirks and shortcuts.
it doesn't allow be to customize the layout and remove all useless elements. Like the favorite folders, I don't need it, just show be the directory tree.
Under [username]/favorites/links you can easily customize / remove any links you find useless, or replace them with ones you'd find useful (as I've done). Unfortunately if you remove all of them its not smart enough to suppress the section entirely; I imagine there's a registry hack for that, but really, in my case a link to documents, desktop, and a couple project folders is actually pretty useful are actually really useful, so I'm actually glad to have them there. And I got rid of the searches, music, and pictures crud.
I also needed to hack the registry just so that explorer will keep using list view for all explorer windows (dumb directory profiles).
Actually, there is a checkbox under Tools -> Folder Options -> Remember Each Folders View Settings
If you uncheck that, it pretty much disables the 'directory profiles' you are talking about, if I understood you right. You shouldn't need to 'hack the registry'.
But it all boils down to a single question: why would you exchange your XP for Vista? So far I haven't found anything.
I think for most people that's a fair assessment. But when you buy new hardware, unless there is a specific compatibility reason to get XP I'd recommend vista over xp nearly any day.
Well, the problem here is parents giving their children access to something that is connected to finances with no control over it. Technically, I'd call this a security hole. Bugtraq anyone?
First, how are we supposed to realistically avoid giving our kids access to our telephones? Between voip and cellular I have no need of a landline.
Second, kids don't need access to the phones to enroll. They can do it on the library computer at school. Nor does it have to be your kids, or even someone you know. If someone somewhere puts my phone number into one of those online forms, even by -mistake- it will likely enroll me.
Personally, I will not allow text messaging of any kind on my bill at all, until they stop charging extra for it - it's a sham anyways, as it costs them next to nothing.
Many cell phone packages include 'more text messages' than I need. So while it may cost if I use more than a couple hundred a month, I don't and they are effectively free. And the incremental cost of a plan with them vs one without is 'next to nothing' if you do want features like caller id and voice mail.
But that doesn't of course deal with 'premium text messaging' and it doesn't help that younger people are generally put on 'unlimited texting plans' so they can chat freely with their friends etc. So they're conditioned that 'texting is essentially free'
I'm not familiar with the 'scam' aspect. What are they doing wrong?
They are 'enrolling' people in subscription programs automatically billed to their cell phone bill, often without anything approaching consent of the person paying the bill. These services are often extremely difficult to cancel. And the charges you accumulate before managing to cancel are often extremely difficult to have reversed. And lets not even talk about people on pre-paid.
If someone gets a hold of your number and whores it around you'll end up with $1000/month text emssaging charges in short order.
You'll probably have to have text messaging disabled on your phone entirely or change your phone number to get out of the services. (which just means that the next person your number is assigned to gets nailed.) And good luck getting your phone company to forgive/refund the charges.
These companies -say- they follow best practices and have double opt in enrollment, and multiple ways to cancel, and that they fully disclose their pricing and terms. But in reality they will often 'mistakenly' enroll you over the internet or from your phone with no confirmation at all, and it can be done by anyone.
They also use misleading and deceptive advertising to get you to enroll... such as large TV adds that say "TEXT JOKE to xxxxx for a joke of the day" shown during kids shows... and only disclose that this is enrolling you in a recurring service that will charge you $1.50 per message, per day in the scrolling fine print. Not that the kids doing this will read it, or care. They don't pay the bill, you do.
Or they'll set it up so have you send a text to register a vote in some event, or as a contact number in some contest, and again only disclose in the fine print that this will also enroll you in a premium subscription service; and other underhanded techniques.
Meanwhile they are often run offshore, with no publicly visible method to contact customer service to dispute charges or report that you are being billed in error.
Considering the hoops I have to jump through (account number, confirm identity, just to change my voice mail plan), or when I added overseas dialing they ran a credit check to determine if I'd have to place a security deposit -- its absurd that if a random 9 year old gets my phone for a minute he can rack up $500 in recurring monthly charges via 'premium' text services.
Why am I not surprised that you resort to yet more misdirected pedantry to try to cover your ass? You claim the dictionary isn't precise enough, but then you want to throw out the definitions that give it the necessary precision. No irony here, its just another bullshit slashdot dickwaving contest.
Gracefully accepting you were wrong evidently isn't your strong point.
Hint, if 2b - the part of def 2 that explicitly mentions sardonic humor was the full definition of 2 then 2a would never have been included in the first place.
Hint: Def 2 is irrelevant because it only applies to uses where the choice of words is what forms the irony. 2a says its 'ironic' if I say 'its a beautiful day' during a thunderstorm.
But if I say, 'the gun safety expert unexpectedly shot himself' only definition 3 applies. There is nothing ironic about the choice of words. But def 3 sucks because it would also define 'a unexpectedly shot himself' as ironic, despite the fact that its not particularly ironic at all.
BAD dictionaries may, but certainly not good ones like Merriam-Websters or the OED.
No. Def 2 is explicitly referring to ironic statements... ie sarcasm, and sardonic humour.
But def 3, incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result
is both a poor definition, and the relevant one. If I'm playing craps and I bet red and it comes up black that isn't irony. If my laces come untied unexpectedly and I have to tie them back up that's not irony. Every day a 1000 things happen that are 'incongruous' with what I expect or what normally happens... most of them are not ironic.
> How ironic that you fail to understand the difference between sarcasm and irony.:)
How ironic that I'm being corrected by someone who doesn't realize that sarcasm is itself defined in terms of being ironic.
>> If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch >> chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be >> ironic.
> No, that would be sarcasm.
It would, in fact, be both 'sarcasm' and an 'ironic statement' because they are in fact one and the same. The above is a textbook example of an 'ironic expression'.
The Merriam Website defines sarcasm as:
1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b: the use or language of sarcasm
Both defs define sarcasm in terms of irony. This isn't an accident.:)
I have to disagree. Everyone knows that a more proper example of irony is like rain on your wedding day...
I can't tell if your serious are sarcastic. I suspect sarcastic...
But in case your serious... how exactly is that ironic?
Ottawa, where Alanis is from, averages 10+ days of rain per month from April to November. And 14+ days of precipitation in December-Mar (but many of them are snow not rain)*. You'd have to be a complete twit to think you can pick a day at random 6-18 months away and not anticipate rain nor have rain contingency plans in place.
Here on the west coast its even more absurd, one plans weddings assuming that it will rain, with contingency plans to take advantage of the sun if its out.
To your definition, I would refine the definition of underwhelm to be "fail to impress while expecting otherwise". I wouldn't say that your example bagel is underwhelming, merely mediocre. But if I was expecting that the bagel was going to be fabulous, but it wasn't, it would THEN be underwhelming. If it was a fancy, imported Italian bagel that I paid extra for, and it wasn't much different that the local grocery bagel, it would be underwhelming.
I think at that point, you've really defined 'disappoint' not 'underwhelm'. I don't think underwhelm necessarily reaches that far. I think it can be used to express disappointment, but I don't think disappointment can always be inferred from underwhelmed.
If you were to eat the cheap bagel with the expectation that it would be dull and uninspired I think you could still call the experience underwhelming, even though you really didn't expect more.
I think the dictionary definition of 'failing to excite/stimulate/etc' is about right, but it leaves out the part where you have to realize you feel this way. To be underwhelmed is a state of mind, a 'feeling' we experience, not an objective fact...if you aren't actually aware that something didn't excite you, you can't be underwhelmed by it. You've got to feel it.
Consider the definition of 'disappointed' which says 'depressed or discouraged by the failure of one's hopes or expectations' - it recognizes that its a feeling. If there is a failure to realize your hopes or expectations and you don't -feel- despressed or discouraged by it then you aren't 'disappointed'. Its not enough that something you expected failed to come to pass.
If I hope and expect to get assigned to a project and my boss comes and tells me that I've been given a raise and a transfer to a dream job I'm far to busy being elated to feel disappointment that I wasn't assigned to the project, even though that hope and expectation won't come to pass. If someone were to ask me, are you disappointed, my answer would be 'hell no' - even though the 'failure to realize a hope or expectation' clause has been satisfied, my 'feeling discouraged or depressed about it' has not been.
'underwhelmed' is similiar; its a 'feeling' you get when something has failed to excite/stimulate/impress. And like disappointment if something 'fails to excite you' but you don't feel it, its not accurate to say it underwhelmed you. I spend most of my day being 'failed to be excited' by the mundanities of life. But I'm neither disappointed nor underwhelmed by this.
It could also have the (ahem) ironic definition of specifically characterizing the non-impressiveness of something as a back-handled insult. EG: "Well, his technical skills are, eh, underwhelming." In this case, the unimpressiveness of the result is carried to its extreme. Like saying that it's impressively unimpressive.
Absolutely, but that's not using 'underwhelming' in its natural state; you're using sarcasm/irony and understatement to really twist it around on itself, to 'intensify' its meaning, to become in your words 'impressively unimpressive'.
Irony: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result
How ironic that a dictionary would fail to define irony properly.:)
Seriously? Incongruity between the actual and the normal/expected result?
That is NOT really irony. For something to be ironic there has to significant force behind the expectation, and the result can't merely be incongrouous it has to be more a contradiction.
If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be ironic.
If I pick up a pen I expect it to work not be dried out, but if its dried out that's not irony. If I specifically chose to pick up the pen with the sticker 'gauranteed never to dry up' and carried it around precisely to avoid the hassle of a dried up pen... and then it was dried up... that would be irony.
Dictionaries often fail to accurately capture the complete meaning of a word, because words are inherently difficult to concisely define with other words. That's no surprise -- the entire point of adding a word to a language is often that other words fail to accurately capture its meaning.
Another example is "underwhelm"; which is defined in one dictionary at least as: "To fail to excite, stimulate, or impress." Again, that doesn't really capture it quite right. If one eats a bagel for breakfast and is not excited stimulated or impressed that doesn't mean one was underwhelmed by it. Its a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
To be underwhelmed is not merely to fail to be impressed, but to becognizant of the fact that you have failed to have been impressed. If you ate a bagel and it made no impression on you, if someone asked you about your breakfast, you'd absently say 'it was fine' without 2nd thought; you haven't been underwhelmed. But if you'd sat there eating your bagel and came to the realization that it really wasn't particularly good, that its taste and texture really did nothing for you, then you might come to say that you found it underwhelming.
just because it can pass the turing test does not mean the machine demonstrates real intelligence!
But it will demonstrate that past a certain point we won't know the difference between real intelligence and something attempting to appear intelligent.
in fact, just what is intelligence / conciousness? if we can't define it, how can we hope to produce it?
If we can't tell the difference maybe there isn't one. Are you intelligent? Or are you just sufficiently complex enough that you simulate it well?
How do you propose they legally do that? Are you willing to let them investigate p2p traffic and take a look?
Prove it was pirated! I dare you.
Be careful what you wish for. What if he's right? How does that affect your arugment? For the record I'm willing to bet most p2p traffic *is* transferring copyprotected works to people who don't have any license of any sort to the work at all.
Yes P2P has legitimate uses, and yes, those uses are significant, but you think they are dominant? I'm pretty skeptical.
Obviously, he thinks that we, the end users, have not paid for the use of the bandwidth?
He's right. We haven't. For the most part our 'web & email only' neighbors have. But that's not his problem. That's between us and the ISP, and they'll start charging us for the bandwidth we use as soon the 'overselling it massively underpriced to a lot of people who won't use it all anyway' model (ie the current model) finally completely breaks down as unsustainable. At least that's what should happen... double dipping greed isn't out of the question if they can get away with it.
They WANT the Internet to be a series of trucks running through tubes they build and control all the way to your eyesockets.
And their welcome to build one. If its useful I might even use it too from time to time. But I'm not willing to give up the internet I've got, they can build their own separate one.
Granted, I was very un-hopeful when that flick came out, on the one hand, Philip K. Dick, on the other three (and both legs and much of the torso) was Tom Cruise. Still the personalized ads bit was there. Funny how they offered him pink clothing.
And the sad part that it was the screenplay that ruined it not Tom Cruise. I mean really, this isn't oooh his pants changed colour, or his gun should have been in the drawer and suddenly its with him type stuff... there were pivotal problems with the entire fundamental premise to the movie... right down to fucking up what the 'minority report' itself was.
Really could they have made a movie that missed the point more?
I can't wait for Hollywood to do a blockbuster movie based on the short story "the cold equations" and somehow have everyone live.
Alright... so I'm offtopic... I admit it. But its my karma.
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,
Don't be a twit. Of course its a double standard. Its a double standard because there are in fact two separate standards in effect:
One standard for monopolies. One standard for non-monopolies.
Monopolies aren't bound by normal market pressures you'd see in a competitive market; so we impose additional rules on them to compensate for the lack of market forces and protect consumers from abuse.
THIS is a case where one of those differences crops up; monopolies are carefully scrutinized when they bundle other products with their monopoly product because it can effectively extend the monopoly into a new market, and eliminate competition there too. This is undesirable and considered illegal monopoly abuse. So Microsoft is scrutinized for every feature it bundles.
Meanwhile, Apple bundling stuff poses no such threat to the 2ndary market, and so its allowed without oversight.
So yes, there is a double standard. And with good reason.
On a 439$ stock though that is around 6%, which while impressive is less exciting than $26 originally sounds. Especially as google has slid $300 (41%) from its peak $747 last november. More importantly, its still well below all its moving averages, even if you factor out the last 6 or so months entirely.
For you to be excited I can only speculate that you -just- bought in yesterday? Because anyone who bought the stock in most of the last 2 years and is still holding it is probably still still pretty underwhelmed right now.
That said, assuming its hit its low point, which isn't a bad bet on the technicals, it does appear to be a good buy right now; although who knows what effect the current market meltdown, and likely recession is going to have on it. I'm skeptical that any US equities are a good buy right now.
Is google likely to go up significantly in the next year? Outperform the DJIA? outperform XAU? Beats me.:)
I don't use it either. Yet, for some reason, that error message comes up without fail every time Windows freezes and I have to reboot.
Windows -rarely- freezes on me... I think the last time was 6 months ago when I turned on a SATA drive on eSATA drive that didn't support hotplugging...
That said, are you -sure- you don't use it? With some versions of windows some image formats (ie for the desktop background) require active desktop to display. The solution is to convert the image to bmp or something that windows can can display without using active desktop.
Good point but if Apple continues to grow and gain market share (as I'm sure they'd like to) then that would eventually lead to a duopoly.
First the iphone is a PDA not an OS. Its competing with a diverse and competitive ecosystem of PDAs from a variety of manufacturers. And while its got a lot of buzz, its not even dominant, let alone monopolistic. Lets wait until they are at least in first place before we worry about whether they are going to become a monopoly.
Now let's look at Apple's practices. They were aggressive when dealing with mobile carriers which is why so many carriers turned down the iPhone knowing that it would be very popular. Also, they've released the iPhone SDK but include restrictive policies like "no VoIP over the data cannel". Seems to me that they're heading in the "abusive" direction.
Yes, if apple ever becomes a monopoly they'll get their ass handed to the by the courts. But they are so far away from being a monopoly its not even worth discussing. The only market in which they dominate is mp3 players, and even here there are enough real alternatives readily available from microsoft, from sony, from sansa, etc, not to mention the fact that half the cell phones on the market these days all double as mp3 players that make a case for a monopoly pretty weak.
What kind of vague shitty standard is this to live and work by?
Are you familiar with our legal system? Almost everything is vague shitty standards.
When was the last time your speedometer was calibrated? How do you know you aren't speeding? Have you read the law covering fair use? Nothing could be more wishywashy! Did you know that you can be convicted of a crime based on whether 12 random people think you did it beyond a 'reasonable' doubt. "reasonable" what the hell kind of standard is that? How are you supposed to know what 12 random people are going to think is reasonable??
Deal with it.
Well, how were they even supposed to know they were becoming a monopoly in the first place, to avoid the conviction?
Yeah I see your point. That would be pretty hard./sarcasm
I dunno, your first hint would be that you have market share in around the 95% mark, and then the general public and press starts accusing you of being a monopoly or becoming one on a daily basis, and finally as a multibillion dollar company your crack team of lawyers should let you know that there is a strong legal risk of all that coming together and somone actually charging you with being a monopoly, and actually finding you to legally be a monopoly, and they should similiarly advise you to avoid certain practices which would not be illegal and abusive if you are found a monopoly.
Sure the line at which you 'become a monopoly' is blurry and vague, but even so you'd have to be a complete cretin not know you're getting close to it. And since you'll know your close, you can take steps to mitigate the risks of beign found guilty of abusing it. In other words, if your close enough that the risk of being found a monopoly is significant, act as if you'd already been convicted and don't do anything abusive.
At 95% marketshare, you can afford not to be abusive "just in case".
I've used XP for seven years on about a dozen different machines and I have never seen such a problem.
You probably don't use "active desktop". (You know, the feature where you can make your windows desktop a webpage. (not a background image, but an actuall live clickable webpage...)
Most sane people don't use it. They introduced the feature in Win98 iirc, and it was a retarded concept even back then.
My high school physics teacher told me that gravity, no matter how far away a massive object is, does 'pull' on us and that atoms are formed in stars.
So it matters greatly on which day you were born, but not in the least which side of the planet?
I do not dispute that the stars 'act on us' in some way on some level, however, making predictions based on that plus what month you were born in, and some extremely arbitrary divisions in the night sky is like observing that my stapler and my cell phone also act on me gravitationally and concluding that if I multiply the ascii value of first letter in my middle name by the price of the item in the corresponding aisle at the nearest staples by the esn on my cellphone that I can find true love by phoning the resulting number on my cellphone. I'll know I've found the one, because she'll have the same brand of stapler.
And how is that different than Mac OS and all their bundled software?
Seriously? I only wrote 3 short paragraphs. You couldn't make it all the way through? Heres part of paragraph number 3:
"... the rules CHANGE when you have a monopoly. What are perfectly acceptable business practices in a competitive market are abusive and illegal in a monopoly...."
The difference between Mac OS and Windows is that Windows has been found to be a monopoly; and Microsoft has been convicted of abusing that monopoly. Mac OS isn't, and Apple hasn't.
See the difference?
Hint: Its not about -what- they do. Its about how what they do affects the market. Apple, by not having a monopoly, has more freedom to use different business practices because its unable to utterly distort and abuse the market. Microsoft, by contrast, has less freedom to use those same business practices because when they do use them it does utterly distort and abuse the market.
Even if they did do this, the problem would be, what browser should Microsoft provide?
You do realize this is really the -only- application that has this problem.
And my proposed solution would not be 'download links', but rather to create an apt-get type of tool for windows, and install that by default. Then on first run users can select whatever 'free' software they want from the repositories, including browsers, email clients, etc.
but then Windows would have to use something besides IE for its internet downloads,
What 'browser' does linux use for its 'internet downloads'? Why exactly can't windows work like that?
Slashdot Mirror
I had 3 BSODs so far (since mid Januari 2008)
IME those are invariably driver issues. That's not a flaw of vista per se though. Doesn't make it any less annoying though. And the only solution is not use the hardware or not to use vista, until fixed drivers are released.
It would have been nice if it didn't nag me every time I started an application which I pre-configured to be run in administrative mode. That would at least solve some of the problems I have with UAC.
Microsoft should not allow that. Their are SEVERAL issues with that.
First its a security hole that malicious software can exploit. They'll just scan your system for programs that are known to need admin mode, and then launch them and crash them, to get admin mode for themselves.
Second it won't solve the real problem. Developers need to write software that doesn't need admin privs. If they can get around UAC nagging by simply having users create a one time 'run as admin' setting they won't fix their software. But if users complain that their software constantly nags them they will maybe finally be motiviated to fix it. It sucks for legacy apps that will never be updated, but its the only hope that current and new apps will be written properly.
The UAC blackout thingy actually wrecks havoc with multi screen setups and DirectDraw applications. Or at least, it did for me.
Again, sounds like driver issues. UAC supports directdraw and multimonitor just fine. I know that many games have issues with UAC coming up while they are running but UAC shouldn't be comming up while a full screen FPS is going anyway. (And games flip out over a lot of things, not just UAC)
Y'know, foldier view does the same thing. And with folder fiew, I can already select multiple levels of heirarchy AND select a folder that isn't even in the heirarchy of whatever folder I currently happen to be in.
Folder view is really big, and often the 'one folder up' isn't on screen. And one up from that might not be onscreen either.
No, it's just a different way of doing it. For no real reason except to appear different.
That's your opinion. I happen to think its a better way of doing it. My productivity has increased.
No, that's not bad. That's horrible. That's moving away from a one-hand operation to a two-hand operation.
The new shortcut is logical. And if I've got my hands on the keyboard, really what difference does it make? And if I've got my hands on the mouse, I'll just press the folder above the one I'm in in the 'bread crumb'.
Backspace was uninituitive, why should backspace go *up*? It should go *back*. And now it does.
Many people have hand and wrist motion problems, whether it's full disability or just lingering pain/stiffness.
For you to argue that the new mapping is somehow going to aggravate RSI without demonstrating that the new mapping actually increases hand wrist motion is pretty weak.
Maybe it turned out that most people go back and forth not up. So maybe using the backspace for back is REDUCING hand write motion.
Why do I need to use registry hacks to make a simple change to the UI?
Why can't I have the folder pane on the right? Why can't I get rid of the search box? Why do I have to put up with yellow folders? You can -always- find some feature in software you can't completely control via the settings. Some you can change via hidden settings like the registry, some you just can't change at all. Its true for every piece of software ever written. Deal with it.
I do have to admit, the pre-Vista file manager is an easy-to-use program, much easier to use than anything I've tried in Linux. But that could be my own expectation of navigating in a text-based format on Linux. Any deviation from what Microsoft had is most likely a step in the wrong direction.
Lets try a controlled experiment where 100 people who have never used xp use Vista's file explorer for a few years and then get shifted to XP, will they find it an improvement, or will they be annoyed by all the arbitrary changes and some of the missing features? Will they bitch that 'backspace' goes up not 'back' as it shoud? I'm open to the possibility they might prefer XP, but I doubt it.
From the reports from Microsoft's own executives, Vista does not have the same resource requirements as XP. It is MUCH heavier, MUCH more overweight,
Yeah and windows 98 ran comfortably in 32MB-64MB of RAM. XPSP2 only needs around 10x that much to run smoothly. I know I'd flip out if someone tried to get me to use XPSP2 with less than 512MB. Vista from XP needs what 1GB min, 2G comfortable? So around double-triple what XP needed? Hardly the end of the world... oh yeah... and it needs a video card with some key features.
and can turn a brand-new $2100 laptop into just an email machine, instead of a productive tool for getting work done.
For $1999 you can get a macbook pro, which recently won the 'award' for being the best Vista laptop on the market. My point here is that its not what you spend, its what you buy. You can get a VERY competent Vista laptop for $1000, provided you buy the RIGHT laptop, one with enough ram and an appropriate video card.
And if you want to change the way you work whenever Microsoft releases a new product, then by all means, please do that.
I -have- to expose myself to new OSes when they are released because I develop for and support users who use these oses. For the most part Windows has always improved from release to release, and Vista is no exception. 'ME' on the other hand was a true dog. (And even it had a few redeeming features
A simple example is the new explorer thing. It no longer has a drop down box with all the parent directories, it shows some kind of history.
This is one of those things that you really have to spend time with and adust too, because in actual fact, Vista really improved on this.
If you click on the 'location bar' or whatever its called, it shows you the current path, eg. c:\users\documents\whatver... and has a history drop down of the last several folders. I agree this is sort of lame. There is also a back/forward button which behaves as it would in a browser; and the back/forward buttons aren't all that bad.
But the real magic is when you have a folder/file in one of the lower panes (left or right) selected, then the location bar displayes a sort of breadcrumb view.
eg: [myname] > documents > whatever >
clicking on the myname / documents / whatever will take you directly to that folder. So that's our up button. Not only is there a button that goes 'up one level', but you can also usually go up 2 or 3 or more levels directly.
On top of that clicking on the '>' bring drop down lists of the folders within that folder... so if I'm in 'whatever', and I click the '>' next to 'myname' I get a list of the subfolders of myname... so without leaving where I am, with 2 clicks I can navigate directly to an 'uncle folder' (alternate child of the parent of the parent). You gotta admit that's pretty slick.
So we've got easy navigation up one, two, three, or even more levels, as well as directly into the children of any those levels.
Backspace no longer goes to the parent directory.
Its now: alt-uparrow
That's not so bad.
Frankly, compared to most file explorers I've used including Mac OSX's finder and Windows XP, Vista's is pretty good - once you take the time to learn its quirks and shortcuts.
it doesn't allow be to customize the layout and remove all useless elements. Like the favorite folders, I don't need it, just show be the directory tree.
Under [username]/favorites/links you can easily customize / remove any links you find useless, or replace them with ones you'd find useful (as I've done). Unfortunately if you remove all of them its not smart enough to suppress the section entirely; I imagine there's a registry hack for that, but really, in my case a link to documents, desktop, and a couple project folders is actually pretty useful are actually really useful, so I'm actually glad to have them there. And I got rid of the searches, music, and pictures crud.
I also needed to hack the registry just so that explorer will keep using list view for all explorer windows (dumb directory profiles).
Actually, there is a checkbox under Tools -> Folder Options -> Remember Each Folders View Settings
If you uncheck that, it pretty much disables the 'directory profiles' you are talking about, if I understood you right. You shouldn't need to 'hack the registry'.
But it all boils down to a single question: why would you exchange your XP for Vista?
So far I haven't found anything.
I think for most people that's a fair assessment. But when you buy new hardware, unless there is a specific compatibility reason to get XP I'd recommend vista over xp nearly any day.
Well, the problem here is parents giving their children access to something that is connected to finances with no control over it. Technically, I'd call this a security hole. Bugtraq anyone?
First, how are we supposed to realistically avoid giving our kids access to our telephones? Between voip and cellular I have no need of a landline.
Second, kids don't need access to the phones to enroll. They can do it on the library computer at school. Nor does it have to be your kids, or even someone you know. If someone somewhere puts my phone number into one of those online forms, even by -mistake- it will likely enroll me.
Personally, I will not allow text messaging of any kind on my bill at all, until they stop charging extra for it - it's a sham anyways, as it costs them next to nothing.
Many cell phone packages include 'more text messages' than I need. So while it may cost if I use more than a couple hundred a month, I don't and they are effectively free. And the incremental cost of a plan with them vs one without is 'next to nothing' if you do want features like caller id and voice mail.
But that doesn't of course deal with 'premium text messaging' and it doesn't help that younger people are generally put on 'unlimited texting plans' so they can chat freely with their friends etc. So they're conditioned that 'texting is essentially free'
I'm not familiar with the 'scam' aspect. What are they doing wrong?
They are 'enrolling' people in subscription programs automatically billed to their cell phone bill, often without anything approaching consent of the person paying the bill. These services are often extremely difficult to cancel. And the charges you accumulate before managing to cancel are often extremely difficult to have reversed. And lets not even talk about people on pre-paid.
If someone gets a hold of your number and whores it around you'll end up with $1000/month text emssaging charges in short order.
You'll probably have to have text messaging disabled on your phone entirely or change your phone number to get out of the services. (which just means that the next person your number is assigned to gets nailed.) And good luck getting your phone company to forgive/refund the charges.
These companies -say- they follow best practices and have double opt in enrollment, and multiple ways to cancel, and that they fully disclose their pricing and terms. But in reality they will often 'mistakenly' enroll you over the internet or from your phone with no confirmation at all, and it can be done by anyone.
They also use misleading and deceptive advertising to get you to enroll... such as large TV adds that say "TEXT JOKE to xxxxx for a joke of the day" shown during kids shows... and only disclose that this is enrolling you in a recurring service that will charge you $1.50 per message, per day in the scrolling fine print. Not that the kids doing this will read it, or care. They don't pay the bill, you do.
Or they'll set it up so have you send a text to register a vote in some event, or as a contact number in some contest, and again only disclose in the fine print that this will also enroll you in a premium subscription service; and other underhanded techniques.
Meanwhile they are often run offshore, with no publicly visible method to contact customer service to dispute charges or report that you are being billed in error.
Considering the hoops I have to jump through (account number, confirm identity, just to change my voice mail plan), or when I added overseas dialing they ran a credit check to determine if I'd have to place a security deposit -- its absurd that if a random 9 year old gets my phone for a minute he can rack up $500 in recurring monthly charges via 'premium' text services.
Jesus Christ! Are you a nimrod or what?
Why am I not surprised that you resort to yet more misdirected pedantry to try to cover your ass? You claim the dictionary isn't precise enough, but then you want to throw out the definitions that give it the necessary precision. No irony here, its just another bullshit slashdot dickwaving contest.
Gracefully accepting you were wrong evidently isn't your strong point.
Hint, if 2b - the part of def 2 that explicitly mentions sardonic humor was the full definition of 2 then 2a would never have been included in the first place.
Hint: Def 2 is irrelevant because it only applies to uses where the choice of words is what forms the irony. 2a says its 'ironic' if I say 'its a beautiful day' during a thunderstorm.
But if I say, 'the gun safety expert unexpectedly shot himself' only definition 3 applies. There is nothing ironic about the choice of words. But def 3 sucks because it would also define 'a unexpectedly shot himself' as ironic, despite the fact that its not particularly ironic at all.
BAD dictionaries may, but certainly not good ones like Merriam-Websters or the OED.
No. Def 2 is explicitly referring to ironic statements... ie sarcasm, and sardonic humour.
But def 3, incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result
is both a poor definition, and the relevant one. If I'm playing craps and I bet red and it comes up black that isn't irony. If my laces come untied unexpectedly and I have to tie them back up that's not irony. Every day a 1000 things happen that are 'incongruous' with what I expect or what normally happens... most of them are not ironic.
> How ironic that you fail to understand the difference between sarcasm and irony. :)
:)
How ironic that I'm being corrected by someone who doesn't realize that sarcasm is itself defined in terms of being ironic.
>> If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch
>> chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be
>> ironic.
> No, that would be sarcasm.
It would, in fact, be both 'sarcasm' and an 'ironic statement' because they are in fact one and the same. The above is a textbook example of an 'ironic expression'.
The Merriam Website defines sarcasm as:
1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b: the use or language of sarcasm
Both defs define sarcasm in terms of irony. This isn't an accident.
I have to disagree. Everyone knows that a more proper example of irony is like rain on your wedding day...
I can't tell if your serious are sarcastic. I suspect sarcastic...
But in case your serious... how exactly is that ironic?
Ottawa, where Alanis is from, averages 10+ days of rain per month from April to November. And 14+ days of precipitation in December-Mar (but many of them are snow not rain)*. You'd have to be a complete twit to think you can pick a day at random 6-18 months away and not anticipate rain nor have rain contingency plans in place.
Here on the west coast its even more absurd, one plans weddings assuming that it will rain, with contingency plans to take advantage of the sun if its out.
(*source: http://www.livingin-canada.com/climate-ottawa.html)
The only real irony in Alanis' song is that she didn't actually come up with any.
To your definition, I would refine the definition of underwhelm to be "fail to impress while expecting otherwise". I wouldn't say that your example bagel is underwhelming, merely mediocre. But if I was expecting that the bagel was going to be fabulous, but it wasn't, it would THEN be underwhelming. If it was a fancy, imported Italian bagel that I paid extra for, and it wasn't much different that the local grocery bagel, it would be underwhelming.
I think at that point, you've really defined 'disappoint' not 'underwhelm'. I don't think underwhelm necessarily reaches that far. I think it can be used to express disappointment, but I don't think disappointment can always be inferred from underwhelmed.
If you were to eat the cheap bagel with the expectation that it would be dull and uninspired I think you could still call the experience underwhelming, even though you really didn't expect more.
I think the dictionary definition of 'failing to excite/stimulate/etc' is about right, but it leaves out the part where you have to realize you feel this way. To be underwhelmed is a state of mind, a 'feeling' we experience, not an objective fact...if you aren't actually aware that something didn't excite you, you can't be underwhelmed by it. You've got to feel it.
Consider the definition of 'disappointed' which says 'depressed or discouraged by the failure of one's hopes or expectations' - it recognizes that its a feeling. If there is a failure to realize your hopes or expectations and you don't -feel- despressed or discouraged by it then you aren't 'disappointed'. Its not enough that something you expected failed to come to pass.
If I hope and expect to get assigned to a project and my boss comes and tells me that I've been given a raise and a transfer to a dream job I'm far to busy being elated to feel disappointment that I wasn't assigned to the project, even though that hope and expectation won't come to pass. If someone were to ask me, are you disappointed, my answer would be 'hell no' - even though the 'failure to realize a hope or expectation' clause has been satisfied, my 'feeling discouraged or depressed about it' has not been.
'underwhelmed' is similiar; its a 'feeling' you get when something has failed to excite/stimulate/impress. And like disappointment if something 'fails to excite you' but you don't feel it, its not accurate to say it underwhelmed you. I spend most of my day being 'failed to be excited' by the mundanities of life. But I'm neither disappointed nor underwhelmed by this.
It could also have the (ahem) ironic definition of specifically characterizing the non-impressiveness of something as a back-handled insult. EG: "Well, his technical skills are, eh, underwhelming." In this case, the unimpressiveness of the result is carried to its extreme. Like saying that it's impressively unimpressive.
Absolutely, but that's not using 'underwhelming' in its natural state; you're using sarcasm/irony and understatement to really twist it around on itself, to 'intensify' its meaning, to become in your words 'impressively unimpressive'.
Irony: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result
:)
... and then it was dried up... that would be irony.
How ironic that a dictionary would fail to define irony properly.
Seriously? Incongruity between the actual and the normal/expected result?
That is NOT really irony. For something to be ironic there has to significant force behind the expectation, and the result can't merely be incongrouous it has to be more a contradiction.
If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be ironic.
If I pick up a pen I expect it to work not be dried out, but if its dried out that's not irony. If I specifically chose to pick up the pen with the sticker 'gauranteed never to dry up' and carried it around precisely to avoid the hassle of a dried up pen
Dictionaries often fail to accurately capture the complete meaning of a word, because words are inherently difficult to concisely define with other words. That's no surprise -- the entire point of adding a word to a language is often that other words fail to accurately capture its meaning.
Another example is "underwhelm"; which is defined in one dictionary at least as: "To fail to excite, stimulate, or impress." Again, that doesn't really capture it quite right. If one eats a bagel for breakfast and is not excited stimulated or impressed that doesn't mean one was underwhelmed by it. Its a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
To be underwhelmed is not merely to fail to be impressed, but to becognizant of the fact that you have failed to have been impressed. If you ate a bagel and it made no impression on you, if someone asked you about your breakfast, you'd absently say 'it was fine' without 2nd thought; you haven't been underwhelmed. But if you'd sat there eating your bagel and came to the realization that it really wasn't particularly good, that its taste and texture really did nothing for you, then you might come to say that you found it underwhelming.
just because it can pass the turing test does not mean the machine demonstrates real intelligence!
But it will demonstrate that past a certain point we won't know the difference between real intelligence and something attempting to appear intelligent.
in fact, just what is intelligence / conciousness? if we can't define it, how can we hope to produce it?
If we can't tell the difference maybe there isn't one. Are you intelligent? Or are you just sufficiently complex enough that you simulate it well?
*cough* video on demand *cough*
Exactly. And I even use it from time to time.
Lets see some facts and resources here?
How do you propose they legally do that? Are you willing to let them investigate p2p traffic and take a look?
Prove it was pirated! I dare you.
Be careful what you wish for. What if he's right? How does that affect your arugment? For the record I'm willing to bet most p2p traffic *is* transferring copyprotected works to people who don't have any license of any sort to the work at all.
Yes P2P has legitimate uses, and yes, those uses are significant, but you think they are dominant? I'm pretty skeptical.
Obviously, he thinks that we, the end users, have not paid for the use of the bandwidth?
He's right. We haven't. For the most part our 'web & email only' neighbors have. But that's not his problem. That's between us and the ISP, and they'll start charging us for the bandwidth we use as soon the 'overselling it massively underpriced to a lot of people who won't use it all anyway' model (ie the current model) finally completely breaks down as unsustainable. At least that's what should happen... double dipping greed isn't out of the question if they can get away with it.
They WANT the Internet to be a series of trucks running through tubes they build and control all the way to your eyesockets.
And their welcome to build one. If its useful I might even use it too from time to time. But I'm not willing to give up the internet I've got, they can build their own separate one.
Granted, I was very un-hopeful when that flick came out, on the one hand, Philip K. Dick, on the other three (and both legs and much of the torso) was Tom Cruise. Still the personalized ads bit was there. Funny how they offered him pink clothing.
... so I'm offtopic... I admit it. But its my karma.
And the sad part that it was the screenplay that ruined it not Tom Cruise. I mean really, this isn't oooh his pants changed colour, or his gun should have been in the drawer and suddenly its with him type stuff... there were pivotal problems with the entire fundamental premise to the movie... right down to fucking up what the 'minority report' itself was.
Really could they have made a movie that missed the point more?
I can't wait for Hollywood to do a blockbuster movie based on the short story "the cold equations" and somehow have everyone live.
Alright
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,
Don't be a twit. Of course its a double standard. Its a double standard because there are in fact two separate standards in effect:
One standard for monopolies.
One standard for non-monopolies.
Monopolies aren't bound by normal market pressures you'd see in a competitive market; so we impose additional rules on them to compensate for the lack of market forces and protect consumers from abuse.
THIS is a case where one of those differences crops up; monopolies are carefully scrutinized when they bundle other products with their monopoly product because it can effectively extend the monopoly into a new market, and eliminate competition there too. This is undesirable and considered illegal monopoly abuse. So Microsoft is scrutinized for every feature it bundles.
Meanwhile, Apple bundling stuff poses no such threat to the 2ndary market, and so its allowed without oversight.
So yes, there is a double standard. And with good reason.
At last check it was +26$.
:)
On a 439$ stock though that is around 6%, which while impressive is less exciting than $26 originally sounds. Especially as google has slid $300 (41%) from its peak $747 last november. More importantly, its still well below all its moving averages, even if you factor out the last 6 or so months entirely.
For you to be excited I can only speculate that you -just- bought in yesterday? Because anyone who bought the stock in most of the last 2 years and is still holding it is probably still still pretty underwhelmed right now.
That said, assuming its hit its low point, which isn't a bad bet on the technicals, it does appear to be a good buy right now; although who knows what effect the current market meltdown, and likely recession is going to have on it. I'm skeptical that any US equities are a good buy right now.
Is google likely to go up significantly in the next year? Outperform the DJIA? outperform XAU? Beats me.
I don't use it either. Yet, for some reason, that error message comes up without fail every time Windows freezes and I have to reboot.
Windows -rarely- freezes on me... I think the last time was 6 months ago when I turned on a SATA drive on eSATA drive that didn't support hotplugging...
That said, are you -sure- you don't use it? With some versions of windows some image formats (ie for the desktop background) require active desktop to display. The solution is to convert the image to bmp or something that windows can can display without using active desktop.
Good point but if Apple continues to grow and gain market share (as I'm sure they'd like to) then that would eventually lead to a duopoly.
First the iphone is a PDA not an OS. Its competing with a diverse and competitive ecosystem of PDAs from a variety of manufacturers. And while its got a lot of buzz, its not even dominant, let alone monopolistic. Lets wait until they are at least in first place before we worry about whether they are going to become a monopoly.
Now let's look at Apple's practices. They were aggressive when dealing with mobile carriers which is why so many carriers turned down the iPhone knowing that it would be very popular. Also, they've released the iPhone SDK but include restrictive policies like "no VoIP over the data cannel". Seems to me that they're heading in the "abusive" direction.
Yes, if apple ever becomes a monopoly they'll get their ass handed to the by the courts. But they are so far away from being a monopoly its not even worth discussing. The only market in which they dominate is mp3 players, and even here there are enough real alternatives readily available from microsoft, from sony, from sansa, etc, not to mention the fact that half the cell phones on the market these days all double as mp3 players that make a case for a monopoly pretty weak.
What kind of vague shitty standard is this to live and work by?
/sarcasm
Are you familiar with our legal system? Almost everything is vague shitty standards.
When was the last time your speedometer was calibrated? How do you know you aren't speeding? Have you read the law covering fair use? Nothing could be more wishywashy! Did you know that you can be convicted of a crime based on whether 12 random people think you did it beyond a 'reasonable' doubt. "reasonable" what the hell kind of standard is that? How are you supposed to know what 12 random people are going to think is reasonable??
Deal with it.
Well, how were they even supposed to know they were becoming a monopoly in the first place, to avoid the conviction?
Yeah I see your point. That would be pretty hard.
I dunno, your first hint would be that you have market share in around the 95% mark, and then the general public and press starts accusing you of being a monopoly or becoming one on a daily basis, and finally as a multibillion dollar company your crack team of lawyers should let you know that there is a strong legal risk of all that coming together and somone actually charging you with being a monopoly, and actually finding you to legally be a monopoly, and they should similiarly advise you to avoid certain practices which would not be illegal and abusive if you are found a monopoly.
Sure the line at which you 'become a monopoly' is blurry and vague, but even so you'd have to be a complete cretin not know you're getting close to it. And since you'll know your close, you can take steps to mitigate the risks of beign found guilty of abusing it. In other words, if your close enough that the risk of being found a monopoly is significant, act as if you'd already been convicted and don't do anything abusive.
At 95% marketshare, you can afford not to be abusive "just in case".
I've used XP for seven years on about a dozen different machines and I have never seen such a problem.
You probably don't use "active desktop". (You know, the feature where you can make your windows desktop a webpage. (not a background image, but an actuall live clickable webpage...)
Most sane people don't use it. They introduced the feature in Win98 iirc, and it was a retarded concept even back then.
My high school physics teacher told me that gravity, no matter how far away a massive object is, does 'pull' on us and that atoms are formed in stars.
So it matters greatly on which day you were born, but not in the least which side of the planet?
I do not dispute that the stars 'act on us' in some way on some level, however, making predictions based on that plus what month you were born in, and some extremely arbitrary divisions in the night sky is like observing that my stapler and my cell phone also act on me gravitationally and concluding that if I multiply the ascii value of first letter in my middle name by the price of the item in the corresponding aisle at the nearest staples by the esn on my cellphone that I can find true love by phoning the resulting number on my cellphone. I'll know I've found the one, because she'll have the same brand of stapler.
And how is that different than Mac OS and all their bundled software?
Seriously? I only wrote 3 short paragraphs. You couldn't make it all the way through? Heres part of paragraph number 3:
"... the rules CHANGE when you have a monopoly. What are perfectly acceptable business practices in a competitive market are abusive and illegal in a monopoly...."
The difference between Mac OS and Windows is that Windows has been found to be a monopoly; and Microsoft has been convicted of abusing that monopoly. Mac OS isn't, and Apple hasn't.
See the difference?
Hint: Its not about -what- they do. Its about how what they do affects the market. Apple, by not having a monopoly, has more freedom to use different business practices because its unable to utterly distort and abuse the market. Microsoft, by contrast, has less freedom to use those same business practices because when they do use them it does utterly distort and abuse the market.
Even if they did do this, the problem would be, what browser should Microsoft provide?
You do realize this is really the -only- application that has this problem.
And my proposed solution would not be 'download links', but rather to create an apt-get type of tool for windows, and install that by default. Then on first run users can select whatever 'free' software they want from the repositories, including browsers, email clients, etc.
but then Windows would have to use something besides IE for its internet downloads,
What 'browser' does linux use for its 'internet downloads'? Why exactly can't windows work like that?
Let's see you show grandma how to download a web browser when none is installed... Go on, show us! ;)
apt-get install firefox
There is even a gui for it if you prefer.
Granted windows doesn't have this. But there's absolutely no reason it couldn't.