I never said it was innovating; I said it was an important step for windows. Given its something all the other OSes can do, don't you think its a good idea that MS catch up?
If they didn't implement it that you'd be mocking them for not having it yet.
You also needed new drivers for DX9, DX8, DX7 and so on.
Not quite the same ballpark. In terms of MS Office dx7-dx8-dx9 is Office 2000 to Office XP to Office 2003. DX10 is Office 2007 with docx and ribbons.
Oh, and using multiple D3D applications simultaneously was supported since DX2 (via DirectDraw Clipper object). Vista allows to make _composite_ applications, i.e. a D3D surface which is in turn mapped into another surface.
I'm sorry. I meant simultaneously hardware accelerated d3d. You know, so if one program has a spinning rendered textured and shaded cube at 120fps in one window, and you switch to another program in another overlapping window with its own rendered texture mapped shaded spinning regular polyhedron, the cube in the first one doesn't drop to a framerate you can count on your fingers... its 2008. They should both be able to spin at full speed. While a movie is playing in a 3rd window, on a desktop with 3d shadow effects if that's what the user wants.
You don't need new driver architecture for DX10, it can work well enough with the old one. You just won't get hot-swap support and other goodies.
Only someone in marketing would suggest that. "Hey, lets take all the revolutionary big features out of DirectX10, backport it to windows 98; and claim we've got directX10 working on Windows 98" Because, hey, you could do that. You could even show some program that checks for directx10 and makes a couple directx10 api calls to prove your programming mojo.
But, sorry, that isn't directx10.
In fact, there are projects to make DX10 emulation using OpenGL features.
See above. That isn't dx10 emulation. That's adding support for some dx10 api's using dx9/ogl. That's great if you want to run Halo on XP or something, but try something actually impressive... get AeroGlass running on XP, while playing a DVD movie in one window and WoW in another. Then click the start menu without having the other two windows choke up.
That is not correct, maximum pc had talked with a Microsoft developer that said there is no technical reason directx10 cannot be used with WinXP. The real reason is that Microsoft wants to use it as a dividing point separating Vista from XP.
Right, they'd just have to update the kernel, and require a bunch of manufacturers to release new drivers to support the new features. Another not-insignificant issue is the DRM stuff, which is part of directx10, and again needs kernel and driver support. Nobody wants to deal with the mess that would be. For all our MS and DRM bashing, given what the situation is it makes technical sense to use it as a dividing point, even if those technical hurdles could be overcome.
That said, there is nothing stopping MS from backporting just the new directx10 direct3d api for shaders etc back to XP and calling it directx9.2 or even really muddy the waters and call it "directx10 xp edition", and letting the games have feature parity on both platforms.
But as I've said, MS wanted to use DirectX to lure people to Vista. Although I've heard rumours that they might now release a direct9 update for XP to add the direct3d features and appease gamers.
XP was LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than win98/ME, which was what a lot of people had at the time Vista is only marginally better than XP
XP was also a 0.1 upgrade to windows 2000; it wasn't that different at all. It used the same drivers and so forth. Businesses had relatively few troubles migrating because it was essentially the same platform.
Consumers on the other hand got a windfall:
1) XP was leaps and bounds better than 98/ME 2) XP by virtue of its close 2k/NT heritage was already effectively several years old when it launched. So by the time joe home consumers got their grubby little hands on it the drivers were largely mature and stable, and supported much of the hardware they already had... even a lot of the 'older stuff', because if there were 2k drivers, you were set.
Vista in contrast to XP is a major upgrade as far as businesses are concerned, and so its more work. And its new, really new, with a new driver model and everything so hardware even 6 months old is largely unsupported, or "coming soon". On top of all that its biggest feature is enhanced security -- which doesn't wow consumers and in fact annoys them.
Me, I've had Vista now for about 8 months, and frankly I'm very happy with it. I put it on new well supported hardware so issues of it being a resource hog, or driver issues... haven't been issues at all. Basically I took the same care in selecting my Vista platform as I would selecting a linux platform, ensuring things like the wifi, raid, etc were all supported before I purchased.
The UAC stuff really doesn't get in my way. Fortunately I don't have a lot of programs that need to be 'run as administrator' in order to function. (And programs that DO need this were defective all along IMO; it only took Vista's forcing the issue for us to notice... and then so many blogging idiots blame vista. I mean seriously, not naming any particular software, but why should your personal accounting software need to run as root anyway?! If your annoyed that your software is constantly needing elevation, blame the vendor.)
Vista really doesn't ask for elevation much more than OSX[Unix] or Linux. Its just that the latter two OSes have a long history of security so there isn't 20 years worth of crud out there that thinks it should be running as root. The only complaint I have about UAC, is that I should be allowed into Device Manager and other places without elevation; I should only need elevation if I want to change things... they really should have copied the 'lock' metaphor from OSX. But that's a pretty minor issue. I don't go into device manager THAT much, and even then I go in a lot more than most people. My inlaws bought a new Vista laptop... I doubt they've seen more than 5 UAC elevation prompts since they got it.
I know I can play Halo 2 on XP using a third-party tool that basically tricks Halo 2 into thinking it's on Vista. I'd link to the site, but I just checked and it's been taken over by advertiser domain squatters.
That's because Halo 2 doesn't actually need directx10. It has a 'is this vista check', and it might use a couple of minor new directx 10 direct3d calls (which can easily be captured and reimplemented in direct3d 9).
The real features of directX10 like Video memory virtualization and gpu multitasking (which allows Vista to have multiple direct3d accelerated applications (including the desktop) all running at the same time in (possibibly overlapping windows).
-That- is (amongst other reasons) why Vista has a new driver model, which in turns needs kernel support. -That- is why it hasn't been backported to XP. -That- is why its not likely to ever get backported to XP.
DirectX10 itself is a MAJOR milestone for windows, for the windows desktop, a step that brings it to parity with what linux and osx can do, in fact.
You aren't going to get a proper Compiz or Aqua class desktop for XP because XP simply can't do this stuff. Vista/DirectX10 can. But, this isn't really important 'for games' and games requiring directx10 is mostly marketing puff using minor features that can be easily redirected via a directx9 wrapper.
This is unfortunately because it undermines just how major directX10 really is, leaving gamers with the impression that its just a cheap tactic to sell Vista. (Which, to the extent of its use by current games; requiring directX10 IS a cheap tactic to sell vista.) But directX10 is quite a bit more than what these games are using. And this cheap tactic is masking that.
I should have said -- "in any case, a good system should hold it in the outbox for 5 minutes...". I'm well aware that many (most even) by default, do not.
As I tried to explain to one of the Three Letter Acronyms of our company this morning, "Auto-Complete" is not to blame.
Agreed.
"Not Paying Attention" is to blame.
Yes, but mistakes happen. You can't just tell people 'pay more attention' and expect that to solve all problems.
If you can't be bothered to look at who you are sending stuff like this to, then please step back from the computer and have someone else handle complicated things like email for you.
Surely if you are doing billion dollar deals then you can afford to hire someone capable of working a keyboard without embarrassing him or herself.
The sarcasm was unwarranted, but the idea is right. If you are dealing with really sensitive material, it should be vetted by a 2nd set of eyes before its released.
And in any case it holds it in the outbox for 5 minutes before actually sending, so if you have one of those... "push send... oh shit"... moments you can still stop it from being sent.
And maybe something can be done at the software level, like a custom email client that requires you enter a passphrase that encrypts the email . The software won't send without a passphrase, and the recipient must know the passphrase to open the email. Each case file would have its own passphrase, and the case file is included in the message. So if the email reached the wrong recipient they wouldn't know the passphrase and couldn't read the message.
You could speed the process up by maintaining a dictionary of cases and passphrases, and let the recipients automatically open any email in the passphrase dictionary, and rather then enter a passphrase have them enter a case number. So, anyone involved with the case would have to add the passphrase-case number pair to their dictionary just once.
Its not bullet proof... I'm sure better solutions exist. but it would be more effective at dealing with this sort of mistake than either 'typing in the address each time', or 'yelling pay more attention' at people.
You'd use a separate email program entirely for casual non-sensitive communication with your family, friends, reporters, your chauffer, dog groomer, and staples representative...
The problem is that the lawyer was using the wrong piece of software.
If you're routinely dealing with communications that are sensitive, then you should be typing the full address in every time
Whole new use for Typosquatting. Suddenly sjobs@aple.com, wbuffet@berksirehatheway.com, michael_dell@dall.com etc, etc, might have some additional value.
Or use lists that have been verified to be correct.
And how do you propose that? Run a completely separate mail identity for each case he works on, each with its own carefully vetted list of approved recipients? Nah, I can't see how that wouldn't be royally inconvenient and immune from errors.
What's funny is that the software ended up revealing a lot. Don't you find it interesting that one of the lawyers happened to have this reporter in their contact book?
Not particularly. Can you imagine a scenario where the reporter sent him an email at some point and he replied to it? Thats all it takes for the address to be added to the autocomplete feature. In some programs that's enough for the address to be added as a contact....
A linux box gets the job done. But its just not a consumer friendly product on the same level as a NAT box. Not that they couldn't -make- one. But to my knowledge they haven't yet.
I wonder if it would be possible to get a hybrid ipv4NAT/ipv6Router+Firewall, where it'll route and firewall ipv6 at the same time as providing NAT on v4?
That would be perfect for the home market, provided we are even allowed to have blocks of ipv6 addresses.
Actually, it will be used as a desktop for Terminal Services, the same way Windows 2000 server and windows 2003 were.
So? Those users aren't usually allowed to admin the box, and they already see 'access denied' boxes whenever they try to do anything admin-ish. And HD Video playback isn't going to be happening over TS either. So again, no problem.
Hard drive crapped out just past the six month warranty period and Apple's not interested in doing anything with it for less than $180 + shipping + labor. I hate to say it but I'd rather spend that money on a Zune.
Yeah, because I'm sure Microsoft would be jumping to help you with a failed hard drive in an out of warranty device that they sell. That's downright funny.
Its a hard drive, and its out of warranty.
Have you looked at the cost of the replacement part? For example according to google results the 60GB Toshiba 1.8" HD, from the 60GB ipod (toshiba MK6000GAH) ranges from $171 - $199. Seems like Apple isn't really that out of line there.
You can get a 60GB 1.8" HD for as low as $105... but I couldn't speculate if it would fit into an ipod. And this is where the next bit of advice crops up...
Have you looked into 3rd party repair shops? Its out of warranty, so what do you care if it isn't apple that fixes it? Especially if a repair shop can do it for less? They also tend to buy up dead ipods for parts so they can offer used screens and used hard drives as replacement parts for substantially less coin. They would also be in a position of knowing whether they can use a different cheaper model HD in your ipod.
Or you could attempt a DIY repair. (Hey its slashdot and what else you gonna do? Toss it?) There are instructions and youtube videos for getting it open, and once its open, swapping the HD is pretty straightforward.
Under NAT, you have one box, which has a table that says "port 80 goes to 192.168.1.3", "port 25 goes to 192.168.1.7", etc.
I've used NAT, but thanks.
Under IPv6 with a firewall, you can have one box, which has a table that says "Connections from anywhere to ab:cd:ef::01 on port 80 are accepted", "Connections from anywhere to ab:cd:ef::02 on port 80 are accepted", etc.
Yes I understand how a firewall works too.
I don't get where people get this strange idea that while NAT may control multiple computers behind it, a firewall somehow couldn't. The "protection" NAT provides is that it's a firewall with a "deny by default" policy, which is trivial to do without NAT if you want it.
I have no misconceptions at all about this.
The issue has nothing to do with needing NAT. The issue is that we like the convenience of our NAT boxes, and there aren't any consumer priced firewalls that I'm aware of. I'd be delighted to use a sub $100 wireless router that had an honest to god firewall capability configurable via a friendly web client.
And without one, I need to set up a software firewall on each device. (which isn't a bad thing), but I want a single standalone box to manage network security. If I want to block port 25 inbound, I want to do it at the box, not on each unit.
I **KNOW** a firewall can do this. However, nobody sells one at the price point of a NAT box.
Evidently you don't live in a part of the world where it drops to 40 below... and then gets windy. Where getting punched in the face would be more pleasant than standing still and holding a frigid hose next to your car for 5 minutes. Where you have to put gloves, hats, and scarves on, just to get out of your car that long without freezing bits.
A simple firewall with every device having a global address is a better solution, because then I can open up as many ports to as many devices as I like, without having to worry about only allowing one device per port.
Right, but then we need our routers to have that simple firewall. I want to be able to managed the firewall in one place, not on each device.
I also like that my LAN isn't dependant on my ISP being up. ie I don't want to rely on my ISPs DHCP and DNS. If my internet connection goes down, I want my lan to keep working.
So if we get rid of NAT, fine, I'd love to have a block of routable addresses instead. But I -still- want to manage a firewall at the router, and perform dhcp, and dns on the LAN, possibly even from the router.)
Unfortunately I can't name a consumer priced product that can do this for ipv4, never mind ipv6.
What exactly do you think 'subsidized' means? It means, money taken from the government to fund that enterprise. Now, given that the government taking peoples money, dividing it up, and then funding enterprises with it... that's communism in action. I fail to see how shouting subsidized somehow makes any of those less communist?
A municipality getting state and federal funding amounts to a communism of communisms. A rich municipality ultimately funds a poor one. That's communism.
That aside, my family unit isn't subsidized but we're a micro-communism. We buy goods collectively. Income comes into the unit, is spent colelctively, and the remainder is allocated through the unit. My wife and I pool our income... if I don't work we live off her income, if I make a huge bonus we both profit. That's communism.
i don't want my kids on myspace. not because I'm 'paranoid and afraid of the internets' but because I think myspace is a stupid waste of time; an internet trailor park.
Of course I won't forbid it. Then they'll just create one and access it from the school library or their friends house or something. Or try and get sneaky and hide their tracks on one of the systems here.
But I'm going to do everything in my power to convince them that myspace and facebook and crap like that is beneath them.
Of course, this all coming from a guy on slashdot... but still I'd rather have them wasting their time here than on myspace.;)
Look at Magic the Gathering for another example. Each expansion came out with something that would absolutely devastate the previous versions
That's flat out wrong. Some blocks are stronger than others, but overall the power level of the game has stayed relatively stable for several years now. This was made possible precisely because old cards keep getting retired.
to stay current you HAD to keep buying it. And for tournament play you weren't allowed to use older sets either.
You got it half right. The tournament system of expansion packs and phasing out old cars is designed in part to keep people buying new cards.
But think for half a second, and you'll realize that this is not merely good for the business, its GOOD FOR THE GAME.
If they didn't retire cards:
Then they WOULD have to keep upping the power level, because no one is going to buy cards that are no more powerful than what they already have. And by phasing cards out, people have to buy new cards just to stay in the game. Now this seems crappy, but its not really. Because with each block, the game is reset... completely new types of decks become viable, while old decks are phased out.
I don't want to play against some dipshits sliver deck year after year after year after year after year, and design every deck I make around the fact that this guys going to be playing slivers again.
By rotating the cards and mechanics in and out, one year its slivers, the next its vampires, the next its artifact equipment, the next its multicolor, the next has legends all over the place, the next has a pile of stuff that mess with the graveyard... each year is different.
And of course there is nothing stopping you from having a retro moment, and playing with only cards that were legal in 1999.
Nor is there anything stopping you from playing with a wide open field but really that wouldn't be good for the tournment scene -- they have tournament format for that: Vintage... and its one of the least popular formats for a good reason. The power level resulting from being able to use the very best cards from every expansion in combination with each other leads to stupidly powerful decks. A good Vintage deck will utterly destroy a tournament winning deck from the current block, and often won't use a single card from the new block.
Keeping the set of allowed cards to a limited, and rotating pool keeps the power level DOWN, and keeps the game FRESH at the same time.
Then that ISP shouldn't be selling 1 Mbps 'unlimited' connections to 1000+ customers and then complain when people actually *use* the bandwith *they are paying for*. That's false advertising.
ISPs sell still broadband with unlimited *access* diffentiating it from dialup. Remember dialup? When you got 4 hours, 20 hours, 100 hours, or *unlimited*? Well with broadband its always unlimited. Nothing obviously deceptive there. Dialup customers have no conception of bandwidth limitations; but they are very familiar with time limitations and having the phone tied up for hours on end. ISPs are still advertising primarily to *THEM*.
And while the max speed of that ADSL is 1 Mbps, or 15x faster than dialup!! (in advertising parlance) they don't ever promise that there is no limit to the amount of data you can push through.
And just because YOU can multiply 1Mbps * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 31 days = 2678400 Megabits/mo ( ~335 GB/mo ) doesn't mean they've promised you that much data transfer per month.
ISPs don't like to talk about bandwidth caps because: a) Most customers don't understand bandwidth b) Most customers aren't anywhere near hitting the caps c) Prominently advertising limits that aren't relevant or understood by most people is a poor advertising strategy d) Other ISPs aren't doing it. Making it an even worse advertising strategy
So they're in the fine print. And they're often vaguely worded.
Why are they often vague? Because a lot of ISPs don't have a hard cap. They don't really care how much YOU use, as long as the network isn't being strained. So rather than set a cap at the lowest common denominator that they can really gaurantee everyone can have if they ever get called on it. They leave it vague and the end result are soft caps which are annoying due to their not being well specified... but are really not that bad a thing because the soft caps are much much higher than they'd be if they were hard caps.
You don't compromise with terrorists because history has shown that every single time you give them a finger they want your entire arm...
Oh... so now terrorism is unique? Separate from all other types of war? Just a few moments ago you claimed "terrorism" was just another "war strategy". You can always negotiate with your enemy. You can't necessarily negotiate with the foot soldiers...but that's not the point.
First of all there is a huge difference between Greenpeace activists and a mass-murdering group of people
The point remains that activists are often pulled from the ranks of university students. The form their activism takes may be different, but a willingness to volunteer, to make sacrifices, even to die for an ideal is a trait found strongest in students.
All Islamic countries I know of violate the Human Rights of women, yet you hear 100x more complaints about America from these groups then the mass-oppression of *billions* of women worldwide!
So? We are far more outraged by what our own governments do then what others do. Why is that surprising? These people are supposed to be represent us. I don't condone torture. So when I find out someone is committing torture on my dollar, in my name, and claiming its for my protection... FUCK THAT.
Cleaning up oppression and corruption in foreign countries is all well and good, but the first order of business is cleaning up our own fucking act. I'll focus my attention on Darfur and Tibet after my own government stops torturing innocent civilians, hell I don't even want my own government torturing honest to god terrorists... we should be better than that.
Terrorism is a war strategy, not a form of desperation.
1) Its actually both. 2) And like any war you win it by taking away the reasons to fight, and finding common ground, both sides making concessions.
If you actually look into the statistics you will find that the more educated the person (as in University-level education) the more likely they are to become a suicide bomber.
Activists are always generally well educated. This is common knowledge. Look no further than the people spiking trees for greenpeace, blockading roads, protesting at the whitehouse...and not just in the US? Who stood up to the tanks in China? University students are over represented in anything like this.
So how do resolve the problem? You think shooting at them is going to acheive squat? The -only- solution is to talk. And sure, their demands are over the moon unreasonable... 'disband capitalism and convert to islam...' but their real grievances are usually genuine, and often well founded.
And lets be honest, the middle east has a LOT of real justification to be pissed at the west. And idealistic students are far and away the most likely to act on injustice.
Please tell us all how you would make air travel safe and convenient.
I wouldn't do anything.
Air travel is one of the safest modes of transportation, and that was BEFORE all the new inconveniences. Nothing has changed. 9/11 didn't change that. And the new procedures and inconveniences won't stop it from happening again. The biggest and really only real improvement they've made is improving the security of the cockpit. (And -that- didn't inconvenience anybody.)
All this bullshit about terrorists sneaking a liquid onto a plane and blowing it up is bullshit. The 'terrorists' could just as easily detonate bombs and kill large amounts of people by setting of their bombs -at- the security checkpoints in the airport or getting into a ballgame, or anywhere else. Sir, liquids are banned...please remove your shoes. Sir? KA-BOOM!
And what are they going to do to stop that? Put security checkpoints before the security checkpoints??
What would I do to make america safer? I'd stop fixating on paranoid fear reactions, and spend my time improving relations with muslims, resolving our differences, helping their countries become prosperous, healing the rifts between us.
There will always be extremists. And people will always die. But I don't want to live in an isolated padded prison cell and forfeit all liberty for absolute safety.
The ministry of defense prosecuting war is arguably again within its role. war is merely the conflict defense and offense are merely sides; both are 'at war'. And except in very one sided wars, the difference between offense and defense can be very hard to discern after a certain point.
However, the ministry of defence, is clearly frequently on the 'offensive' and *initiating* conflicts, so I'd agree its doublespeak.
However the role of Justice legitimately includes the administration of punishment for crimes; so I don't see the issue there. Perhaps if was the ministry of justice were also responsible for secret prisons and torture or something else patently unjust you'd have a leg to stand on.
Slashdot Mirror
MS Innovating ... or playing catchup as usual ....
I never said it was innovating; I said it was an important step for windows. Given its something all the other OSes can do, don't you think its a good idea that MS catch up?
If they didn't implement it that you'd be mocking them for not having it yet.
Sorry, but what is DirectDraw/Direct3D? I somehow thought that it was a 3D API.
DirectDraw/Direct3D is not DirectX. It is a small (but high profile) part of directX.
Nope. New DX10 features are already present as OpenGL extensions.
DirectX is MORE than than just some 3d api stuff.
Not a problem. I can run Compiz while playing Quake 3 and running a DVD player in Linux. All with current OpenGL.
Well aren't you clever. But Compiz doesn't run on XP now does it. So I fail to see how that would be a solution for XP.
If you don't believe me - look at Linux, Compiz can work along nicely with 3D applications.
Yes, linux can do this. XP can't. I'm glad we agree.
You also needed new drivers for DX9, DX8, DX7 and so on.
Not quite the same ballpark. In terms of MS Office dx7-dx8-dx9 is Office 2000 to Office XP to Office 2003. DX10 is Office 2007 with docx and ribbons.
Oh, and using multiple D3D applications simultaneously was supported since DX2 (via DirectDraw Clipper object). Vista allows to make _composite_ applications, i.e. a D3D surface which is in turn mapped into another surface.
I'm sorry. I meant simultaneously hardware accelerated d3d. You know, so if one program has a spinning rendered textured and shaded cube at 120fps in one window, and you switch to another program in another overlapping window with its own rendered texture mapped shaded spinning regular polyhedron, the cube in the first one doesn't drop to a framerate you can count on your fingers... its 2008. They should both be able to spin at full speed. While a movie is playing in a 3rd window, on a desktop with 3d shadow effects if that's what the user wants.
These things don't even begin to get near where I'm talking about:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa919937.aspx
You don't need new driver architecture for DX10, it can work well enough with the old one. You just won't get hot-swap support and other goodies.
Only someone in marketing would suggest that. "Hey, lets take all the revolutionary big features out of DirectX10, backport it to windows 98; and claim we've got directX10 working on Windows 98" Because, hey, you could do that. You could even show some program that checks for directx10 and makes a couple directx10 api calls to prove your programming mojo.
But, sorry, that isn't directx10.
In fact, there are projects to make DX10 emulation using OpenGL features.
See above. That isn't dx10 emulation. That's adding support for some dx10 api's using dx9/ogl. That's great if you want to run Halo on XP or something, but try something actually impressive... get AeroGlass running on XP, while playing a DVD movie in one window and WoW in another. Then click the start menu without having the other two windows choke up.
That is not correct, maximum pc had talked with a Microsoft developer that said there is no technical reason directx10 cannot be used with WinXP. The real reason is that Microsoft wants to use it as a dividing point separating Vista from XP.
Right, they'd just have to update the kernel, and require a bunch of manufacturers to release new drivers to support the new features. Another not-insignificant issue is the DRM stuff, which is part of directx10, and again needs kernel and driver support. Nobody wants to deal with the mess that would be. For all our MS and DRM bashing, given what the situation is it makes technical sense to use it as a dividing point, even if those technical hurdles could be overcome.
That said, there is nothing stopping MS from backporting just the new directx10 direct3d api for shaders etc back to XP and calling it directx9.2 or even really muddy the waters and call it "directx10 xp edition", and letting the games have feature parity on both platforms.
But as I've said, MS wanted to use DirectX to lure people to Vista. Although I've heard rumours that they might now release a direct9 update for XP to add the direct3d features and appease gamers.
XP was LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than win98/ME, which was what a lot of people had at the time
... haven't been issues at all. Basically I took the same care in selecting my Vista platform as I would selecting a linux platform, ensuring things like the wifi, raid, etc were all supported before I purchased.
Vista is only marginally better than XP
XP was also a 0.1 upgrade to windows 2000; it wasn't that different at all. It used the same drivers and so forth. Businesses had relatively few troubles migrating because it was essentially the same platform.
Consumers on the other hand got a windfall:
1) XP was leaps and bounds better than 98/ME
2) XP by virtue of its close 2k/NT heritage was already effectively several years old when it launched. So by the time joe home consumers got their grubby little hands on it the drivers were largely mature and stable, and supported much of the hardware they already had... even a lot of the 'older stuff', because if there were 2k drivers, you were set.
Vista in contrast to XP is a major upgrade as far as businesses are concerned, and so its more work. And its new, really new, with a new driver model and everything so hardware even 6 months old is largely unsupported, or "coming soon". On top of all that its biggest feature is enhanced security -- which doesn't wow consumers and in fact annoys them.
Me, I've had Vista now for about 8 months, and frankly I'm very happy with it. I put it on new well supported hardware so issues of it being a resource hog, or driver issues
The UAC stuff really doesn't get in my way. Fortunately I don't have a lot of programs that need to be 'run as administrator' in order to function. (And programs that DO need this were defective all along IMO; it only took Vista's forcing the issue for us to notice... and then so many blogging idiots blame vista. I mean seriously, not naming any particular software, but why should your personal accounting software need to run as root anyway?! If your annoyed that your software is constantly needing elevation, blame the vendor.)
Vista really doesn't ask for elevation much more than OSX[Unix] or Linux. Its just that the latter two OSes have a long history of security so there isn't 20 years worth of crud out there that thinks it should be running as root. The only complaint I have about UAC, is that I should be allowed into Device Manager and other places without elevation; I should only need elevation if I want to change things... they really should have copied the 'lock' metaphor from OSX. But that's a pretty minor issue. I don't go into device manager THAT much, and even then I go in a lot more than most people. My inlaws bought a new Vista laptop... I doubt they've seen more than 5 UAC elevation prompts since they got it.
I know I can play Halo 2 on XP using a third-party tool that basically tricks Halo 2 into thinking it's on Vista. I'd link to the site, but I just checked and it's been taken over by advertiser domain squatters.
That's because Halo 2 doesn't actually need directx10. It has a 'is this vista check', and it might use a couple of minor new directx 10 direct3d calls (which can easily be captured and reimplemented in direct3d 9).
The real features of directX10 like Video memory virtualization and gpu multitasking (which allows Vista to have multiple direct3d accelerated applications (including the desktop) all running at the same time in (possibibly overlapping windows).
-That- is (amongst other reasons) why Vista has a new driver model, which in turns needs kernel support. -That- is why it hasn't been backported to XP. -That- is why its not likely to ever get backported to XP.
DirectX10 itself is a MAJOR milestone for windows, for the windows desktop, a step that brings it to parity with what linux and osx can do, in fact.
You aren't going to get a proper Compiz or Aqua class desktop for XP because XP simply can't do this stuff. Vista/DirectX10 can. But, this isn't really important 'for games' and games requiring directx10 is mostly marketing puff using minor features that can be easily redirected via a directx9 wrapper.
This is unfortunately because it undermines just how major directX10 really is, leaving gamers with the impression that its just a cheap tactic to sell Vista. (Which, to the extent of its use by current games; requiring directX10 IS a cheap tactic to sell vista.) But directX10 is quite a bit more than what these games are using. And this cheap tactic is masking that.
I should have said -- "in any case, a good system should hold it in the outbox for 5 minutes...". I'm well aware that many (most even) by default, do not.
As I tried to explain to one of the Three Letter Acronyms of our company this morning, "Auto-Complete" is not to blame.
Agreed.
"Not Paying Attention" is to blame.
Yes, but mistakes happen. You can't just tell people 'pay more attention' and expect that to solve all problems.
If you can't be bothered to look at who you are sending stuff like this to, then please step back from the computer and have someone else handle complicated things like email for you.
Surely if you are doing billion dollar deals then you can afford to hire someone capable of working a keyboard without embarrassing him or herself.
The sarcasm was unwarranted, but the idea is right. If you are dealing with really sensitive material, it should be vetted by a 2nd set of eyes before its released.
And in any case it holds it in the outbox for 5 minutes before actually sending, so if you have one of those... "push send... oh shit"... moments you can still stop it from being sent.
And maybe something can be done at the software level, like a custom email client that requires you enter a passphrase that encrypts the email . The software won't send without a passphrase, and the recipient must know the passphrase to open the email. Each case file would have its own passphrase, and the case file is included in the message. So if the email reached the wrong recipient they wouldn't know the passphrase and couldn't read the message.
You could speed the process up by maintaining a dictionary of cases and passphrases, and let the recipients automatically open any email in the passphrase dictionary, and rather then enter a passphrase have them enter a case number. So, anyone involved with the case would have to add the passphrase-case number pair to their dictionary just once.
Its not bullet proof... I'm sure better solutions exist. but it would be more effective at dealing with this sort of mistake than either 'typing in the address each time', or 'yelling pay more attention' at people.
You'd use a separate email program entirely for casual non-sensitive communication with your family, friends, reporters, your chauffer, dog groomer, and staples representative...
The problem is that the lawyer was using the wrong piece of software.
If you're routinely dealing with communications that are sensitive, then you should be typing the full address in every time
Whole new use for Typosquatting.
Suddenly sjobs@aple.com, wbuffet@berksirehatheway.com, michael_dell@dall.com etc, etc, might have some additional value.
Or use lists that have been verified to be correct.
And how do you propose that? Run a completely separate mail identity for each case he works on, each with its own carefully vetted list of approved recipients? Nah, I can't see how that wouldn't be royally inconvenient and immune from errors.
What's funny is that the software ended up revealing a lot. Don't you find it interesting that one of the lawyers happened to have this reporter in their contact book?
Not particularly. Can you imagine a scenario where the reporter sent him an email at some point and he replied to it? Thats all it takes for the address to be added to the autocomplete feature. In some programs that's enough for the address to be added as a contact....
Well, I use a Linux box for this.
A linux box gets the job done. But its just not a consumer friendly product on the same level as a NAT box. Not that they couldn't -make- one. But to my knowledge they haven't yet.
I wonder if it would be possible to get a hybrid ipv4NAT/ipv6Router+Firewall, where it'll route and firewall ipv6 at the same time as providing NAT on v4?
That would be perfect for the home market, provided we are even allowed to have blocks of ipv6 addresses.
Actually, it will be used as a desktop for Terminal Services, the same way Windows 2000 server and windows 2003 were.
So? Those users aren't usually allowed to admin the box, and they already see 'access denied' boxes whenever they try to do anything admin-ish. And HD Video playback isn't going to be happening over TS either. So again, no problem.
She already knows where things are in XP so that's where she looks pr tries to look.
If she didn't know XP she'd be coping much better.
Hard drive crapped out just past the six month warranty period and Apple's not interested in doing anything with it for less than $180 + shipping + labor. I hate to say it but I'd rather spend that money on a Zune.
Yeah, because I'm sure Microsoft would be jumping to help you with a failed hard drive in an out of warranty device that they sell. That's downright funny.
Its a hard drive, and its out of warranty.
Have you looked at the cost of the replacement part? For example according to google results the 60GB Toshiba 1.8" HD, from the 60GB ipod (toshiba MK6000GAH) ranges from $171 - $199. Seems like Apple isn't really that out of line there.
You can get a 60GB 1.8" HD for as low as $105... but I couldn't speculate if it would fit into an ipod. And this is where the next bit of advice crops up...
Have you looked into 3rd party repair shops? Its out of warranty, so what do you care if it isn't apple that fixes it? Especially if a repair shop can do it for less? They also tend to buy up dead ipods for parts so they can offer used screens and used hard drives as replacement parts for substantially less coin. They would also be in a position of knowing whether they can use a different cheaper model HD in your ipod.
Or you could attempt a DIY repair. (Hey its slashdot and what else you gonna do? Toss it?) There are instructions and youtube videos for getting it open, and once its open, swapping the HD is pretty straightforward.
You don't need a firewall on each device.
I know that.
Under NAT, you have one box, which has a table that says "port 80 goes to 192.168.1.3", "port 25 goes to 192.168.1.7", etc.
I've used NAT, but thanks.
Under IPv6 with a firewall, you can have one box, which has a table that says "Connections from anywhere to ab:cd:ef::01 on port 80 are accepted", "Connections from anywhere to ab:cd:ef::02 on port 80 are accepted", etc.
Yes I understand how a firewall works too.
I don't get where people get this strange idea that while NAT may control multiple computers behind it, a firewall somehow couldn't. The "protection" NAT provides is that it's a firewall with a "deny by default" policy, which is trivial to do without NAT if you want it.
I have no misconceptions at all about this.
The issue has nothing to do with needing NAT. The issue is that we like the convenience of our NAT boxes, and there aren't any consumer priced firewalls that I'm aware of. I'd be delighted to use a sub $100 wireless router that had an honest to god firewall capability configurable via a friendly web client.
And without one, I need to set up a software firewall on each device. (which isn't a bad thing), but I want a single standalone box to manage network security. If I want to block port 25 inbound, I want to do it at the box, not on each unit.
I **KNOW** a firewall can do this. However, nobody sells one at the price point of a NAT box.
Care to name one?
Have you ever been to the prairies?
Evidently you don't live in a part of the world where it drops to 40 below... and then gets windy. Where getting punched in the face would be more pleasant than standing still and holding a frigid hose next to your car for 5 minutes. Where you have to put gloves, hats, and scarves on, just to get out of your car that long without freezing bits.
Could you hand me salt?
A simple firewall with every device having a global address is a better solution, because then I can open up as many ports to as many devices as I like, without having to worry about only allowing one device per port.
Right, but then we need our routers to have that simple firewall. I want to be able to managed the firewall in one place, not on each device.
I also like that my LAN isn't dependant on my ISP being up. ie I don't want to rely on my ISPs DHCP and DNS. If my internet connection goes down, I want my lan to keep working.
So if we get rid of NAT, fine, I'd love to have a block of routable addresses instead. But I -still- want to manage a firewall at the router, and perform dhcp, and dns on the LAN, possibly even from the router.)
Unfortunately I can't name a consumer priced product that can do this for ipv4, never mind ipv6.
What exactly do you think 'subsidized' means? It means, money taken from the government to fund that enterprise. Now, given that the government taking peoples money, dividing it up, and then funding enterprises with it... that's communism in action. I fail to see how shouting subsidized somehow makes any of those less communist?
A municipality getting state and federal funding amounts to a communism of communisms. A rich municipality ultimately funds a poor one. That's communism.
That aside, my family unit isn't subsidized but we're a micro-communism. We buy goods collectively. Income comes into the unit, is spent colelctively, and the remainder is allocated through the unit. My wife and I pool our income... if I don't work we live off her income, if I make a huge bonus we both profit. That's communism.
i don't want my kids on myspace. not because I'm 'paranoid and afraid of the internets' but because I think myspace is a stupid waste of time; an internet trailor park.
;)
Of course I won't forbid it. Then they'll just create one and access it from the school library or their friends house or something. Or try and get sneaky and hide their tracks on one of the systems here.
But I'm going to do everything in my power to convince them that myspace and facebook and crap like that is beneath them.
Of course, this all coming from a guy on slashdot... but still I'd rather have them wasting their time here than on myspace.
Look at Magic the Gathering for another example. Each expansion came out with something that would absolutely devastate the previous versions
That's flat out wrong. Some blocks are stronger than others, but overall the power level of the game has stayed relatively stable for several years now. This was made possible precisely because old cards keep getting retired.
to stay current you HAD to keep buying it. And for tournament play you weren't allowed to use older sets either.
You got it half right. The tournament system of expansion packs and phasing out old cars is designed in part to keep people buying new cards.
But think for half a second, and you'll realize that this is not merely good for the business, its GOOD FOR THE GAME.
If they didn't retire cards:
Then they WOULD have to keep upping the power level, because no one is going to buy cards that are no more powerful than what they already have. And by phasing cards out, people have to buy new cards just to stay in the game. Now this seems crappy, but its not really. Because with each block, the game is reset... completely new types of decks become viable, while old decks are phased out.
I don't want to play against some dipshits sliver deck year after year after year after year after year, and design every deck I make around the fact that this guys going to be playing slivers again.
By rotating the cards and mechanics in and out, one year its slivers, the next its vampires, the next its artifact equipment, the next its multicolor, the next has legends all over the place, the next has a pile of stuff that mess with the graveyard... each year is different.
And of course there is nothing stopping you from having a retro moment, and playing with only cards that were legal in 1999.
Nor is there anything stopping you from playing with a wide open field but really that wouldn't be good for the tournment scene -- they have tournament format for that: Vintage... and its one of the least popular formats for a good reason. The power level resulting from being able to use the very best cards from every expansion in combination with each other leads to stupidly powerful decks. A good Vintage deck will utterly destroy a tournament winning deck from the current block, and often won't use a single card from the new block.
Keeping the set of allowed cards to a limited, and rotating pool keeps the power level DOWN, and keeps the game FRESH at the same time.
Then that ISP shouldn't be selling 1 Mbps 'unlimited' connections to 1000+ customers and then complain when people actually *use* the bandwith *they are paying for*. That's false advertising.
ISPs sell still broadband with unlimited *access* diffentiating it from dialup. Remember dialup? When you got 4 hours, 20 hours, 100 hours, or *unlimited*? Well with broadband its always unlimited. Nothing obviously deceptive there. Dialup customers have no conception of bandwidth limitations; but they are very familiar with time limitations and having the phone tied up for hours on end. ISPs are still advertising primarily to *THEM*.
And while the max speed of that ADSL is 1 Mbps, or 15x faster than dialup!! (in advertising parlance)
they don't ever promise that there is no limit to the amount of data you can push through.
And just because YOU can multiply 1Mbps * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 31 days = 2678400 Megabits/mo ( ~335 GB/mo ) doesn't mean they've promised you that much data transfer per month.
ISPs don't like to talk about bandwidth caps because:
a) Most customers don't understand bandwidth
b) Most customers aren't anywhere near hitting the caps
c) Prominently advertising limits that aren't relevant or understood by most people is a poor advertising strategy
d) Other ISPs aren't doing it. Making it an even worse advertising strategy
So they're in the fine print. And they're often vaguely worded.
Why are they often vague? Because a lot of ISPs don't have a hard cap. They don't really care how much YOU use, as long as the network isn't being strained. So rather than set a cap at the lowest common denominator that they can really gaurantee everyone can have if they ever get called on it. They leave it vague and the end result are soft caps which are annoying due to their not being well specified... but are really not that bad a thing because the soft caps are much much higher than they'd be if they were hard caps.
You don't compromise with terrorists because history has shown that every single time you give them a finger they want your entire arm...
Oh... so now terrorism is unique? Separate from all other types of war? Just a few moments ago you claimed "terrorism" was just another "war strategy". You can always negotiate with your enemy. You can't necessarily negotiate with the foot soldiers...but that's not the point.
First of all there is a huge difference between Greenpeace activists and a mass-murdering group of people
The point remains that activists are often pulled from the ranks of university students. The form their activism takes may be different, but a willingness to volunteer, to make sacrifices, even to die for an ideal is a trait found strongest in students.
All Islamic countries I know of violate the Human Rights of women, yet you hear 100x more complaints about America from these groups then the mass-oppression of *billions* of women worldwide!
So? We are far more outraged by what our own governments do then what others do. Why is that surprising? These people are supposed to be represent us. I don't condone torture. So when I find out someone is committing torture on my dollar, in my name, and claiming its for my protection... FUCK THAT.
Cleaning up oppression and corruption in foreign countries is all well and good, but the first order of business is cleaning up our own fucking act. I'll focus my attention on Darfur and Tibet after my own government stops torturing innocent civilians, hell I don't even want my own government torturing honest to god terrorists... we should be better than that.
Terrorism is a war strategy, not a form of desperation.
1) Its actually both.
2) And like any war you win it by taking away the reasons to fight, and finding common ground, both sides making concessions.
If you actually look into the statistics you will find that the more educated the person (as in University-level education) the more likely they are to become a suicide bomber.
Activists are always generally well educated. This is common knowledge. Look no further than the people spiking trees for greenpeace, blockading roads, protesting at the whitehouse...and not just in the US? Who stood up to the tanks in China? University students are over represented in anything like this.
So how do resolve the problem? You think shooting at them is going to acheive squat? The -only- solution is to talk. And sure, their demands are over the moon unreasonable... 'disband capitalism and convert to islam...' but their real grievances are usually genuine, and often well founded.
And lets be honest, the middle east has a LOT of real justification to be pissed at the west. And idealistic students are far and away the most likely to act on injustice.
Please tell us all how you would make air travel safe and convenient.
I wouldn't do anything.
Air travel is one of the safest modes of transportation, and that was BEFORE all the new inconveniences. Nothing has changed. 9/11 didn't change that. And the new procedures and inconveniences won't stop it from happening again. The biggest and really only real improvement they've made is improving the security of the cockpit. (And -that- didn't inconvenience anybody.)
All this bullshit about terrorists sneaking a liquid onto a plane and blowing it up is bullshit. The 'terrorists' could just as easily detonate bombs and kill large amounts of people by setting of their bombs -at- the security checkpoints in the airport or getting into a ballgame, or anywhere else. Sir, liquids are banned...please remove your shoes. Sir? KA-BOOM!
And what are they going to do to stop that? Put security checkpoints before the security checkpoints??
What would I do to make america safer? I'd stop fixating on paranoid fear reactions, and spend my time improving relations with muslims, resolving our differences, helping their countries become prosperous, healing the rifts between us.
There will always be extremists. And people will always die. But I don't want to live in an isolated padded prison cell and forfeit all liberty for absolute safety.
The ministry of defense prosecuting war is arguably again within its role. war is merely the conflict defense and offense are merely sides; both are 'at war'. And except in very one sided wars, the difference between offense and defense can be very hard to discern after a certain point.
However, the ministry of defence, is clearly frequently on the 'offensive' and *initiating* conflicts, so I'd agree its doublespeak.
However the role of Justice legitimately includes the administration of punishment for crimes; so I don't see the issue there. Perhaps if was the ministry of justice were also responsible for secret prisons and torture or something else patently unjust you'd have a leg to stand on.