Sounds to me like you haven't been around much for the last few years. Alright UK internet access isn't the best but unless you live right in the middle of nowhere you can certainly get ADSL speeds. 90% of uk households according to this
(alright I've never heard of them but it was this or theregister).
Personally I get 8mbs (theoretically) more like 6.5mbs in practice. Where I live you can get up to 24mbs if you feel like it. Telewest (if they are still called that) are trialing a 100mbs connection to a few select areas and offer 10mbs to their other customers. Let's be honest it's nothing like your description.
Actually I am a developer. I just never know how to describe AJAX (I thought technique was quite suitable). So perhaps I should have said HTML based GUI's cannot compete with *desktop applications* but I think you knew what I meant. I'm almost totally convinced that Web-Apps will eventually rival their desktop counterparts; but with AJAX and HTML? I don't think so. Ajax is a hacked together solution to a problem that runs much deaper - HTML just isn't good enough for these kind of application. It was never meant to be; every further step we take based on HTML makes this more and more apparent.
...the pinnacle of which is their webbrowser Your kidding me right? GUI development is much easier? Well yes if your developing a webpage but an application? Please!
I just don't see how a web app using AJAX is going to compare to MS Word. Let's be honest AJAX techniques hardly compete with traditional development languages and MS have a 15 (or so) year advantage. I'm sure you can make something nice, maybe even something useful, but not something to rival Microsoft's dominance. Oh and it's not like this is the first web app to try this...
Now Blair can't sell peerages to it; he's going to close it. Well I guess that will sort out the corruption but I don't think that's what we had in mind.
Don't stop at three. Keep going man you can have a whole conversation with yourself. In time you can develop your skills to a point where you don't even need an internet connection;-)
Some people are just to dam insightful.
Unfortunately I don't think the Muslim Council of Great Britain is particularly representative of muslim opionion. They are a very conservative group of generally quite elderly Muslim men who have very little in common with younger and more vocal muslims. Equally I doubt the people we see on the news; dressing up as suicide bombers to protest the cartoons are in the majority.
This is a complex issue non muslims are divided about how they feel; there is no right or wrong answer here only shades of gray. To block freedom of speech means living in a world I don't like; but to intentionally provoke Muslim anger, as is the case here, is also wrong. Muslim opionion on this is likely to be as diverse as western opinion. If you can find a copy of last Sunday's Times you will find five articles all with differn't takes on this - there will be no 'muslim reaction'.
Yeah but if I came up with a cure for aids or workable cold fusion I think I might mention it to a few people in the time it took for peer review. So for that reason alone we can't discredit this. However that said; odds on its vapour.
I say it's about time we put together a consortium of the brightest minds and programmers to end this once and for all. Our goal? To create a Mac/Linux vunerability worm and put an end to this debate - there must be a common vunerability out there somewhere. Smug bastards.
Well I'm not sure which comment you are replying - from the tone it sounded racist which I absolutely cannot condone. However on this issue imigrants do tend to perform better (I'm talking about the US here) but this gap reduces with every generation that stays in a country. It's most likely a case of people being given a chance at something new will perform better than those whom have always expected the right. Be careful not to inadvertantly lower yourself to his level.
Has anyone thought that it might be educational climate that's at fault here? I know this is a tired argument but these days the massive focus (both UK and US) in Schools is on standardised testing. This means that Children are extremely proficient at learning information by rote but lack the reasoning skills that are required by IQ tests which measure a totally different kind of intellect.
I don't know if this lack of reasoning translates into less intelligent people (I'm sure Children have the same capacity for intelligence whether more intelligent or less) but it does mean they are less well versed in answering that particular type of question. Lest we not forget an IQ test really is a terrible test of intelligence.
Most of these features don't really sound like vista features - more like new hardware features.
Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
That sounds to me like something outside of the operating system otherwise there is no point.
- Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Touch screen is again a hardware improvement; indexing your files to pick out common words for recognition is very clever though.
- As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
This just scares me!
- Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
Isn't that simply removing functionality? I'm sure it will be great for novice users but removing the ability to switch a computer off is not a 'feature' I'm all that keen on.
- You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Again this seems more like a hardware improvement - and more of an improvement in LCD projectors than anything else.
Sorry if this seems all very negative but the only positive feature I can see in Vista is the ability in non-admin accounts to enter the admin password to complete admin functions - such as installing software. Hopefully making them usable for the first time in windows.
The people of China were never given a chance to vote in there own Authoritarian government. Can you try to imagine organising the uprising you allude to in a country of > 1 billion people without a free press? How would you do it exactly? When Mao took over China there were rebellions but the sheer size of the country and lack of free communication meant that only one small area could rise up at any one time. As a result they were crushed at hidden. You try to set up a web page to contest the lack of free speech and you get shut down (if Yahoo haven't already got there first). Set up a TV station yeah, nice one. An underground organisation big enough to sway a billion is not going to be very secret.
Yes I agree that our current democracies are lacking, of course they are, but this is due (as you say) to our complete lack of defending them. However the fundamental ideal behind a democracy is sound. Authoritarianism is great in the military but China isn't the army! Try it in our country and people like us (who value debate and free speech - why else you would be here) are not going to find life far less comfortable and for what reason? What reason could China really have for suppressing free speech? What reason is there?
Well having never been there I cannot really comment on how happy or unhappy people are but given that China is not a democracy it really isn't up to the people to decide. That decision has been made for them. I find it hard to believe that a regime would repress free speech and media for the good of the people.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding? That's a pretty stupid thing for a dictionary maker to want to do.
Sounds to me like you haven't been around much for the last few years. Alright UK internet access isn't the best but unless you live right in the middle of nowhere you can certainly get ADSL speeds. 90% of uk households according to this (alright I've never heard of them but it was this or theregister).
Personally I get 8mbs (theoretically) more like 6.5mbs in practice. Where I live you can get up to 24mbs if you feel like it. Telewest (if they are still called that) are trialing a 100mbs connection to a few select areas and offer 10mbs to their other customers. Let's be honest it's nothing like your description.
Man, can't you guys get the Queen to lock Blair up in the Tower(tm) or something? Maybe monarchy has some benefits...
Well not lock him up, but the queen does have the right to disband parliment. I mean you just would; wouldn't you? Give in to temptation I say.
Lol... I know one of those guys. Whats the picture?
Good comments but you post only holds true if we attack technologically advanced nations. Normally we avoid that.
Actually I am a developer. I just never know how to describe AJAX (I thought technique was quite suitable). So perhaps I should have said HTML based GUI's cannot compete with *desktop applications* but I think you knew what I meant. I'm almost totally convinced that Web-Apps will eventually rival their desktop counterparts; but with AJAX and HTML? I don't think so. Ajax is a hacked together solution to a problem that runs much deaper - HTML just isn't good enough for these kind of application. It was never meant to be; every further step we take based on HTML makes this more and more apparent.
...the pinnacle of which is their webbrowser Your kidding me right? GUI development is much easier? Well yes if your developing a webpage but an application? Please!
I just don't see how a web app using AJAX is going to compare to MS Word. Let's be honest AJAX techniques hardly compete with traditional development languages and MS have a 15 (or so) year advantage. I'm sure you can make something nice, maybe even something useful, but not something to rival Microsoft's dominance. Oh and it's not like this is the first web app to try this...
Now Blair can't sell peerages to it; he's going to close it. Well I guess that will sort out the corruption but I don't think that's what we had in mind.
If you can't manage that then just tell them your in Med-School anyway. Sheesh.
Seconded; that joke is old.
Don't stop at three. Keep going man you can have a whole conversation with yourself. In time you can develop your skills to a point where you don't even need an internet connection ;-)
Some people are just to dam insightful.
Cheers for that... you made my evening.
This is a complex issue non muslims are divided about how they feel; there is no right or wrong answer here only shades of gray. To block freedom of speech means living in a world I don't like; but to intentionally provoke Muslim anger, as is the case here, is also wrong. Muslim opionion on this is likely to be as diverse as western opinion. If you can find a copy of last Sunday's Times you will find five articles all with differn't takes on this - there will be no 'muslim reaction'.
Yeah but if I came up with a cure for aids or workable cold fusion I think I might mention it to a few people in the time it took for peer review. So for that reason alone we can't discredit this. However that said; odds on its vapour.
I say it's about time we put together a consortium of the brightest minds and programmers to end this once and for all. Our goal? To create a Mac/Linux vunerability worm and put an end to this debate - there must be a common vunerability out there somewhere. Smug bastards.
Yeah but I'm one lazy little sod
Well I'm not sure which comment you are replying - from the tone it sounded racist which I absolutely cannot condone. However on this issue imigrants do tend to perform better (I'm talking about the US here) but this gap reduces with every generation that stays in a country. It's most likely a case of people being given a chance at something new will perform better than those whom have always expected the right. Be careful not to inadvertantly lower yourself to his level.
I don't know if this lack of reasoning translates into less intelligent people (I'm sure Children have the same capacity for intelligence whether more intelligent or less) but it does mean they are less well versed in answering that particular type of question. Lest we not forget an IQ test really is a terrible test of intelligence.
Laptops will start shipping with a secondary LCD screen that's accessible when the machine is closed. So you will be able to do things like checking the status of your e-mail, IM, stocks, weather, whatever -- without taking the machine out of sleep mode, spinning up the hard drives, etc.
That sounds to me like something outside of the operating system otherwise there is no point.
- Tablet PCs will have touch screen functionality in addition to just pen-based input. In addition, the handwriting recognition will "learn" from the files that Vista has indexed on your hard drive -- so if you're a doctor and you're always using words like "phenylketonuria," it will pick that up and recognize those words more readily.
Touch screen is again a hardware improvement; indexing your files to pick out common words for recognition is very clever though.
- As I mentioned in another post, Vista will ship with Windows Collaboration, a Groove-like networking feature that lets wireless users quickly form ad-hoc network and share files and even screen real estate in an easy way.
This just scares me!
- Microsoft will stop talking about power states like "Standby" and "Hibernate" when Vista ships. There will only be "on" or "off." When you hit the power button on your laptop, essentially it goes into Standby. Meanwhile it will be writing out a Hibernate file. After it figures out you won't be coming back, it sinks into Hibernate mode. But (and I'm a little unclear on this) even then it will still be sending a trickle of power to the memory only to keep the memory alive. The idea is that fast on and off will be a way of life and people won't be rebooting their computers all the time.
Isn't that simply removing functionality? I'm sure it will be great for novice users but removing the ability to switch a computer off is not a 'feature' I'm all that keen on.
- You will be able to associate with a new generation of LCD projectors wirelessly. No more showing up to a meeting and fumbling with monitor cables etc. Just find the projector and route PowerPoint through it.
Again this seems more like a hardware improvement - and more of an improvement in LCD projectors than anything else.
Sorry if this seems all very negative but the only positive feature I can see in Vista is the ability in non-admin accounts to enter the admin password to complete admin functions - such as installing software. Hopefully making them usable for the first time in windows.
Honest to god. One more Ballmer joke and I start killing people.
I'm with you. It's like there is an automated +5 Funny filter for any post involving the word Steve Ballmer. God dammit it makes me mad.
The people of China were never given a chance to vote in there own Authoritarian government. Can you try to imagine organising the uprising you allude to in a country of > 1 billion people without a free press? How would you do it exactly? When Mao took over China there were rebellions but the sheer size of the country and lack of free communication meant that only one small area could rise up at any one time. As a result they were crushed at hidden. You try to set up a web page to contest the lack of free speech and you get shut down (if Yahoo haven't already got there first). Set up a TV station yeah, nice one. An underground organisation big enough to sway a billion is not going to be very secret. Yes I agree that our current democracies are lacking, of course they are, but this is due (as you say) to our complete lack of defending them. However the fundamental ideal behind a democracy is sound. Authoritarianism is great in the military but China isn't the army! Try it in our country and people like us (who value debate and free speech - why else you would be here) are not going to find life far less comfortable and for what reason? What reason could China really have for suppressing free speech? What reason is there?
No but every thread needs a Sony DRM joke and a Steve Ballmer chair joke... you must be new :-)
Well having never been there I cannot really comment on how happy or unhappy people are but given that China is not a democracy it really isn't up to the people to decide. That decision has been made for them. I find it hard to believe that a regime would repress free speech and media for the good of the people.
It's quite the opposite, one man with an EMP (electro magnetic pulse) and a big peice of wood will take the whole US army.