Have you looked at HoTMail recently? I'm beta testing the Live version of Hotmail and I gotta say it's pretty sweet. Not only is it very attractive, but the spam filtering is as good or better than that on my gmail account. It also has lots of cool features and is very well integrated similarly to the Outlook on the Web that many companies use for their Exchange servers. Gmail is frustrating because I keep getting the same exact spam messages word for word though I've marked them as spam about 60 times at this point. I was going to use my Gmail only for family communication so I didn't give it to anyone, but it somehow managed to pick up a spammer anyway. In addition, at one point Gmail decided to just stop sending or recieving email from and for my mom's account. Luckily she has an old Hotmail account or she would've been sunk. I'm not sure that this complaining about Hotmail isn't just the typical knee jerk reaction to anything Microsoft. Here, if you've got Hotmail, check out this site about Windows Live. I'm not sure if you can still sign up for the beta, but definitely give it a try. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5 d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d
Granted, Autocad was a horrible example. A better one is Cakewalk Sonar. Sonar V4 is $149. However, if 1000 people download it using bit torrent, that's $149000 that the company hasn't made. I don't think $149 is an unrealistic cost for Sonar and I think if you really want it you can and should work for the money to pay for it. And I think if you pirate it, you should get some form of punshment.
I'm confused though, how does piracy not harm anyone? For every install of Autocad 2007 that is downloaded, $3995 less goes to the hardworking employees of autocad. If people know that they're gonna get really punished for piracy, then perhaps they'll think twice before depriving the programmers and their families the money which they think they deserve for the product they create. I'm really not certain how people can seriously justify downloading illegal copies of a product as if it's the company's fault for selling an expensive product.
It seems that piracy is an intricate topic. I have to agree in some part with the software and music companies who want harsh punishments for piracy because they have legitimate gripes. There are people who would claim that the music/software/movie industries have flawed business models and that's the reason for piracy. While the inordinate cost of some of a new album or game is really disturbing, I think many people who pirate these products do so not because the price is too high, but because they'd just rather not spend the money if they don't have to. They're basically kleptomaniacs. Germany went way overboard with the two years in prison thing, but there needs to be some form of punishment for people who deprive software developers of the free market values of their products. Then there's that intricacy again. It may be that the "free market" isn't free at all because the software vendors/RIAA have such a dominance on the market that they can afford to charge crazy amounts of money. So where is the balance between giving people the money they deserve for their creations while making sure they don't dominate the market in such a way as to stifle innovation?
Because it is a troll. It's an ignorant and baseless troll. Vista looks nothing like OS X. While OSX is all cheesy brushed metal and cheesy woodgrain, Vista is just transparent black. OSX has little circles on the left side of the menu bar, Vista has giant rectangles on the right side of the menu bar. OS X has cheesy flying icon effects when you click on them, Vista just highlights an icon if you click on it. There really is no similarity between Vista and OSX.
It's pretty much a given that slashdotters are probably the least knowledgable people on the internet when it come to software. Just look at the comments above to verify that. While Microsoft is releasing an excellent OS, slashdotters are too ignorant to do anything but post shots of Windows 95 BSOD. When was the last time you got a BSOD that wasn't a driver's fault? You're Linux people, you should know that drivers are evil. Hell, Linux is pretty much useless if you want to take advantage of your hardware, but don't blame Linux, don't blame the distros, blame the big evil driver manufacturers. Not only that, but it's apparent that most people here have no idea what is in Vista and don't really care. There are morons posting the 60% rewrite myth that anyone with half a brain could tell is a dirty lie. Slashdot should just stick to sycophantic raving about the latest 2.16.19 or the kool new effects in Xgl/Compiz.
"The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education"
Obviously you've been following his advice. You've gotta be functionally disabled to believe that myth. It's just a dirty unproven lie that the morons keep repeating.
I'd say you're definitely right on this one. Linux is nothing but a pain in the ass while XP has never BSOD on me. Linux seems to be about the least stable and functional kernel availible.
I agree that there seems to be a general disinterest both in the real comptuer industry and in the underground sweatshops where open source programmers work. I'm not sure whether it's a lack of ability or a lack of caring, but it seems like X11 particularly ignores every video card advancement that's been made in the last 30 years. The only thing that looks good is command line.
Good point, I hate it when it decides to correct my crappy spelling. I also hate it when it changes the time on the clock, I should have to go in an change the clock every second of every day.
Perhaps your computer is borked in some other way because Vista runs great on my hardware (Pentium M 760/Go-6800/1gb). Maybe your Athlon XP just can't compete with my notebook processor.
Are you serious? Most people in the non 1337 haxor world prefer that when they get a computer it will already be able to do most of the things they need it to do. Thus an OS should come with a browser, media player, mail client, and some rudimentary text and image editing software. If they started selling Windows Media Player separately people would accuse them of being greedy and wanting money for something that should be free. I'm afraid you just don't get it. This isn't 1989....your computer should do things out of the box instead of just staring at you blankly blinking the cursor.
How the hell can Microsoft be expected to sell it's OS without any extras while the other companies selling OSs bundle all sorts of shiat with them. OS X comes with Quicktime 7, Safari, Apple Mail, and the whole iLife thing. Those are all types of things that Microsoft has been threatened with a lawsuit because it includes them in Windows. Apple takes it a step further and bundles their hardware with their software. If Microsoft did something like that, they'd be driven out of the country by screaming zealots. Why can't people just leave them be for once?
Slashdot Mirror
Have you looked at HoTMail recently? I'm beta testing the Live version of Hotmail and I gotta say it's pretty sweet. Not only is it very attractive, but the spam filtering is as good or better than that on my gmail account. It also has lots of cool features and is very well integrated similarly to the Outlook on the Web that many companies use for their Exchange servers. Gmail is frustrating because I keep getting the same exact spam messages word for word though I've marked them as spam about 60 times at this point. I was going to use my Gmail only for family communication so I didn't give it to anyone, but it somehow managed to pick up a spammer anyway. In addition, at one point Gmail decided to just stop sending or recieving email from and for my mom's account. Luckily she has an old Hotmail account or she would've been sunk. I'm not sure that this complaining about Hotmail isn't just the typical knee jerk reaction to anything Microsoft. Here, if you've got Hotmail, check out this site about Windows Live. I'm not sure if you can still sign up for the beta, but definitely give it a try. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5 d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d
Granted, Autocad was a horrible example. A better one is Cakewalk Sonar. Sonar V4 is $149. However, if 1000 people download it using bit torrent, that's $149000 that the company hasn't made. I don't think $149 is an unrealistic cost for Sonar and I think if you really want it you can and should work for the money to pay for it. And I think if you pirate it, you should get some form of punshment.
I'm confused though, how does piracy not harm anyone? For every install of Autocad 2007 that is downloaded, $3995 less goes to the hardworking employees of autocad. If people know that they're gonna get really punished for piracy, then perhaps they'll think twice before depriving the programmers and their families the money which they think they deserve for the product they create. I'm really not certain how people can seriously justify downloading illegal copies of a product as if it's the company's fault for selling an expensive product.
It seems that piracy is an intricate topic. I have to agree in some part with the software and music companies who want harsh punishments for piracy because they have legitimate gripes. There are people who would claim that the music/software/movie industries have flawed business models and that's the reason for piracy. While the inordinate cost of some of a new album or game is really disturbing, I think many people who pirate these products do so not because the price is too high, but because they'd just rather not spend the money if they don't have to. They're basically kleptomaniacs. Germany went way overboard with the two years in prison thing, but there needs to be some form of punishment for people who deprive software developers of the free market values of their products. Then there's that intricacy again. It may be that the "free market" isn't free at all because the software vendors/RIAA have such a dominance on the market that they can afford to charge crazy amounts of money. So where is the balance between giving people the money they deserve for their creations while making sure they don't dominate the market in such a way as to stifle innovation?
How is this funny?
Because it is a troll. It's an ignorant and baseless troll. Vista looks nothing like OS X. While OSX is all cheesy brushed metal and cheesy woodgrain, Vista is just transparent black. OSX has little circles on the left side of the menu bar, Vista has giant rectangles on the right side of the menu bar. OS X has cheesy flying icon effects when you click on them, Vista just highlights an icon if you click on it. There really is no similarity between Vista and OSX.
It's pretty much a given that slashdotters are probably the least knowledgable people on the internet when it come to software. Just look at the comments above to verify that. While Microsoft is releasing an excellent OS, slashdotters are too ignorant to do anything but post shots of Windows 95 BSOD. When was the last time you got a BSOD that wasn't a driver's fault? You're Linux people, you should know that drivers are evil. Hell, Linux is pretty much useless if you want to take advantage of your hardware, but don't blame Linux, don't blame the distros, blame the big evil driver manufacturers. Not only that, but it's apparent that most people here have no idea what is in Vista and don't really care. There are morons posting the 60% rewrite myth that anyone with half a brain could tell is a dirty lie. Slashdot should just stick to sycophantic raving about the latest 2.16.19 or the kool new effects in Xgl/Compiz.
"The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education" Obviously you've been following his advice. You've gotta be functionally disabled to believe that myth. It's just a dirty unproven lie that the morons keep repeating.
Your machine is a POS. My laptop loads Vista faster than it loads the newest flight of Ubuntu Dapper.
I'd say you're definitely right on this one. Linux is nothing but a pain in the ass while XP has never BSOD on me. Linux seems to be about the least stable and functional kernel availible.
I agree that there seems to be a general disinterest both in the real comptuer industry and in the underground sweatshops where open source programmers work. I'm not sure whether it's a lack of ability or a lack of caring, but it seems like X11 particularly ignores every video card advancement that's been made in the last 30 years. The only thing that looks good is command line.
Good point, I hate it when it decides to correct my crappy spelling. I also hate it when it changes the time on the clock, I should have to go in an change the clock every second of every day.
Perhaps your computer is borked in some other way because Vista runs great on my hardware (Pentium M 760/Go-6800/1gb). Maybe your Athlon XP just can't compete with my notebook processor.
As will all other next generation OSs which want to display Blu Ray or HDDVD content.
Are you serious? Most people in the non 1337 haxor world prefer that when they get a computer it will already be able to do most of the things they need it to do. Thus an OS should come with a browser, media player, mail client, and some rudimentary text and image editing software. If they started selling Windows Media Player separately people would accuse them of being greedy and wanting money for something that should be free. I'm afraid you just don't get it. This isn't 1989....your computer should do things out of the box instead of just staring at you blankly blinking the cursor.
How the hell can Microsoft be expected to sell it's OS without any extras while the other companies selling OSs bundle all sorts of shiat with them. OS X comes with Quicktime 7, Safari, Apple Mail, and the whole iLife thing. Those are all types of things that Microsoft has been threatened with a lawsuit because it includes them in Windows. Apple takes it a step further and bundles their hardware with their software. If Microsoft did something like that, they'd be driven out of the country by screaming zealots. Why can't people just leave them be for once?