This is not completely true. There were plenty of platform tools (designed by Microsoft) that allowed you to write programs that didn't work this way. And it certainly was NOT a prerequisite to certification.
If a car company builds a car and sells it to a customer then they drive it do we fault them? How about if the car blows up when it is hit from the rear? Do we blame them? How about if they know about it and drive it anyway (though they didn't know when the bought it)? How many of them would know about it and know how to find out about the fact that the car blows up when hit from behind? Does the family of the first incident tell everyone in the world personally? Do we expect everyone to go out and find every defect in the car that might potentially cause the car to fail resulting in a tragic death?
The point here is pretty damn clear and you should know well enough, period. NO, not everyone is nor will be expected to know about the issues with their computer. They buy it as they would any other device, such as a camera and use it as it was intended, as it was designed.
Microsoft designed the OS this way and thus these are the faults of Microsoft. One has to at least contemplate that the EULA was written primarily to cover them on this one issue alone.
When the iPhones began to overheat and some stated that it cause them to explode next to their head is everyone supposed to stop using the iPhone? How about all those Powerbooks that caught fire? Or how about the idea that all the use of cell phones could potentially cause the consumer to suffer brain cancer tumors?
We can't expect every consumer to know about these things. Even for a technical person knowing what is the cause is difficult. Which site did they visit? How are updates done? How about the size of the updates? How about making their computer worse by installing those things that are supposed to protect them (slow downs, incompatibilities, etc).
I find it difficult to believe that anyone would blame the average user for this stuff. Shift the blame back where it belongs--squarely in the software developer's lap.
One update that is damned to hell will damn a lot of time to hell too. Heh. Automatic isn't always best. That's why we don't let Microsoft just update our software any old time they want.
And this number is off by a large factor as compared to other sites that collect information from 20,000 websites over an 8-10 year period. Those other site statistics show Linux in the 4-5% market share and the Mac in the 3% share. So, how come they are different?
We can even evaluate this ourselves. What is 92% of 1 billion computers? 920,000,000 computers. That leaves 80 million to the rest of the crowd. That itself is impossible as Linux has about 100 million users world-wide. The Mac, at the time of the iPhone introduction had 20 million active OSX based Macs. That was 2-3 years ago. Apple's share has grown and so has Linux. Clearly the numbers show a much greater share than 1%.
I have 13 computers using Linux and 3 using OSX with an iPhone to boot. I doubt I have been counted on any of those machines. I also have 5 Vista machines and one Win7 machine.
Those data are not valid. There are sites that have collected this data for the past 8-10 years which show that Linux has over 4% of the market while Mac has less. The data from those sites are collected from over 20,000 popular sites (not targeted toward the benefits of one OS). For instance, a gaming site would likely have a huge bent toward Windows whereas Linux and Mac would barely show as a blip. Please use the sites that are non-biased even in an inadvertent way.
You were fair in your assessment until you disrespected Linux. What you don't understand is that people upgrade due to benefits. 9.10 adds some nice features over 9.04 as 10.04 will add nice benefits over 9.10. Linux is a solid and stable OS with great features without huge hardware requirements and little to no malicious software to get in the way.
If they don't offer a refund on software you didn't choose to have then don't buy from them. If they don't offer a unit without an OS don't buy from them. ASUS is ripping you off and it is absolutely a unfair refund price. They are cheating you. Don't buy from them.
This is completely false and specious. Ubuntu is about giving you complete choice. Yes, it is more than just the OS, but it is the most common used programs that are most popular by the general Ubuntu using person. It is not adware of any kind nor is it junkware.
Even if he chose the express option he had every right to expect that his current search engine would not be altered. You ever try doing this for customers day after day? It gets tedious.
And, let's not forget that Microsoft is a junk software provider to companies such as HP, Dell, Gateway--which means they put their trial/junkware on those computers, get their MSN (and/or Yahoo) as the defaults for many choices, including Bing as the search engine.
The points everyone are making sufficiently describe a mechanism that doesn't lend itself to the consumer having made the choice, but Microsoft and others having made the choice for them. Clearly this is represented in almost every post here, including those supporting Microsoft's actions.
It's a matter of playing with words and deeds. They knew by adding junk search engines, ones not widely used and centered that page on their search choice people are likely to chose theirs rather than searching further. By adding those joke search engines to the first page (by virtue of altering the sort order), they effectively reduce choice and thus pull the selection away from Google. Just like in the phone book in the Dex ads. You want your name to be first. That's why they have AAAA Insurance, and AAA Insurance, and on and on.
Microsoft's live essentials is one of the biggest culprits as you are offered it in so many ways and all it does is install junk that substitutes for what you probably already have been using. Not to mention it is pure fluff but people want it because it gives them the feeling that they are getting something nice and integrated for free.
Open office does not install the Google toolbar it installs the JAVA VM, and the JAVA VM installer by default installs Yahoo or MSN.
Firefox does not add any toolbars for any OS (Linux, OSX or Windows). It does have Google set as the default search engine, though it is infinitely easier to change Firefox's search engine than it is to change to Google from within IE8.
This is not true. Java VM installs doesn't give Google as the default, neither does the Adobe PDF reader. In fact, Java offers yahoo.com and/or the msn toolbars as the choice, with it selected.
And for those of you that don't understand this, it really isn't useful to have a toolbar of any type installed, including Google. All those toolbars do is give you a few buttons and a search box in exchange for allowing them to track you and to present you with ads. Essentially I'm saying, remove all your toolbars as they have no real value to you. We all would be shocked if most of you even considered clicking on the buttons on those toolbars, so just get rid of them.
Bing is not as popular as you may think from this headline. What most people don't know, including virtually every/. reader is that the sheer number of bing users depends almost exclusively on the fact that Microsoft's IE browser is set with bing as the default search engine. As most of you don't know or refuse to acknowledge is that most people have no idea how it was put there nor how to change it to their search engine of choice. This is a fact.
When you install IE you are almost guaranteed to get bing as your default search engine--or Live Search--meaning that this is not the choice of the consumer, rather it is Microsoft counting on the fact that their monopoly can virtually guarantee that they get the initial attention of the users. Add a little fluff such as pictures and you might keep those users.
It is hard for those of us in the know to take the time to undo the sheer number of these presets. If you look at IE8, upon your first start, you are asked so many questions that the average consumer will just take the default. If you fail to select custom and later decide to add a search engine such as Google you'll find it is buried under various web pages. One viewing the default web page for choosing a different search engine is given so many other choices that they don't know enough and just choose a few off that first page, including Microsoft's bing.
So, in reality, it isn't that people are choosing bing, it is that it is being chosen for them. They are encumbered by the prompts and lack of choices at the start of the IE8 that they just don't adjust to the preference they'd best be served by.
Add to that the number of times that you've had to go through IE installs (7 and then 8 and now the future 9) and you can guess that there's a chance of greater probability that you'll get bing set up as your default search engine.
Originally, the web page for selecting a different search engine had Google listed on the first page yet further down the page. Now, it isn't even evident that Google is a choice for the average user even when reading the description.
You could probably get a different picture if you chose to check the number of Firefox (and/or other alternative browsers) users that use bing as their search engine.
The same could have been said of Standard Oil, yet you don't see the near total reversal of that case. And "a drastically altered scope of liability" could be completely valid for the ruling in the case. The DOJ which is part of the Administration made a decision rather than taking the case further. So, it was a choice and not a matter of law.
I completely understand it. The opposite process is inferior. You have to be kidding us with your worthless diatribe. Release often and early is fantastically superior to the closed source way.
Any admittance by Microsoft that they had would probably be deemed by the US government as a national security threat. Thus they are probably prohibited from saying anything other than a denial.
This is a company that was convicted of predatory criminal monopolistic practices. They were nearly torn in two. Suddenly it all ended for them as if it never happened and they came through with a sweet deal that gave them even greater market share for products (via their voucher system).
This same company holds the keys to 90% of the world's computers. The NSA has the dubious role of the most massive electronic communication surveillance entity in the world, of the world. Those two joined mean something other than what that denial professes.
You can rightfully imagine the dismay about their disclosure for any foreign government.
If you think there is going to be a serious threat of cyber-attack in the next 20 years, then you are more paranoid than all the tin hat wearing conspiracy theorists in all existence (past and present). At least, give the world those 20 years to undo that monopoly instead of using American tax payer dollars propping up that criminally convicted predatory monopolist.
None of my machines (13 of them) demonstrate the lag he describes while typing. An SSD won't solve the problem for him. And to QCompson, that's not an endorsement. That guy was listing a unrealistic option most people would never choose.
The problem with the opposite of the "release early, release often" is that products with bugs stay full of bugs for a long time and the customer doesn't realize there are bug fixes when they do arrive.
I use KDE 4.3.x on all my computers that run linux (approximately 13 of them). There are still some very annoying yet obvious bugs that one would expect them to have resolved some time ago (one example is a scrollbar on the right hand side of the desktop window (folder view) that shows up on virtually everyone of my computers when the desktop loads). There are many others too. It's almost as if they are treating folder view as a red-headed stepchild--whereas frankly I can't imagine them even considering their other view as a viable product design choice. It's the fact that they made the desktop view's desktop folder a full screen folder that causes the scrollbar. It was a bad design choice and it will bite them in the ass as KDE 4.3.x gains momentum.
A couple more would be the slowness of kwin (though it is getting better it is still very slow) and the fact that when I save a file to the desktop icons frequently don't appear, but if I open my home folder then the desktop folder I can see those icons. Another would be that when you hover over a folder the contents are displayed in a popup window and there's no way to turn that off--often it gets in the way of the copy or move process and shows up in the wrong place on the desktop. Another is that when you try to use KDE to share a folder using the folder sharing facility it doesn't work and never has. I could go on. Maybe some of you others have experienced this stuff too. Maybe some of you have answers for us. But, it is messy and needs refinements more than we need more features. They should focus on refinements for the next few releases and then add features after that.
I like the implementation of KDE. Overall, aside from the annoying obvious bugs it is a killer desktop manager, especially on a wide screen display. On a fast computer it runs very well. On a somewhat slower computer that's another story, but without kwin it runs decently. For the life of me though I can't understand why a modern desktop ignores the screensaver aspect and why the power management is so poorly designed. I have to go to no less than 4 screens to adjust power management (or turn it off).
I like dolphin but when I try to rename a file and the characters of the name are highlighted I can't right click on them to choose to cut, etc. Instead it pops up the normal context menu for that directory entry. Though, I do like dolphin. It has nice features, is relatively fast and simple and can be customized with many options.
I think they should implement jumplists like Win7. That'd be a nice addition to the mix.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not completely true. There were plenty of platform tools (designed by Microsoft) that allowed you to write programs that didn't work this way. And it certainly was NOT a prerequisite to certification.
If a car company builds a car and sells it to a customer then they drive it do we fault them? How about if the car blows up when it is hit from the rear? Do we blame them? How about if they know about it and drive it anyway (though they didn't know when the bought it)? How many of them would know about it and know how to find out about the fact that the car blows up when hit from behind? Does the family of the first incident tell everyone in the world personally? Do we expect everyone to go out and find every defect in the car that might potentially cause the car to fail resulting in a tragic death?
The point here is pretty damn clear and you should know well enough, period. NO, not everyone is nor will be expected to know about the issues with their computer. They buy it as they would any other device, such as a camera and use it as it was intended, as it was designed.
Microsoft designed the OS this way and thus these are the faults of Microsoft. One has to at least contemplate that the EULA was written primarily to cover them on this one issue alone.
When the iPhones began to overheat and some stated that it cause them to explode next to their head is everyone supposed to stop using the iPhone? How about all those Powerbooks that caught fire? Or how about the idea that all the use of cell phones could potentially cause the consumer to suffer brain cancer tumors?
We can't expect every consumer to know about these things. Even for a technical person knowing what is the cause is difficult. Which site did they visit? How are updates done? How about the size of the updates? How about making their computer worse by installing those things that are supposed to protect them (slow downs, incompatibilities, etc).
I find it difficult to believe that anyone would blame the average user for this stuff. Shift the blame back where it belongs--squarely in the software developer's lap.
The obvious reply is "average people don't need nor use, nor ever will use or need" active directory.
One update that is damned to hell will damn a lot of time to hell too. Heh. Automatic isn't always best. That's why we don't let Microsoft just update our software any old time they want.
And I don't think there are 487 billion copies of Windows.
And this number is off by a large factor as compared to other sites that collect information from 20,000 websites over an 8-10 year period. Those other site statistics show Linux in the 4-5% market share and the Mac in the 3% share. So, how come they are different?
We can even evaluate this ourselves. What is 92% of 1 billion computers? 920,000,000 computers. That leaves 80 million to the rest of the crowd. That itself is impossible as Linux has about 100 million users world-wide. The Mac, at the time of the iPhone introduction had 20 million active OSX based Macs. That was 2-3 years ago. Apple's share has grown and so has Linux. Clearly the numbers show a much greater share than 1%.
I have 13 computers using Linux and 3 using OSX with an iPhone to boot. I doubt I have been counted on any of those machines. I also have 5 Vista machines and one Win7 machine.
Those data are not valid. There are sites that have collected this data for the past 8-10 years which show that Linux has over 4% of the market while Mac has less. The data from those sites are collected from over 20,000 popular sites (not targeted toward the benefits of one OS). For instance, a gaming site would likely have a huge bent toward Windows whereas Linux and Mac would barely show as a blip. Please use the sites that are non-biased even in an inadvertent way.
You were fair in your assessment until you disrespected Linux. What you don't understand is that people upgrade due to benefits. 9.10 adds some nice features over 9.04 as 10.04 will add nice benefits over 9.10. Linux is a solid and stable OS with great features without huge hardware requirements and little to no malicious software to get in the way.
Not interested in QT3 and not gtk. QT4 is where they should be now. This is silly of them to implement a depricating library.
If they don't offer a refund on software you didn't choose to have then don't buy from them. If they don't offer a unit without an OS don't buy from them. ASUS is ripping you off and it is absolutely a unfair refund price. They are cheating you. Don't buy from them.
NO SciFi has not, but lets all hope deep down in our heart and with all the intellect we can muster that SyFy has.
This is completely false and specious. Ubuntu is about giving you complete choice. Yes, it is more than just the OS, but it is the most common used programs that are most popular by the general Ubuntu using person. It is not adware of any kind nor is it junkware.
Even if he chose the express option he had every right to expect that his current search engine would not be altered. You ever try doing this for customers day after day? It gets tedious.
And, let's not forget that Microsoft is a junk software provider to companies such as HP, Dell, Gateway--which means they put their trial/junkware on those computers, get their MSN (and/or Yahoo) as the defaults for many choices, including Bing as the search engine.
The points everyone are making sufficiently describe a mechanism that doesn't lend itself to the consumer having made the choice, but Microsoft and others having made the choice for them. Clearly this is represented in almost every post here, including those supporting Microsoft's actions.
It's a matter of playing with words and deeds. They knew by adding junk search engines, ones not widely used and centered that page on their search choice people are likely to chose theirs rather than searching further. By adding those joke search engines to the first page (by virtue of altering the sort order), they effectively reduce choice and thus pull the selection away from Google. Just like in the phone book in the Dex ads. You want your name to be first. That's why they have AAAA Insurance, and AAA Insurance, and on and on.
Microsoft's live essentials is one of the biggest culprits as you are offered it in so many ways and all it does is install junk that substitutes for what you probably already have been using. Not to mention it is pure fluff but people want it because it gives them the feeling that they are getting something nice and integrated for free.
Open office does not install the Google toolbar it installs the JAVA VM, and the JAVA VM installer by default installs Yahoo or MSN.
Firefox does not add any toolbars for any OS (Linux, OSX or Windows). It does have Google set as the default search engine, though it is infinitely easier to change Firefox's search engine than it is to change to Google from within IE8.
This is not true. Java VM installs doesn't give Google as the default, neither does the Adobe PDF reader. In fact, Java offers yahoo.com and/or the msn toolbars as the choice, with it selected.
And for those of you that don't understand this, it really isn't useful to have a toolbar of any type installed, including Google. All those toolbars do is give you a few buttons and a search box in exchange for allowing them to track you and to present you with ads. Essentially I'm saying, remove all your toolbars as they have no real value to you. We all would be shocked if most of you even considered clicking on the buttons on those toolbars, so just get rid of them.
Bing is not as popular as you may think from this headline. What most people don't know, including virtually every /. reader is that the sheer number of bing users depends almost exclusively on the fact that Microsoft's IE browser is set with bing as the default search engine. As most of you don't know or refuse to acknowledge is that most people have no idea how it was put there nor how to change it to their search engine of choice. This is a fact.
When you install IE you are almost guaranteed to get bing as your default search engine--or Live Search--meaning that this is not the choice of the consumer, rather it is Microsoft counting on the fact that their monopoly can virtually guarantee that they get the initial attention of the users. Add a little fluff such as pictures and you might keep those users.
It is hard for those of us in the know to take the time to undo the sheer number of these presets. If you look at IE8, upon your first start, you are asked so many questions that the average consumer will just take the default. If you fail to select custom and later decide to add a search engine such as Google you'll find it is buried under various web pages. One viewing the default web page for choosing a different search engine is given so many other choices that they don't know enough and just choose a few off that first page, including Microsoft's bing.
So, in reality, it isn't that people are choosing bing, it is that it is being chosen for them. They are encumbered by the prompts and lack of choices at the start of the IE8 that they just don't adjust to the preference they'd best be served by.
Add to that the number of times that you've had to go through IE installs (7 and then 8 and now the future 9) and you can guess that there's a chance of greater probability that you'll get bing set up as your default search engine.
Originally, the web page for selecting a different search engine had Google listed on the first page yet further down the page. Now, it isn't even evident that Google is a choice for the average user even when reading the description.
You could probably get a different picture if you chose to check the number of Firefox (and/or other alternative browsers) users that use bing as their search engine.
He who wins writes history.
The same could have been said of Standard Oil, yet you don't see the near total reversal of that case. And "a drastically altered scope of liability" could be completely valid for the ruling in the case. The DOJ which is part of the Administration made a decision rather than taking the case further. So, it was a choice and not a matter of law.
I completely understand it. The opposite process is inferior. You have to be kidding us with your worthless diatribe. Release often and early is fantastically superior to the closed source way.
Any admittance by Microsoft that they had would probably be deemed by the US government as a national security threat. Thus they are probably prohibited from saying anything other than a denial.
This is a company that was convicted of predatory criminal monopolistic practices. They were nearly torn in two. Suddenly it all ended for them as if it never happened and they came through with a sweet deal that gave them even greater market share for products (via their voucher system).
This same company holds the keys to 90% of the world's computers. The NSA has the dubious role of the most massive electronic communication surveillance entity in the world, of the world. Those two joined mean something other than what that denial professes.
You can rightfully imagine the dismay about their disclosure for any foreign government.
If you think there is going to be a serious threat of cyber-attack in the next 20 years, then you are more paranoid than all the tin hat wearing conspiracy theorists in all existence (past and present). At least, give the world those 20 years to undo that monopoly instead of using American tax payer dollars propping up that criminally convicted predatory monopolist.
A project is dead when it makes no advances or no significant advances.
I've seen gnome 3's screen shots. I'm unimpressed with their whole direction. For me that direction is a total loss.
I stopped using gnome when kde 4.2 came out. I am glad I made the switch. I'd used gnome for 3 years prior. I haven't looked back since.
None of my machines (13 of them) demonstrate the lag he describes while typing. An SSD won't solve the problem for him. And to QCompson, that's not an endorsement. That guy was listing a unrealistic option most people would never choose.
The problem with the opposite of the "release early, release often" is that products with bugs stay full of bugs for a long time and the customer doesn't realize there are bug fixes when they do arrive.
I use KDE 4.3.x on all my computers that run linux (approximately 13 of them). There are still some very annoying yet obvious bugs that one would expect them to have resolved some time ago (one example is a scrollbar on the right hand side of the desktop window (folder view) that shows up on virtually everyone of my computers when the desktop loads). There are many others too. It's almost as if they are treating folder view as a red-headed stepchild--whereas frankly I can't imagine them even considering their other view as a viable product design choice. It's the fact that they made the desktop view's desktop folder a full screen folder that causes the scrollbar. It was a bad design choice and it will bite them in the ass as KDE 4.3.x gains momentum.
A couple more would be the slowness of kwin (though it is getting better it is still very slow) and the fact that when I save a file to the desktop icons frequently don't appear, but if I open my home folder then the desktop folder I can see those icons. Another would be that when you hover over a folder the contents are displayed in a popup window and there's no way to turn that off--often it gets in the way of the copy or move process and shows up in the wrong place on the desktop. Another is that when you try to use KDE to share a folder using the folder sharing facility it doesn't work and never has. I could go on. Maybe some of you others have experienced this stuff too. Maybe some of you have answers for us. But, it is messy and needs refinements more than we need more features. They should focus on refinements for the next few releases and then add features after that.
I like the implementation of KDE. Overall, aside from the annoying obvious bugs it is a killer desktop manager, especially on a wide screen display. On a fast computer it runs very well. On a somewhat slower computer that's another story, but without kwin it runs decently. For the life of me though I can't understand why a modern desktop ignores the screensaver aspect and why the power management is so poorly designed. I have to go to no less than 4 screens to adjust power management (or turn it off).
I like dolphin but when I try to rename a file and the characters of the name are highlighted I can't right click on them to choose to cut, etc. Instead it pops up the normal context menu for that directory entry. Though, I do like dolphin. It has nice features, is relatively fast and simple and can be customized with many options.
I think they should implement jumplists like Win7. That'd be a nice addition to the mix.
You have missed the point completely. It's like Walmart paying you not to shop at their competitors so they can build market share.