Everything I've seen in Vista so far is essentially XP with SP3. This is a no brainer for virtually everyone. I've had it up and running the day after it went publicly beta and have used it extensively comparing the old way and the new way. This is XP with SP3 security. How on earth could this cost them between 8 and 9 billion dollars? The vast majority of this has to be in writing their proprietary DRM systems and all the supporting mechanism.
I'm not willing to pay $200-400 for this when it won't even support good old standard hardware found in every day machines. Forget about the AERO interface on the vast majority of notebooks being sold today. The Aero interface doesn't even support most average 128mb video cards. Companies like nVidia aren't going to go back and implement drivers for older cards for XP when they've a policy of removing support from modern drivers.
A gforce 4200 ti with 128 mb ram won't work with the AERO interface. Requiring people to double or even quadruple their RAM to run it is way out there.
Delay the thing and give us more than just a newer version of XP with more security--when you consider that we already paid for the security to begin with. If Microsoft hadn't been so negligent in the way they designed XP we'd not have the security problems we have today.
For goodness sake--9 billion dollars for XP with SP3? That's just outrageous. To demand we spend serious dollars upgrading our hardware for XP with SP3 and a different looking interface (which does exactly the same thing as XP) is a too big of a demand for most people. Let's get real, most people don't need Vista and almost no one needs to relearn the whole interface because Microsoft wants to redesign the interface without menus.
XP is here for a long time to come. To arbitrarily cancel it 2 years after Vista comes out is sort of like price-fixing--considering Microsoft is a monopoly.
WGN is like being frisked every time you leave the store. Once Microsoft does this then every single software vendor will do it. Expect to see 15-30 different notification programs running on your computer checking back with their servers.
If I was frisked yesterday and found to be legit and frisked two weeks ago and found to be legit, why do I need to be frisked again? My system doesn't change that much daily, weekly, or monthly. This is a given, it is no brainer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this. 90% of us have legit licenses. 100% of us will be frisked even though 90% of us have already proven our reputation.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen stole computer time from Harvard to write an emulator for the processor used in the MITS Altair computer. Then they stole more time to write the basic programming language for the processor. They then licensed it to MITS and used that to fund the growth of Microsoft. Bill Gates openly wrote a nasty letter to the computer club accusing them of stealing their software. Bill Gates flaunted his willingess to violate the laws by speeding, and getting caught so many times he was hauled in and arrested.
When I was found legit yesterday, last week, two weeks ago, etc., there's no reason to believe that I am not going to remain legit. Any attempt to monitor me is an invasion of my privacy at that point. Any continued monitoring is an accusation that I will give my code to others to use and hence am aiding them in their theft, thus making me a theif.
Bottom line, this form of monitoring is akin to calling me a thief even though I have been proven to not be a thief. To put this software on my computers when I do not wish it is bad. To monitor me without my consent is bad. To do is is to become a malware program.
A decade ago we told Microsoft and the others that we did NOT want this stuff on our computers. If anything they are certainly persistent.
Vista has this built into it. But XP is allegedly going out and Vista coming in. Why so much effort in protecting XP when it is allegedly to die in a couple of years? The reason is that Vista is XP with a different interface and heirarchy. Underlying it is the same OS as XP with that change and some security that prompts you upon every change to your system. Oddly enough this is how Linux and OSX do it. Because they are basically the same OS there's really NO need to update to Vista.
Off topic: if you look at the trash can in Vista you'll note that the icon is taken almost directly from the linux community. Pretty sad.
I have 20+ licenses of Windows XP. I have used Windows from the beginning. I have been in the computer industry for over 20 years. I was an early adopter of DOS. I used wordstar, wordperfect, lotus 123, etc., back when they were the kings. I was an early adopter of Windows 286/386 and encouraged everyone to switch to the Windows like environments. I spent a great deal of time promoting the types of environments that allowed for programs to have similar interfaces because DOS programs all had different interfaces and that alone was hurting the acceptance of computers in the average home and business.
I have followed the history of Microsoft and read a tremendous number of books over the past 20 years on the making of the software industry, which, BTW, is more than just Microsoft.
I use Windows every day on all my computers except a couple of Macintoshes I have except for 2 years where I used Linux as my desktop and server platforms. I did this because I wanted to commit to learning Linux.
I do not use Linux now and I have not had it installed on any of my computers for quite some time.
I have Vista installed on one of my computers and have gone through it pretty thoroughly. I have paid particular attention to what is different between the two and what is not. Visually, the interface looks different but functionally it is the same operating system as XP, period. Even some of the screens within Vista still show the old XP screenshots.
Vista does have a 3d accelerated interface but that is not a necessary part and it does not distinguish it as being a different OS. The desktop paradigm is exactly the same except things have been modified to give it a different tree structure (menus, dialog boxes, control panel) but the functionality is almost identical.
Vista is XP with a more complex interface with 3d effects. The over heirarchy has changed but underlying it is still XP. They have incorporated a security feature which prompts you to authorize every change but that is not enough to qualify it as anything more than a security SP, of which it is very similar to the way Linux does it. It certainly is like the Macintosh OSX does it, but those don't define the OS.
The idea that your purport is that everyone should be searched every time they leave a store with my groceries just so that the store owners can ensure that no one is leaving the store with pilfered goods. Windows doesn't change from day to day. This means that when I activate and I validate I have indicated my willingness to be searched and to show Microsoft my good reputation. When they still insist on searching everyone every day just to catch the thief that may be stealing their software, even though my computer doesn't change that often (from day to day, week to week, or even month to month). In other words, if they know I am legit yesterday or two weeks ago, there's no reason for me to keep allowing them to search me to ensure I am legit today. If they continue this behavior and they know I was legit yesterday and two weeks ago then the only conclusion is that I am somehow distributing my code to others so they can install and hence I am aiding them in their theft, making me an alleged thief.
You're misled about how much Bill Gates donates. His Foundation has approximatley $1 billion anually. Bill and Melinda only donate a portion of that. Most of it is from other sources. All foundations are like that. Bill's portion is probably only a small percentage. This leaves him in the position of having nearly 50 billion dollars in wealth. Although he doesn't keep making that much every year he also doesn't receive that much in cash and his income comes in in different ways. In essence, he's using the foundation, just like all rich people do, to pay that money to charity instead of paying it to the government. As we all know the write off allowed by the government is typically higher than which a person would pay in taxes, due to how it changes your position on the tax tables. So, yes, he's coming out ahead this way instead of paying the money directly to the government where he probably would end up paying more overall.
First of all, it is going on everyone's computer, not just the pirated copies. It isn't just checking once, as it should. It is checking all the time.
This is the equivalent of calling you a thief every time it checks. Listen, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that when they check you today and you are legit and then they continue to check you repeatedly, they are accusing you of being a thief.
One time. The WGA notification is not a program I will allow on my computer. I purchased my 20+ licenses. I don't expect Microsoft to make me feel, as a small business owner, as if I am a thief.
I don't care about protecting Microsoft. I could care less about them and their profit. They pocket so much of that profit anyway instead of putting it back into development.
Microsoft's Vista is nothing more than XP with a new interface paradigm. Other than that new look they have cut all the meat out of the new features so as to make it a "no go" on the upgrade path. Everyone needs to understand that. Clearly VISTA is XP with a new desktop look. That's it. It isn't worth 200-400 dollars to upgrade.
So, if they make $3 billion in profit quarterly, wheres their loss at? Where's the loss of revenue to those pirates and why should I care less about Microsoft's bottom line.
Stop calling everyone a thief Microsoft.
Microsoft is playing a game with everyone. Over the past year they have been testing, probing, feeling to see how much violation of privacy we will take. Then they devise not just WGA but WGN. The WGN was tested in other countries first because they didn't want the outcry to be too loud from the US too quickly or it would turn the rest of the world off. So they slid their WGN into the EU and Asia in an effort to ensure it got done. Then they released it in the US under the guise that if the rest of the world allowed it and had no issue with it, the US should not either.
But of course, we value our privacy. We recognize that one company siphoning off $3 billion a quarter in profits really should be turning something back to the us. Listen, Bill Gate's donations to charity keep him from having to pay huge amounts of dollars to the government in taxes. This simply allows him to keep more of his money.
I've read the figures about how much his foundation gives, what their yearly budget is. Compared to $3 billion in profit every quarter $1 billion annually (from not just his donations, but others) is nearly nothing. Does he help the people in WA state where he enjoys laws that benefit his profit? From laws that give him tax breaks? Laws that provide him with a workforce that can be forced into 70-80 hours a week without compensation for each hour of work? He gives some money to libraries, schools, etc., but he does nothing for the community.
You can see this. Look at google earth and view the area around the location where his main offices are. There are no real parks, no special services, no assistance to public tranist. Nothing.
The bottom line is that WGN allows him to force purchases by those probably too poor to purchase his expensive OS already. XP costs alot of money for some. It is due to his monopoly that allows the OS to stay as highly priced as it is. Now he wants us all to upgrade to Vista which to anyone with a brain knows that it is just XP SP3. The security features could/should be incorporated into XP considering how much money we all paid for it and how irresponsible Microsoft has been toward the security of the OS, even after 2 years where they know that spyware/malware is so bad that even their head of the department for developing anti-spyware/malware tools tell us it is impossible to resolve all the problems and that we are just going to have to reformat every so often just to keep a safe secure system.
They'll justify Vista as a security fix when everyone realizes that Vista is just XP with a new interface and a huge increase in hardware requirements forced generally due to DRM implementations
Except for the whole slew of arguments about why 70% of the population quit EQ at the first possible alternative, which just happened to be WoW. Sony became arrogant toward it's customers and that pretty much ended the loyalty of the vast majority of it's long term initial customers. I stayed with EQ for almost 5 years. 3 of them were playing a massive number of hours. The friends I made kept me there. Sony drove me away with their idea of the "holy trinity" which means that if you are not one of the classes included in the holy trinity (healer, enchanter, warrior), you might as well just consider yourself extra baggage.
It was an up and down ride where Sony expected every weak and underpowered class to buy the next expansion just to come a tad bit closer to balance whilst never ever really achieving it. The response from Sony was always: oh, you are weak? Buy the expansion and you'll be not so weak.". All the while they were empowering the holy trinity with ever more power.
In the beginning when we were to overcome the planes and then the dragons (or vice versa), it was a tremendous challenge and you made friends and showed off your ability, but also with each expansion those newer players that hadn't been playing nearly as long as you were rained upon with gear 10x better than that which you had when you were their level. All your hard work was for naught.
There were classes in EQ that sat for hours upon hours waiting on groups just to play. No one would invite them because they needed a healer, a warrior, an enchanter. Even if you could accomplish the mission without one or more of them you didn't do as well nor advance as fast nor get the equivalent gear if you happened to be in a balanced group. It was this way for years.
That's why it isn't a good idea to jump on EQ, at least not without understanding the history of the game.
I started out with warcraft and C&C. I then migrated to starcraft. I was really addicted to starcraft because I could play against so many others and show my skills in winning. When EQ came out I dropped it all for that. I played day and night for 3 years. I then stopped and only played once in a while for the next 2 years. When most of my friends that were made during those 3 years stopped playing completely I stopped.
Alot of the reason I stopped playing EQ (a mmorpg) was due to the fact that Sony kept messing with balance and got into the habbit of releasing expansions instead of fixing the game and correcting balance. The game became one of "if you aren't one of classes part of the holy trinity then you are just extra baggage".
The point here is that all MMORPGs will come to an end because of the people that run them will run them into the ground, even Blizzard.
I was searching for different games when a friend suggested I play Counter Strike. I watched him play and said "no". It is too lame, tame, and boring.
I then, about 2.5 years ago, after trying various FPS games (quake III, UT2003/2004, etc.), came across Enemy Territory. It was a free game. I played horribly as I had not really played too many games like it. It took at while and I read a bunch of stuff on line about it and got better. I have stuck with that game over the past 2.5 years. I'm pretty good and this game has alot of replay value. It isn't an adventure and it isn't about quest but it is a game where you accomplish objectives while being thwarted by others. When Quake Wars: Enemy Territory comes out I'll try it.
I have purchased BF2 and a slew of others but the developers keep screwing with the game. They reduced the capabilities of the aircraft, which they should have done, but they should not have reduced the aircraft total hitpoints. That essentially ended the fun for me. I have quake 4 and HL2, and a slew of others but it is the free game which is objective oriented that has kept me playing.
Vista has little to offer other than what they are touting. Vista is most secure in the world. Microsoft has little to offer other than what they are touting.
If you are lucky enough to have seen vista in action you know it is nothing more than XP SP3 with a newer looking interface and a rather annoying prompt for every action security feature.
Microsoft is in the habit of telling half truths. Why would be believe this is any more true. If it is only half true then we are looking at a lie because it certainly can't be 2 times as good as any other OS that's secure.
Highly unlikely that BSD or even the linux community will agree that Microsoft's new interface for XP is anything more than just that.
I'm usually verbose about matters such as this but my personal opinion about what he wrote is that he's full of it. He's their excuse maker. He's the cover up guy feeling he has to justify their inability to produce, even by going so far as to allege everyone else is as bad as they are.
Granted, yes, all that signing off, those meetings, all the chatting, etc is pretty bad, but I know alot of programmers that produced much more than 6,200 lines of working debugged code a year.
Windows is so far behind because they didn't have a good plan and they didn't excute it correctly and the target was moving with Linux and OSX tossing in variables to their mixture.
Microsoft WOULD be in dire straights if they had the same competition back when Windows was first monopolizing the market.
These guys are like the indecision makers who see the moving target and keep reassessing capabilities and features due to that and just can't make a decision on how far to go, when to cut, and when to commit.
They created their early computers not because they wanted to hack nor because they were creative. They did so because computers of the day were huge, costly, and only men in white robes in big business had access to them. Back to the very beginnings of the computer revolution that was the fundamental premise.
Job's motivation was a bit different. He wanted a company and ultimately to be in power. He proved he was up to the task. He was an evangelist not a creator, not an artists, not an engineer, not a programmer.
It certainly would not have affected Jobs and maybe not even Woz, but it would have affected their success had they started in today's atmosphere.
As far as I know Apple still has to contend with its reponsibility toward Darwin. They can't just close it.
You have to remember Jobs was one who lived in a commune after dropping out of college where they had an apple orchard. He dropped acid and did other illicit drugs. When they started Apple he was living with his parents again (they adopted him and his adopted sister). He had his mother making him special foods and he never bathed and cried to get what he wanted. Yes, cried.
On top of that he would go to business meetings with bare feet, unwashed body and clothing, and when they refused his desires he would cry and scream until they let him have what he wanted.
He did change and he is someone that can enrapture you but you have to remember he was a druggy college dropout who rode on the backs of others till he managed a position of power. The reason Apple became what it was is due to an ex-Intel employee who invested and a slew of other managers capable of making a company function. Stop giving Jobs a stature he didn't deserve.
Today he has my respect because he did do what it took to climb back. My hat is off to him, but you guys give him way too much credit for making Apple, and hence too much influence on us as to what he would or would not have done if he were in our position today.
And remember, those arguing that closing the kernel source is wrong and despicable most likely lived that era and know why computers were created to begin with and why so many hate Microsoft for how it does things.
Total feldercarb. Some wanted OSS for hacking the kernel, most just wanted an alternative--even a colorful flashy one included. Stop classifying OSS/Linux/BSD under your zealotryistic banner--it's pathetic and it will kill the long term success of OSS.
Microsoft isn't stupid even if they are copycats. There was a day when Apple sued Microsoft over the use of overlapping windows, etc claiming they held the rights to this IP. The courts ruled against Apple saying that these sorts of things can't be copyrighted even tho they also said that Microsoft had a neverending agreement with Apple that permitted them the rights to use them.
Nonetheless Microsoft has been copying from the Open Source Linux community stealing the ideas from the average Joe and Jane contributing to the projects.
The difference in the past is that Apple was a big company and not some little guy to be walked all over and they did receive compensation. The average contributor doesn't get that compensation from Microsoft yet Microsoft is still taking those ideas and incorporating them into Linux.
Microsoft even admitted that they took these ideas from the Open Source community. We aren't talking about taking source code and modifying it. We are talking about the ideas that make something successful.
Apple tried many years later to sue some hardware vendors that were making iMac look alike machines even tho they were PCs and didn't run OSX nor any Apple OS.
If someone were to mimic the ipod exactly they'd sue them. If someone were to mimic itunes they'd sue over that.
The bottom line is that Apple sues and Microsoft take liberties. Microsoft is taking liberties with Linux and I believe that is the reason they are working for a more amiable stance--to overcome early any cryout about how Microsoft can't invent for itself and it has to take from the little guy all the while threating everyone by calling them either thieves or potential thieves via their WGN (Windows Genuine Notification). Because that's exactly what it is. They are taking the ideas many of which were great ideas and are in turn again telling everyone we are thieves or potential thieves.
Is this unplausable? Is it a direct correlation? Plausible, yes. Direct correlation, probably not, but they are hoping that it will never be connected.
They did something similar in the late 70s and early 80s when they stole computer time from Harvard to make a product that became the funding machine to grow Microsoft all the while writing harrassing letters to member of the Homebrew computer club claiming they were stealing Microsoft's IP.
Remember, key figures are still operating MS that were operating it back then.
I am disgusted by how microsoft has been manipulating this to get it installed. I have never installed this on any computer knowingly and none of my computers is it installed because i have repeatedly told it to uncheck this option when I go for updates.
To get updates you need only to have the validation tool, not the notification.
But Linux is not better, period. Stop trying to sell a messy product as superior to at least one refined in the interface and installation procedures.
I have used linux on all my company machines for several years until the updates got so unwieldly that the environment became unstable. Not to mention the zealots that killed my desire to use it. Not to mention that some distros cost as much over time to use as Windows does to purchase. Not to mention the installation routines are borderline psychotic.
I used apt, yast, etc over those two years with online repositories and there are some inherently nasty resultant consequences of using them.
Now, I dislike Microsoft greatly. They are opening pandora's box on this one. They have bled everyone for more than their fare share of money.
As for the simple minded premise that you can quit using Windows I'd have to say that let's not be so short sighted here. Lots of people are required to use it for work. Lots of people are required to know it for work. Lots of people can only find certain applications for the work they do. It isn't so simple as to say "quit using windows".
Linux is a mess right now. Has been for years. I love it but the reality is it is messy and problemmatic. I'd rather not deal with it. Once Linux (globally) accepts the OSX style application installer then I'll go back. Right now it is just one distro after another besting the other into obscurity.
No one, in violation of any country's laws, should encourage copywrite violation without just cause. But the idea of Captain Copywrite gave me an idea.
Captain copyright should be used by the free and open movement against the lockdown of our rights to fair use, etc. This thread alone shows so many justifications as to why these mega corporations are in such violation of our sensibilities.
Someone should create a mascot in cartoon to push against the likes of the MPAA and RIAA. Those organizations seem to be in the same vein as faciasts in the way they got to power (off the backs of the artists).
It would seem appropriate that we have our own Smokey the Bear or McGruff to make people aware of how these organizations harming the very future of our rights.
Let's get some creative soul to make and market the cartoon character protecting the people from unscrupulous corporations beholden to only their profits.
Google does not own a monopoly in any sphere. You must be ruled a monopoly to be a monopoly by a court of law. Google, from the last statistical results that I remember reading is that it holds some 40% of the market in searches and was near last in portal.
40% tops of anything is no where near a monopoly.
That's much different than 90% of the key technologies that drive the computer and information access.
Project managers under pressure from execs to push out a product. Mostly marketing execs that promised something to higher ups in order to gain favor, bonuses, and raises, and potentially promotions.
Project managers create unrealistic timelines. This pressures programmers and testers.
When products are tested and show problems they determine if a bug is a showstopper or not. If it is not and they can't fix it in time they ship.
Do these people make a conscious decision to ship buggy code? You bet they do. They make them on purpose and in their favor, every time.
Some unknown bugs get through by accident. No ones perfect.
But, every product goes out the door with bugs that they know about and have no intention of fixing right away, if ever.
This absolutely is an issue with the project manager making unrealistic promises to the higher ups in order to gain favor, money, and promotions. I worked for a company that produced software and we knew there were major bugs and these were shipped with the baggage that the tech support would have to deal with the issues.
1) Windows XP does not ship with drivers for products that were released AFTER the OS went gold. No OS does. The benefit of the Linux distro is the frequency of releases. There are drawbacks as well.
Bottom line: don't complain about an OS release that was made before your hardware was released.
2) That's what web sites provide. Information and drivers. So you have to go to the site to get the drivers. That's not unusual nor unacceptable. We all do it, as better drivers are released all the time. Think about all those video card updates from nVidia in the past 2 years. WinXP has been out for roughly 5 years now. You want a 5 year old OS to have drivers for hardware that was released 2 years ago? Complain to the hardware vendors. Even so, they provide you with the drivers, generally through some system restore disc or through a drivers disc provided with the system.
3) Linux distros generally do not provide full featured drivers for every piece of hardware. In fact, they are generally cut down to size and lacking in features. This is a side effect of being open source as commercial products can't give proprietary sections of code to the public when they themselves may be licensing them from other companies. What I find are acceptable drivers under linux but I generally find full featured drivers under windows.
4) After you install Windows then SP2 and go on line to activate you have access to more drivers provided by Microsoft's repository. You will often find drivers not found during the install and microsoft's update will generally detect them. Of course you can't go on line without a network driver or a modem driver but you need to scream at your hardware vendor or your reseller for not providing those drivers to start with.
I am in no way a M$ fan. In fact, I can't stand the company nor the leaders. I know they have good decent hearted people working for them but some of the things that the leaders have done are deplorable including harming people and companies through their business practices.
I am not a linux fan although I did run linux as my main OS for nearly 2 years in my business. It became a very difficult task to keep things up to date and with each release things seemed to get worse so I stopped using Linux about a year ago. I am now writing this on a macintosh but my main machines are custom made AMD boxes which I built myself. So, please don't attack me and say I'm a fanboi of MS or Apple or whatever. If the linux community could agree on a OSX style installer for all programs I would completely discontinue all Windows and OSX use and switch back to Linux.
It is just that your post is so full of holes that are completely contradictory to what's real in the industry I had to say something.
Completely disagree. Linux is much harder to maintain. There's alot of free easy windows software that has online updating.
As well, all this online updating you talk about comes at a cost when 70% of all users are still on dialup.
Software is harder to install under Linux than under windows. That's something that has been attested to for years. Software under OSx is much easier to install than under windows.
If Linux would adopt the OSX style of program installation Linux would be ahead of windows. The diversity of distros brings with it pluses and minuses. The major minus for Linux is the way software is installed.
One thing you point out is so wrong. That is that the person, if they have high speed, would not always want auto-updating.
Besides the uses of yast, apt, and all the other online update tools are dependent on repositories which are generally maintained by private parties. The compilation of those software programs are done by the person maintaining the repository and it subject to that person's knowledge and time. Knoweldge and time--that's very important.
On top of that the repositories are generally for one version of one distro, meaning that these online updates that you speak of are for only certain versions of the distro and if the repository maintainer moves on to a new version the older versions become outdated and unmaintained.
Don't even try to argue what you already posted because it is so wrong in so many ways.
Linux needs an OSx style installation procedure to move linux to the desktop and to thus to the mainstream.
Microsoft has been looking for a mechanism to make all software distributed with monthly maintenance fees. That way they make money every month. Sort of like the MMORPGs do it. Sell the game and then charge a montly fee, except Microsoft has been trying to find a way to do it with Windows.
In the long run these poor saps will pay much more for their computing experience then if they bought it outright.
If people wanted a cheap computer then get the hardware with some other OS other than Windows. Linux, although much more difficult to maintain over time, is just as capable at doing the basics: web browsing, chatting, some gaming, email, etc.
Let's hope that just the stupid people out there fall for this scam of Microsoft's and get them educated in that they can use an alternative to Microsoft's bloated expensive software.
This is nothing but advertising for webroot. Since people in my field do not consider this product to be of any real consequence for detecting and removing adware/spyware/malware the use of slashdot.org is deplorable.
Anyone doing any sort of cleaning on a system knows that you need a cadre of programs to clean and keep clean a system. Claiming webroot will be supplanted is just foolhardy and stupid.
If anything this helps the users and the industry by stabalizing it. Obviously webroot can't offer a cost effective solution or we'd see everyone using it.
In my shop, in the rare times when I see it installed, I remove it from customers computers and I put in a slew of free tools: spybot search and destroy, microsoft's product, ad-aware, the yahoo anti-spy toolbar, ewido, and a bunch of others. Weboot doesn't even come into the equation. What I mean is how can a junk program company claim vista will harm the industry.
This is just the same old thing you read about every few years. The stupidity of the masses pick it up and run with it.
Thin clients have been tried over and over. It is simply another implementation of mainframe/terminal approach or even citrix style computing.
Little girls and boys the PC is here to stay. It isn't going to be replaced by smart phones and pdas. PDAs are simply small implementations of PCs with limited capabilities (memory, storage, connectivity, etc). Phones are a comm device.
Whomever wrote and whoever believes what was written that stated the PC is gone is so far off their rocker that one might consider them to be daft. There'll be no technology that replaces the PC but the PC itself. It will be in different reincarnations but it'll still be the PC. The box will be smaller (maybe), the capacity and speed higher (certainly), the fundamental physics technology will be more modern (certainty), the displays larger (guaranteed), the input modified (as usual) but the computer itself will remain the same.
What you all should be doing, instead of just reading this trash from once reputable news print companies you should be trying to come up with ideas about how the computer could be in 20-50 years. I certainly don't want to see more larger boxes and would like to see a computer 100x more powerful than the best desktop today (in all areas, graphics, sound, processor, storage) in a unit that will fit in my shirt pocket and can be carried back and forth to work but still have the power to connect to a large monitor, a keyboard & mouse, and connect to network peripherals, with all the processing power done on that shirt pocket sized box.
I will not need at home thin client computing. There's no need for it. I can't train everyone in my neighborhood to set up and maintain a distributed thin client network in their homes, nor would people need this for a long time to come.
To even postulate that the PC is dead is like saying man is evolving to breath underwater because the earth is 2/3 covered with water and we'd be better there. It's a long way off, if it ever does happen. Those guys proposing such things are daft and certainly used no logic.
The hope of any tech journalist is to be able to read the trends and apply those toward preducting the future of technology. These guys see the google calendar type offering, the Office Live offering, etc., and they begin to postulate. Most of the time they are so far off base.
It seems the older they get and the longer they've been in the industry the farther off base for long term projections. The newer they are they just suck and are almost never close on any count of their predictions.
This is nothing more than a newbie predictor with no hope of ever becoming a long term predictor.
BSODs are generally a consequence of problemmatic hardware--in other words, defective--or from poorly written drivers--either by MS or by others.
Generally they are a result of hardware issues and they are pretty easily defined these days, albeit a couple years ago finding the cause was a more diffcult task.
Older versions of Windows (95, 98, ME, and even NT) had issues with BSOD but being as XP has been out for about 5 years now, using those as reference to BSODs is way off base.
In my experience, and I am experienced in Mac, Linux, and Windows, the older versions of the MAC OS8 and 9 crashed like crazy even when not related to hardware moreso than with Windows IMHO (that's just my opinion). Those control panel apps and other start up items in OS8/9 were difficult to say the least and stability was an issue.
OSX is a better OS, in fact, I love OSX way beyond my cozy feelings for XP. I am a realist so I'd have to admit that it too has some issues which cause it to become unstable. In fact, over the past couple months on my mac g4 with all the latest updates and almost no modifications, I have been forced to force off the computer more times than I do almost any of my PCs running XP.
Linux at one point, on a clean install, was rock solid. The only problem is that in the past 2 years it has become more and more unstable. After applying only a few customization changes it was easy to see linux begin to get wobbly legs. I'm sure the core kernel is pretty solid but the distro's built around them are fluctuating.
Right now, even through XP is run by a company convicted of monopolistic practices which harmed the industry, competion, and consumer, I'd have to say that Windows is really the choice OS. I hate it being that way. In fact, I'd gladly give up any positives to have OSX run on any of my PC hardware. I'm not concerned about Linux right now. There's too many cooks in the kitchen to make it a solid contender on the desktop (IMHO).
The download was available on one of the larger download file sharing servers as linked from the inquirer.net.
The program itself is not a major upgrade. In appearance it changed only slightly and in no way seems to be as solid as itunes.
The urge installer doesn't tell you in advance of what it is. If you click on the link in the main browser window it takes you to the download of the installer without actually describing what it is going to do, what urge is, and without asking you if you wish to continue. Pretty sad if you ask me. Poor programming, poor program management, and will make alot of people unhappy.
Always describe your software, always tell users what you are going to do, and always ask if it is ok before doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
Everything I've seen in Vista so far is essentially XP with SP3. This is a no brainer for virtually everyone. I've had it up and running the day after it went publicly beta and have used it extensively comparing the old way and the new way. This is XP with SP3 security. How on earth could this cost them between 8 and 9 billion dollars? The vast majority of this has to be in writing their proprietary DRM systems and all the supporting mechanism. I'm not willing to pay $200-400 for this when it won't even support good old standard hardware found in every day machines. Forget about the AERO interface on the vast majority of notebooks being sold today. The Aero interface doesn't even support most average 128mb video cards. Companies like nVidia aren't going to go back and implement drivers for older cards for XP when they've a policy of removing support from modern drivers. A gforce 4200 ti with 128 mb ram won't work with the AERO interface. Requiring people to double or even quadruple their RAM to run it is way out there. Delay the thing and give us more than just a newer version of XP with more security--when you consider that we already paid for the security to begin with. If Microsoft hadn't been so negligent in the way they designed XP we'd not have the security problems we have today. For goodness sake--9 billion dollars for XP with SP3? That's just outrageous. To demand we spend serious dollars upgrading our hardware for XP with SP3 and a different looking interface (which does exactly the same thing as XP) is a too big of a demand for most people. Let's get real, most people don't need Vista and almost no one needs to relearn the whole interface because Microsoft wants to redesign the interface without menus. XP is here for a long time to come. To arbitrarily cancel it 2 years after Vista comes out is sort of like price-fixing--considering Microsoft is a monopoly.
WGN is like being frisked every time you leave the store. Once Microsoft does this then every single software vendor will do it. Expect to see 15-30 different notification programs running on your computer checking back with their servers.
If I was frisked yesterday and found to be legit and frisked two weeks ago and found to be legit, why do I need to be frisked again? My system doesn't change that much daily, weekly, or monthly. This is a given, it is no brainer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this. 90% of us have legit licenses. 100% of us will be frisked even though 90% of us have already proven our reputation.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen stole computer time from Harvard to write an emulator for the processor used in the MITS Altair computer. Then they stole more time to write the basic programming language for the processor. They then licensed it to MITS and used that to fund the growth of Microsoft. Bill Gates openly wrote a nasty letter to the computer club accusing them of stealing their software. Bill Gates flaunted his willingess to violate the laws by speeding, and getting caught so many times he was hauled in and arrested.
When I was found legit yesterday, last week, two weeks ago, etc., there's no reason to believe that I am not going to remain legit. Any attempt to monitor me is an invasion of my privacy at that point. Any continued monitoring is an accusation that I will give my code to others to use and hence am aiding them in their theft, thus making me a theif.
Bottom line, this form of monitoring is akin to calling me a thief even though I have been proven to not be a thief. To put this software on my computers when I do not wish it is bad. To monitor me without my consent is bad. To do is is to become a malware program.
A decade ago we told Microsoft and the others that we did NOT want this stuff on our computers. If anything they are certainly persistent.
Vista has this built into it. But XP is allegedly going out and Vista coming in. Why so much effort in protecting XP when it is allegedly to die in a couple of years? The reason is that Vista is XP with a different interface and heirarchy. Underlying it is the same OS as XP with that change and some security that prompts you upon every change to your system. Oddly enough this is how Linux and OSX do it. Because they are basically the same OS there's really NO need to update to Vista.
Off topic: if you look at the trash can in Vista you'll note that the icon is taken almost directly from the linux community. Pretty sad.
I have 20+ licenses of Windows XP. I have used Windows from the beginning. I have been in the computer industry for over 20 years. I was an early adopter of DOS. I used wordstar, wordperfect, lotus 123, etc., back when they were the kings. I was an early adopter of Windows 286/386 and encouraged everyone to switch to the Windows like environments. I spent a great deal of time promoting the types of environments that allowed for programs to have similar interfaces because DOS programs all had different interfaces and that alone was hurting the acceptance of computers in the average home and business. I have followed the history of Microsoft and read a tremendous number of books over the past 20 years on the making of the software industry, which, BTW, is more than just Microsoft. I use Windows every day on all my computers except a couple of Macintoshes I have except for 2 years where I used Linux as my desktop and server platforms. I did this because I wanted to commit to learning Linux. I do not use Linux now and I have not had it installed on any of my computers for quite some time. I have Vista installed on one of my computers and have gone through it pretty thoroughly. I have paid particular attention to what is different between the two and what is not. Visually, the interface looks different but functionally it is the same operating system as XP, period. Even some of the screens within Vista still show the old XP screenshots. Vista does have a 3d accelerated interface but that is not a necessary part and it does not distinguish it as being a different OS. The desktop paradigm is exactly the same except things have been modified to give it a different tree structure (menus, dialog boxes, control panel) but the functionality is almost identical. Vista is XP with a more complex interface with 3d effects. The over heirarchy has changed but underlying it is still XP. They have incorporated a security feature which prompts you to authorize every change but that is not enough to qualify it as anything more than a security SP, of which it is very similar to the way Linux does it. It certainly is like the Macintosh OSX does it, but those don't define the OS. The idea that your purport is that everyone should be searched every time they leave a store with my groceries just so that the store owners can ensure that no one is leaving the store with pilfered goods. Windows doesn't change from day to day. This means that when I activate and I validate I have indicated my willingness to be searched and to show Microsoft my good reputation. When they still insist on searching everyone every day just to catch the thief that may be stealing their software, even though my computer doesn't change that often (from day to day, week to week, or even month to month). In other words, if they know I am legit yesterday or two weeks ago, there's no reason for me to keep allowing them to search me to ensure I am legit today. If they continue this behavior and they know I was legit yesterday and two weeks ago then the only conclusion is that I am somehow distributing my code to others so they can install and hence I am aiding them in their theft, making me an alleged thief.
You're misled about how much Bill Gates donates. His Foundation has approximatley $1 billion anually. Bill and Melinda only donate a portion of that. Most of it is from other sources. All foundations are like that. Bill's portion is probably only a small percentage. This leaves him in the position of having nearly 50 billion dollars in wealth. Although he doesn't keep making that much every year he also doesn't receive that much in cash and his income comes in in different ways. In essence, he's using the foundation, just like all rich people do, to pay that money to charity instead of paying it to the government. As we all know the write off allowed by the government is typically higher than which a person would pay in taxes, due to how it changes your position on the tax tables. So, yes, he's coming out ahead this way instead of paying the money directly to the government where he probably would end up paying more overall.
First of all, it is going on everyone's computer, not just the pirated copies. It isn't just checking once, as it should. It is checking all the time.
This is the equivalent of calling you a thief every time it checks. Listen, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that when they check you today and you are legit and then they continue to check you repeatedly, they are accusing you of being a thief.
One time. The WGA notification is not a program I will allow on my computer. I purchased my 20+ licenses. I don't expect Microsoft to make me feel, as a small business owner, as if I am a thief.
I don't care about protecting Microsoft. I could care less about them and their profit. They pocket so much of that profit anyway instead of putting it back into development.
Microsoft's Vista is nothing more than XP with a new interface paradigm. Other than that new look they have cut all the meat out of the new features so as to make it a "no go" on the upgrade path. Everyone needs to understand that. Clearly VISTA is XP with a new desktop look. That's it. It isn't worth 200-400 dollars to upgrade.
So, if they make $3 billion in profit quarterly, wheres their loss at? Where's the loss of revenue to those pirates and why should I care less about Microsoft's bottom line.
Stop calling everyone a thief Microsoft.
Microsoft is playing a game with everyone. Over the past year they have been testing, probing, feeling to see how much violation of privacy we will take. Then they devise not just WGA but WGN. The WGN was tested in other countries first because they didn't want the outcry to be too loud from the US too quickly or it would turn the rest of the world off. So they slid their WGN into the EU and Asia in an effort to ensure it got done. Then they released it in the US under the guise that if the rest of the world allowed it and had no issue with it, the US should not either.
But of course, we value our privacy. We recognize that one company siphoning off $3 billion a quarter in profits really should be turning something back to the us. Listen, Bill Gate's donations to charity keep him from having to pay huge amounts of dollars to the government in taxes. This simply allows him to keep more of his money.
I've read the figures about how much his foundation gives, what their yearly budget is. Compared to $3 billion in profit every quarter $1 billion annually (from not just his donations, but others) is nearly nothing. Does he help the people in WA state where he enjoys laws that benefit his profit? From laws that give him tax breaks? Laws that provide him with a workforce that can be forced into 70-80 hours a week without compensation for each hour of work? He gives some money to libraries, schools, etc., but he does nothing for the community.
You can see this. Look at google earth and view the area around the location where his main offices are. There are no real parks, no special services, no assistance to public tranist. Nothing.
The bottom line is that WGN allows him to force purchases by those probably too poor to purchase his expensive OS already. XP costs alot of money for some. It is due to his monopoly that allows the OS to stay as highly priced as it is. Now he wants us all to upgrade to Vista which to anyone with a brain knows that it is just XP SP3. The security features could/should be incorporated into XP considering how much money we all paid for it and how irresponsible Microsoft has been toward the security of the OS, even after 2 years where they know that spyware/malware is so bad that even their head of the department for developing anti-spyware/malware tools tell us it is impossible to resolve all the problems and that we are just going to have to reformat every so often just to keep a safe secure system.
They'll justify Vista as a security fix when everyone realizes that Vista is just XP with a new interface and a huge increase in hardware requirements forced generally due to DRM implementations
Except for the whole slew of arguments about why 70% of the population quit EQ at the first possible alternative, which just happened to be WoW. Sony became arrogant toward it's customers and that pretty much ended the loyalty of the vast majority of it's long term initial customers. I stayed with EQ for almost 5 years. 3 of them were playing a massive number of hours. The friends I made kept me there. Sony drove me away with their idea of the "holy trinity" which means that if you are not one of the classes included in the holy trinity (healer, enchanter, warrior), you might as well just consider yourself extra baggage.
It was an up and down ride where Sony expected every weak and underpowered class to buy the next expansion just to come a tad bit closer to balance whilst never ever really achieving it. The response from Sony was always: oh, you are weak? Buy the expansion and you'll be not so weak.". All the while they were empowering the holy trinity with ever more power.
In the beginning when we were to overcome the planes and then the dragons (or vice versa), it was a tremendous challenge and you made friends and showed off your ability, but also with each expansion those newer players that hadn't been playing nearly as long as you were rained upon with gear 10x better than that which you had when you were their level. All your hard work was for naught.
There were classes in EQ that sat for hours upon hours waiting on groups just to play. No one would invite them because they needed a healer, a warrior, an enchanter. Even if you could accomplish the mission without one or more of them you didn't do as well nor advance as fast nor get the equivalent gear if you happened to be in a balanced group. It was this way for years.
That's why it isn't a good idea to jump on EQ, at least not without understanding the history of the game.
I started out with warcraft and C&C. I then migrated to starcraft. I was really addicted to starcraft because I could play against so many others and show my skills in winning. When EQ came out I dropped it all for that. I played day and night for 3 years. I then stopped and only played once in a while for the next 2 years. When most of my friends that were made during those 3 years stopped playing completely I stopped.
Alot of the reason I stopped playing EQ (a mmorpg) was due to the fact that Sony kept messing with balance and got into the habbit of releasing expansions instead of fixing the game and correcting balance. The game became one of "if you aren't one of classes part of the holy trinity then you are just extra baggage".
The point here is that all MMORPGs will come to an end because of the people that run them will run them into the ground, even Blizzard.
I was searching for different games when a friend suggested I play Counter Strike. I watched him play and said "no". It is too lame, tame, and boring.
I then, about 2.5 years ago, after trying various FPS games (quake III, UT2003/2004, etc.), came across Enemy Territory. It was a free game. I played horribly as I had not really played too many games like it. It took at while and I read a bunch of stuff on line about it and got better. I have stuck with that game over the past 2.5 years. I'm pretty good and this game has alot of replay value. It isn't an adventure and it isn't about quest but it is a game where you accomplish objectives while being thwarted by others. When Quake Wars: Enemy Territory comes out I'll try it.
I have purchased BF2 and a slew of others but the developers keep screwing with the game. They reduced the capabilities of the aircraft, which they should have done, but they should not have reduced the aircraft total hitpoints. That essentially ended the fun for me. I have quake 4 and HL2, and a slew of others but it is the free game which is objective oriented that has kept me playing.
Vista has little to offer other than what they are touting. Vista is most secure in the world. Microsoft has little to offer other than what they are touting.
If you are lucky enough to have seen vista in action you know it is nothing more than XP SP3 with a newer looking interface and a rather annoying prompt for every action security feature.
Microsoft is in the habit of telling half truths. Why would be believe this is any more true. If it is only half true then we are looking at a lie because it certainly can't be 2 times as good as any other OS that's secure.
Highly unlikely that BSD or even the linux community will agree that Microsoft's new interface for XP is anything more than just that.
I'm usually verbose about matters such as this but my personal opinion about what he wrote is that he's full of it. He's their excuse maker. He's the cover up guy feeling he has to justify their inability to produce, even by going so far as to allege everyone else is as bad as they are.
Granted, yes, all that signing off, those meetings, all the chatting, etc is pretty bad, but I know alot of programmers that produced much more than 6,200 lines of working debugged code a year.
Windows is so far behind because they didn't have a good plan and they didn't excute it correctly and the target was moving with Linux and OSX tossing in variables to their mixture.
Microsoft WOULD be in dire straights if they had the same competition back when Windows was first monopolizing the market.
These guys are like the indecision makers who see the moving target and keep reassessing capabilities and features due to that and just can't make a decision on how far to go, when to cut, and when to commit.
They created their early computers not because they wanted to hack nor because they were creative. They did so because computers of the day were huge, costly, and only men in white robes in big business had access to them. Back to the very beginnings of the computer revolution that was the fundamental premise.
Job's motivation was a bit different. He wanted a company and ultimately to be in power. He proved he was up to the task. He was an evangelist not a creator, not an artists, not an engineer, not a programmer.
It certainly would not have affected Jobs and maybe not even Woz, but it would have affected their success had they started in today's atmosphere.
As far as I know Apple still has to contend with its reponsibility toward Darwin. They can't just close it.
You have to remember Jobs was one who lived in a commune after dropping out of college where they had an apple orchard. He dropped acid and did other illicit drugs. When they started Apple he was living with his parents again (they adopted him and his adopted sister). He had his mother making him special foods and he never bathed and cried to get what he wanted. Yes, cried.
On top of that he would go to business meetings with bare feet, unwashed body and clothing, and when they refused his desires he would cry and scream until they let him have what he wanted.
He did change and he is someone that can enrapture you but you have to remember he was a druggy college dropout who rode on the backs of others till he managed a position of power. The reason Apple became what it was is due to an ex-Intel employee who invested and a slew of other managers capable of making a company function. Stop giving Jobs a stature he didn't deserve.
Today he has my respect because he did do what it took to climb back. My hat is off to him, but you guys give him way too much credit for making Apple, and hence too much influence on us as to what he would or would not have done if he were in our position today.
And remember, those arguing that closing the kernel source is wrong and despicable most likely lived that era and know why computers were created to begin with and why so many hate Microsoft for how it does things.
Total feldercarb. Some wanted OSS for hacking the kernel, most just wanted an alternative--even a colorful flashy one included. Stop classifying OSS/Linux/BSD under your zealotryistic banner--it's pathetic and it will kill the long term success of OSS.
Microsoft isn't stupid even if they are copycats. There was a day when Apple sued Microsoft over the use of overlapping windows, etc claiming they held the rights to this IP. The courts ruled against Apple saying that these sorts of things can't be copyrighted even tho they also said that Microsoft had a neverending agreement with Apple that permitted them the rights to use them.
Nonetheless Microsoft has been copying from the Open Source Linux community stealing the ideas from the average Joe and Jane contributing to the projects.
The difference in the past is that Apple was a big company and not some little guy to be walked all over and they did receive compensation. The average contributor doesn't get that compensation from Microsoft yet Microsoft is still taking those ideas and incorporating them into Linux.
Microsoft even admitted that they took these ideas from the Open Source community. We aren't talking about taking source code and modifying it. We are talking about the ideas that make something successful.
Apple tried many years later to sue some hardware vendors that were making iMac look alike machines even tho they were PCs and didn't run OSX nor any Apple OS.
If someone were to mimic the ipod exactly they'd sue them. If someone were to mimic itunes they'd sue over that.
The bottom line is that Apple sues and Microsoft take liberties. Microsoft is taking liberties with Linux and I believe that is the reason they are working for a more amiable stance--to overcome early any cryout about how Microsoft can't invent for itself and it has to take from the little guy all the while threating everyone by calling them either thieves or potential thieves via their WGN (Windows Genuine Notification). Because that's exactly what it is. They are taking the ideas many of which were great ideas and are in turn again telling everyone we are thieves or potential thieves.
Is this unplausable? Is it a direct correlation? Plausible, yes. Direct correlation, probably not, but they are hoping that it will never be connected.
They did something similar in the late 70s and early 80s when they stole computer time from Harvard to make a product that became the funding machine to grow Microsoft all the while writing harrassing letters to member of the Homebrew computer club claiming they were stealing Microsoft's IP.
Remember, key figures are still operating MS that were operating it back then.
I am disgusted by how microsoft has been manipulating this to get it installed. I have never installed this on any computer knowingly and none of my computers is it installed because i have repeatedly told it to uncheck this option when I go for updates. To get updates you need only to have the validation tool, not the notification. But Linux is not better, period. Stop trying to sell a messy product as superior to at least one refined in the interface and installation procedures. I have used linux on all my company machines for several years until the updates got so unwieldly that the environment became unstable. Not to mention the zealots that killed my desire to use it. Not to mention that some distros cost as much over time to use as Windows does to purchase. Not to mention the installation routines are borderline psychotic. I used apt, yast, etc over those two years with online repositories and there are some inherently nasty resultant consequences of using them. Now, I dislike Microsoft greatly. They are opening pandora's box on this one. They have bled everyone for more than their fare share of money. As for the simple minded premise that you can quit using Windows I'd have to say that let's not be so short sighted here. Lots of people are required to use it for work. Lots of people are required to know it for work. Lots of people can only find certain applications for the work they do. It isn't so simple as to say "quit using windows". Linux is a mess right now. Has been for years. I love it but the reality is it is messy and problemmatic. I'd rather not deal with it. Once Linux (globally) accepts the OSX style application installer then I'll go back. Right now it is just one distro after another besting the other into obscurity.
No one, in violation of any country's laws, should encourage copywrite violation without just cause. But the idea of Captain Copywrite gave me an idea. Captain copyright should be used by the free and open movement against the lockdown of our rights to fair use, etc. This thread alone shows so many justifications as to why these mega corporations are in such violation of our sensibilities. Someone should create a mascot in cartoon to push against the likes of the MPAA and RIAA. Those organizations seem to be in the same vein as faciasts in the way they got to power (off the backs of the artists). It would seem appropriate that we have our own Smokey the Bear or McGruff to make people aware of how these organizations harming the very future of our rights. Let's get some creative soul to make and market the cartoon character protecting the people from unscrupulous corporations beholden to only their profits.
Google does not own a monopoly in any sphere. You must be ruled a monopoly to be a monopoly by a court of law. Google, from the last statistical results that I remember reading is that it holds some 40% of the market in searches and was near last in portal.
40% tops of anything is no where near a monopoly.
That's much different than 90% of the key technologies that drive the computer and information access.
Project managers under pressure from execs to push out a product. Mostly marketing execs that promised something to higher ups in order to gain favor, bonuses, and raises, and potentially promotions.
Project managers create unrealistic timelines. This pressures programmers and testers.
When products are tested and show problems they determine if a bug is a showstopper or not. If it is not and they can't fix it in time they ship.
Do these people make a conscious decision to ship buggy code? You bet they do. They make them on purpose and in their favor, every time.
Some unknown bugs get through by accident. No ones perfect.
But, every product goes out the door with bugs that they know about and have no intention of fixing right away, if ever.
This absolutely is an issue with the project manager making unrealistic promises to the higher ups in order to gain favor, money, and promotions. I worked for a company that produced software and we knew there were major bugs and these were shipped with the baggage that the tech support would have to deal with the issues.
The reason is that microsoft doesn't want to pay the fees to those that hold the rights to that IP.
What they want is to control the standard.
I don't want any more Microsoft standards. In the long run they hurt innovation and competition.
That made me laugh harder than I have in years. Thanks for the Yoko Ono comment.
Lots of misinformation in your posting.
1) Windows XP does not ship with drivers for products that were released AFTER the OS went gold. No OS does. The benefit of the Linux distro is the frequency of releases. There are drawbacks as well.
Bottom line: don't complain about an OS release that was made before your hardware was released.
2) That's what web sites provide. Information and drivers. So you have to go to the site to get the drivers. That's not unusual nor unacceptable. We all do it, as better drivers are released all the time. Think about all those video card updates from nVidia in the past 2 years. WinXP has been out for roughly 5 years now. You want a 5 year old OS to have drivers for hardware that was released 2 years ago? Complain to the hardware vendors. Even so, they provide you with the drivers, generally through some system restore disc or through a drivers disc provided with the system.
3) Linux distros generally do not provide full featured drivers for every piece of hardware. In fact, they are generally cut down to size and lacking in features. This is a side effect of being open source as commercial products can't give proprietary sections of code to the public when they themselves may be licensing them from other companies. What I find are acceptable drivers under linux but I generally find full featured drivers under windows.
4) After you install Windows then SP2 and go on line to activate you have access to more drivers provided by Microsoft's repository. You will often find drivers not found during the install and microsoft's update will generally detect them. Of course you can't go on line without a network driver or a modem driver but you need to scream at your hardware vendor or your reseller for not providing those drivers to start with.
I am in no way a M$ fan. In fact, I can't stand the company nor the leaders. I know they have good decent hearted people working for them but some of the things that the leaders have done are deplorable including harming people and companies through their business practices.
I am not a linux fan although I did run linux as my main OS for nearly 2 years in my business. It became a very difficult task to keep things up to date and with each release things seemed to get worse so I stopped using Linux about a year ago. I am now writing this on a macintosh but my main machines are custom made AMD boxes which I built myself. So, please don't attack me and say I'm a fanboi of MS or Apple or whatever. If the linux community could agree on a OSX style installer for all programs I would completely discontinue all Windows and OSX use and switch back to Linux.
It is just that your post is so full of holes that are completely contradictory to what's real in the industry I had to say something.
Completely disagree. Linux is much harder to maintain. There's alot of free easy windows software that has online updating.
As well, all this online updating you talk about comes at a cost when 70% of all users are still on dialup.
Software is harder to install under Linux than under windows. That's something that has been attested to for years. Software under OSx is much easier to install than under windows.
If Linux would adopt the OSX style of program installation Linux would be ahead of windows. The diversity of distros brings with it pluses and minuses. The major minus for Linux is the way software is installed.
One thing you point out is so wrong. That is that the person, if they have high speed, would not always want auto-updating.
Besides the uses of yast, apt, and all the other online update tools are dependent on repositories which are generally maintained by private parties. The compilation of those software programs are done by the person maintaining the repository and it subject to that person's knowledge and time. Knoweldge and time--that's very important.
On top of that the repositories are generally for one version of one distro, meaning that these online updates that you speak of are for only certain versions of the distro and if the repository maintainer moves on to a new version the older versions become outdated and unmaintained.
Don't even try to argue what you already posted because it is so wrong in so many ways.
Linux needs an OSx style installation procedure to move linux to the desktop and to thus to the mainstream.
Microsoft has been looking for a mechanism to make all software distributed with monthly maintenance fees. That way they make money every month. Sort of like the MMORPGs do it. Sell the game and then charge a montly fee, except Microsoft has been trying to find a way to do it with Windows.
In the long run these poor saps will pay much more for their computing experience then if they bought it outright.
If people wanted a cheap computer then get the hardware with some other OS other than Windows. Linux, although much more difficult to maintain over time, is just as capable at doing the basics: web browsing, chatting, some gaming, email, etc.
Let's hope that just the stupid people out there fall for this scam of Microsoft's and get them educated in that they can use an alternative to Microsoft's bloated expensive software.
This is nothing but advertising for webroot. Since people in my field do not consider this product to be of any real consequence for detecting and removing adware/spyware/malware the use of slashdot.org is deplorable.
Anyone doing any sort of cleaning on a system knows that you need a cadre of programs to clean and keep clean a system. Claiming webroot will be supplanted is just foolhardy and stupid.
If anything this helps the users and the industry by stabalizing it. Obviously webroot can't offer a cost effective solution or we'd see everyone using it.
In my shop, in the rare times when I see it installed, I remove it from customers computers and I put in a slew of free tools: spybot search and destroy, microsoft's product, ad-aware, the yahoo anti-spy toolbar, ewido, and a bunch of others. Weboot doesn't even come into the equation. What I mean is how can a junk program company claim vista will harm the industry.
This is just the same old thing you read about every few years. The stupidity of the masses pick it up and run with it.
Thin clients have been tried over and over. It is simply another implementation of mainframe/terminal approach or even citrix style computing.
Little girls and boys the PC is here to stay. It isn't going to be replaced by smart phones and pdas. PDAs are simply small implementations of PCs with limited capabilities (memory, storage, connectivity, etc). Phones are a comm device.
Whomever wrote and whoever believes what was written that stated the PC is gone is so far off their rocker that one might consider them to be daft. There'll be no technology that replaces the PC but the PC itself. It will be in different reincarnations but it'll still be the PC. The box will be smaller (maybe), the capacity and speed higher (certainly), the fundamental physics technology will be more modern (certainty), the displays larger (guaranteed), the input modified (as usual) but the computer itself will remain the same.
What you all should be doing, instead of just reading this trash from once reputable news print companies you should be trying to come up with ideas about how the computer could be in 20-50 years. I certainly don't want to see more larger boxes and would like to see a computer 100x more powerful than the best desktop today (in all areas, graphics, sound, processor, storage) in a unit that will fit in my shirt pocket and can be carried back and forth to work but still have the power to connect to a large monitor, a keyboard & mouse, and connect to network peripherals, with all the processing power done on that shirt pocket sized box.
I will not need at home thin client computing. There's no need for it. I can't train everyone in my neighborhood to set up and maintain a distributed thin client network in their homes, nor would people need this for a long time to come.
To even postulate that the PC is dead is like saying man is evolving to breath underwater because the earth is 2/3 covered with water and we'd be better there. It's a long way off, if it ever does happen. Those guys proposing such things are daft and certainly used no logic.
The hope of any tech journalist is to be able to read the trends and apply those toward preducting the future of technology. These guys see the google calendar type offering, the Office Live offering, etc., and they begin to postulate. Most of the time they are so far off base.
It seems the older they get and the longer they've been in the industry the farther off base for long term projections. The newer they are they just suck and are almost never close on any count of their predictions.
This is nothing more than a newbie predictor with no hope of ever becoming a long term predictor.
BSODs are generally a consequence of problemmatic hardware--in other words, defective--or from poorly written drivers--either by MS or by others.
Generally they are a result of hardware issues and they are pretty easily defined these days, albeit a couple years ago finding the cause was a more diffcult task.
Older versions of Windows (95, 98, ME, and even NT) had issues with BSOD but being as XP has been out for about 5 years now, using those as reference to BSODs is way off base.
In my experience, and I am experienced in Mac, Linux, and Windows, the older versions of the MAC OS8 and 9 crashed like crazy even when not related to hardware moreso than with Windows IMHO (that's just my opinion). Those control panel apps and other start up items in OS8/9 were difficult to say the least and stability was an issue.
OSX is a better OS, in fact, I love OSX way beyond my cozy feelings for XP. I am a realist so I'd have to admit that it too has some issues which cause it to become unstable. In fact, over the past couple months on my mac g4 with all the latest updates and almost no modifications, I have been forced to force off the computer more times than I do almost any of my PCs running XP.
Linux at one point, on a clean install, was rock solid. The only problem is that in the past 2 years it has become more and more unstable. After applying only a few customization changes it was easy to see linux begin to get wobbly legs. I'm sure the core kernel is pretty solid but the distro's built around them are fluctuating.
Right now, even through XP is run by a company convicted of monopolistic practices which harmed the industry, competion, and consumer, I'd have to say that Windows is really the choice OS. I hate it being that way. In fact, I'd gladly give up any positives to have OSX run on any of my PC hardware. I'm not concerned about Linux right now. There's too many cooks in the kitchen to make it a solid contender on the desktop (IMHO).
The download was available on one of the larger download file sharing servers as linked from the inquirer.net.
The program itself is not a major upgrade. In appearance it changed only slightly and in no way seems to be as solid as itunes.
The urge installer doesn't tell you in advance of what it is. If you click on the link in the main browser window it takes you to the download of the installer without actually describing what it is going to do, what urge is, and without asking you if you wish to continue. Pretty sad if you ask me. Poor programming, poor program management, and will make alot of people unhappy.
Always describe your software, always tell users what you are going to do, and always ask if it is ok before doing so.