All psychologists agree that plain text loses next to flashing-anything. So there's a 6x8 block of text, buried in (other stuff)... and get a load of that FlippyPage!
All still proof that Web 3.0 isn't here yet, in which someone figures out a 5 part payment distribution system so that viewers aren't crushed by ads from companies whose boards are adicted to FivePercentGrowth-or-Bust.
We all boycotted Geocities for this back in the day.
You seem to feel that correlations are both obvious and clear enough not to require any institutional effort at all. "So why do this?"
There are multiple levels of results responding to someone's random remark at lunch. This study doesn't list costs, but notice it only aimed for both an easy and small result, and required nothing fancy for equipment. This means it was cheap to operate. Cheap is good. Cheap is easier to fit into stray budgetary dollars.
"Oh look. Lab 4167 screwed up and left us 200 virus samples when someone screwed up the paperwork. Jack was asking about why he always feels like crap. Let's do a cheap study. Hey Boss, can we re-requisition those samples? Then they get to go in your Research Supply column instead of the Screw-Up Column. Oh, yea, have the secretary get me a pack of graph paper from the supply cabinet."
I feel this is perfect Compromise Science. *By dispeling* the "you're full of #$%#$%" counterargument, this kind of thing can greenlight the $100,000 needed to do the full size study with 750 people over 2 years, with all those cross-controls.
I don't know if I'm always happy, but I actively deflect bad-emotion causing situations on a game theory level, and it also so happens that I have missed exactly 1 day from illness in two years.
Mr. Grump: "Why the #$%$ do I feel like @##$@#$?" Optimist : "I don't know what you're talking about"
Your post above hints at *synergy*. Exterior cause annoys you, then getting ill further annoys you. Deflect exterior cause, and it so happens that you not annoyed by the illness you don't have.
These are examples of some advanced uses that apparently Open Office cannot yet handle. However, I will continue to use it at least part time and promote it, because anything is better than the status quo of the past x years. Use MS if you must ; you have made the considered choice which should be how all users approach MS.
Can we distinguish between "Big IT" and "Small IT"? As one of the two guys wearing the IT hat part time, I am fully aware that Word and Excel are the 17 foot draft horses of the office. PDF? That's something you do when you want an untouchable scan so your contracts don't come back with a surprise on them. (Without requiring a level of work that sends red flags)
Because of the tech specs of one of our servers, we're getting great exposure to Open Office, precisely for that lovely price - Free as in Birds, and Beer. As soon as our other IT admin updates it past Beta on the server, I'll quietly promote it even louder.
That's why these German folks are missing the boat. The expensive Gorilla from Redmond, and the Open version(s) are defining the framework. "Cheap" is not good enough anymore.
Don't we wail about Newbies everywhere else? There could be a side benefit that only certain people "get it" and stay. Anyone who doesn't... "doesn't deserve to be there".
External world communities are rampant with unspoken restrictions. Some call you a Greenhorn for five years after you move there.
Okay, here we go. Time to get rained upon. My karma must be around Plus50 by this point, and I'm gonna need every bit of it to survive this one. Time to say hello the Penguinator. I'm moderately bright, but I have no luck. (I racked up $25,000 in surgery playing badminton.)
Is there such a thing as a CD that boots itself with minimal adjustments to windows, so I could host an office "Experimental Freedom Friday (EFF)" so that we can all oooh and aaah, then avoid breaking anything?
Part of the demo would be the fewest keystrokes possible, and all It would have to do is run Firefox, Open Office and Mp3s. Part of the presentation pitch would be "look, it only takes 4-6 commands I can write down on an index card".
We could coin a distro name. BulletProof Linux.
Anyone want to take up the challenge? I am humbly offering myself as the TestBird, like the Canaries in mines. I'm your dream audience. Clueless, nervous, and adventurous. Get me going, and I can pitch this to hordes your Non-Caring Average Users.
I am also changing my Slashdot settings, so I can some of you some email questions to avoid flooding the forum.
I definitely fear the penguins, despite the tagline at the top. Here's a pic of Tux glaring at me.
Petra the music band has done some really interesting things with the material. Their songwriter was so talented the group is in my top 100 even though I am quite firmly not Christian.
At least you were careful to say "modern AND literary skill"... the bible written in MMORPG would be terrifying to behold.
I think this is actually an example of Microsoft marketing. Office 2007 is in fact... not big. It's a new version of Office. One Of Many, to reference our little B(ill)(org) icon we use.
Tying in with the themes of this whole thread, we have a typical organization that has a few medium-strong users, and a *whole lot* of weak users. I saw no functions that looked valuable enough to replace the entire fleet of Office 2003 installs. I did see clear problems that would completely distract us in the worst way after the other colossal upgrades we just performed.
Those were the problems that arrived... in the first hour! If I extrapolated out a true-cost of time lost, I can easily see another 25 hours slipping away. Productivity, right? The fleet is finally orchestrated to a unified Office 2003. People are productive. My company is one of the smaller ones so that the few IT guys don't have days, let alone weeks to churn wandering around behind people completing questions like "Why can't I... " "Because that guy over there didn't save-as in the backward-compatible format".
To restate, I studied the software from a deployment view, and I also happen to dislike it. However, I routinely scout out clever tricks buried in software for me to use singly, to arm management with a few tricks for their meetings.
Topic 2: Internet Explorer 2 arrived trumpeting security enhancements. Great. However, the question was "why was I affected when they removed the menu bar?". I answered that. I am also not the only one to feel a clash from the deviation from software function placement standards that Microsoft themselves championed. It was addressed in Slashdot comments elsewhere. I simply restored the menu, restored its position at the top of the App,... and solved the problem.
The computer world is in its own accelerated-time parallel universe. Just under 25 years ago (I picked 1983 with the advent of Apple II, Commodore, and Atari) the first wave of new PC's really hit the shelves. The tech types of the time started digging and hacking... and everyone else was NOT a user at ALL, and called us Nerds. Hollywood noticed.
Flash Forward to 1999: With the arrival of Windows 98 as the "semi-stable Win95 service pack", many companies ditched DOS and coaxed their employee armies into being users. Then they discovered that if they could bear to suffer being the Nerd they ridiculed 15 years prior,... Shawn Fanning would be happy to spin them a tune. It was the end of the Alt-Shift-Tab navigation inside of some poorly designed software.
It is only EIGHT years after that... and now we are ridiculing users for being passe by using Windows 2000?!
In many other key industries, durability is one of the vital sales points. Anything expected to collapse into unusability gets derided as sloppy, if not a complete outrage. This just proves the computer world is just barely a decade short of maturity. Eventually we'll lose the excitement over milestone OS's, a few standard versions will take hold, and people will settle into the applications they are comfortable with for a long haul.
For SIX years Microsoft disappeared off the deep end getting stuck in Vista development. Therefore it was the Win2000/XP choice, and everyone knew they were cousin OS's.
Now some internal analyst of MS has decided that sales for Vista won't be adequate on ship specs alone (like the repiorted incompatibility with SQL server), so they have to yank away their flagship OS that made them the company they are?
The auto companies learned that you can't artificially obsolete one model in hopes of bullying the consumer to upgrade. The Japanese turned out 15-year cars and nearly wiped Detroit off the map.
Companies have a right to believe that if they spend a thundering amount to build a mission-critical computer system, it should last them a long time if it performs the functions they need. On the heels of this announcement, because of the quick release dates between Win2000 and XP, (and XP itself had some nasty early problems), you know the end-of-life announcement for XP is close. If MS started their support clock by the repair of SP2, they'd have to start their timeline about 2004 which leads to support through about 2010.
"I have seen several anti-productive results out of Vista. The champion is... MS Office 2007! I peeked at an example beta copy our other IT guy was experimenting with - and I find it utterly unusable.
Doesn't really seem like the best way to evaluate a product..."
We were talking about productivity, right? I took one look at Office 2007 to evaluate it. I lost my first hour to:
A. Strange placement of menu fuctions. B. One machine failed to load the update to read the.xlsx format C. Someone else's machine was set to hide extensions. Except one of the Word files was now a.docx format, but windows disingenuously called it "Word". It failed to import into a program our tablet uses. I had to turn extensions on, discover that it was not in fact labeled with an icon that says "word 2003", change the format, and re-import it.
In short, I evaluated, found it non-productive, and reverted to my TWO alternate choices. (Office 2003 and OpenOffice 2.)
As for browsers, I am a medium-heavy user of the menu commands. Most of the file menu, Edit-Find, View-Source, Tools-Internet Options, and more, for IE7. The equivalents are a little different in Firefox. I use them interchangeably as features require. Viewing source in IE7 is still a little different than in Firefox. I haven't tried Opera yet though.
I created my post after surveying about 3/4 of the posts. I tried to indicate this with the term "large swaths" implying some variation among individuals, but an overall summation of what DealBreaker point the pro-MS people are spotlighting. It's perfectly natural to use something, and wish matters were otherwise.
Currently, I perceive the dealbreaker that MS has built is: they have forced many companies to adopt them as a standard beyond simple document creation, but for secondary functions like exporting. A simple example is programs that export into Excel, and haven't yet added direct support for Open Office Calc. If I may borrow one of your phrases, "Sure, I agree microsoft is shit, and increasingly harms the user." Yep. But until a software vendor bothers to add export functionality into Calc,... MS still has a foothold.
I do in fact recognize that OS X is indeed proprietary, and they simply used a legendarily stable core to help advertise security. I give them credit for a powerful comeback from a comatose company, into the second of the trilogy of OS's. Because I am aware of the Animal Farm effect, (Windows Bad - Leopards & Jaguars Good) I am fiercely avoiding apple purchases.
There really are only three choices, but the subdivisions are a little distracting. 1: Microsoft A. 2000/XP B. Vista
2. Apple OS X series Most of the incarnations are not dramatic.
3. Linux (and variants, I plead ignorance)... With a gloriously varied spread of distros and versions per distro.
To summarize, Having totally discarded Set 2, and 1B, that leaves me with MS - 1A, and Linux Set 3. (Distro not yet decided.)
The following snip is exactly what I hoped to aim for:
"The question I would ask that crowd is "*if* the apps *were* available in Linux, would you choose Microsoft because you actually approve of their corporate policies?"
I certainly would not."
Exactly. My overall approach is now to begin work on parallel systems. One fading legacy Windows machine, and soon a Linux investigation that will turn a hair or two gray before I settle upon my choice of variant.
Overall, I agree with the long term prospects of AMD's research by staying at fewer cores (I feel Quad is a good number), but buttressing that main core power with smaller dedicated assistant chips that take the brunt of specific tasks. The timelines I have seen indicate that AMD is still a chunk of time away from rolling out their 45NM process, which I feel is the milestone to finish out the decade. Their compound core-plus-support chips are not due out for about 3-4 years.
Am I back on topic now?
Captcha word: Latitude. 45NM process and related tech is supposed to be good for laptops, boosting battery life during times that less power is drawn for "ordinary-user" low power use.
This discussion seems to be separating into predictable groups. One problem is that there is a profound philosophy discussion behind all this, with lots of psychology on top.
However you rate their presentation, at its best the FSF is trying to carve out a world with restriction-free software. Because of the raw economics, some of the fancier features/programs are not yet available in Linux. But Linux has grown in awareness, if not as much in full usage. Ask an ad company: awareness is the first stage, to precede use. People "receive exposure", then think about it, check with friends, read up, etc.
Large swaths of the Pro-Microsoft posts here run: "Give me my Functionality, and I'll live with some social nuisance intangibles". Here's two areas to ponder.
Now Vs. Trend.
Vista is quite clearly more restrictive compared to prior OS's in terms of user flexibility. The benchmark of comparison for MS these days is the pair of Win2000/XP (take your pick.) Are the specific security features of MS worth the other downsides? I do not think so. My chosen solution to the security problem: a Darkbox for serious Windows Only processing protected by a NetScreen for filtering, experimental scouting and so on. I have heard other users come up with different approaches to security.
I have seen several anti-productive results out of Vista. The champion is... MS Office 2007! I peeked at an example beta copy our other IT guy was experimenting with - and I find it utterly unusable. Therefore I will be using Office 2003 on some machines and OpenOffice 2 on others.
IE7 is almost as silly. Here I only use 7 functions, but I waste time and displeasure at the jarring interface. (I did finally stumble on someone's registry patch that replaces the menu bar as the top row of the app.) Result: I use FireFox except in specific cases where FF crashes, typically with Flash.
The other trend is that "Vista may be barely okay now, but look at the trend". MS *does* have a history of sneaking in undesirable elements, and only backing off at the last minute if they are sufficiently pressured. There may be a real issue with Today's Productivity, but there could be trouble in the future arc mapped out. The question I would ask that crowd is "*if* the apps *were* available in Linux, would you choose Microsoft because you actually approve of their corporate policies?"
I'd like to think that with some coordinated efforts, within 8 years most of the serious applications can be operated in Linux, making it the valid third part of the OS trilogy. Unfortunately, I do see it as 8 years and not 3, because the sprawling scope of Linux's philosophy seems to dissipate some energy away from tight focused delivery.
I am due to get my Last of the Windows line XP machine real soon. (I saw an announcement about Intel's successor to Kentsfield, so I have to get the specs on that.) My purchase timeframe for this is rather tight.
This will be the last Windows machine I will buy, and I plan to let it do its thing in the corner running specialized apps forever until the circuits fuse.
I will be going into a purchase freeze to let "everything else" sort itself out to see "who's on top in 2010 and beyond". I suspect by that point AMD will have caught up to their 2006 projection, and whatever that machine becomes, it will likely have an AMD chip.
I will shortly become a Thundering Newbie with my first Linux box. This will be dirt cheap so I can proceed to make mistakes with less fear of risking serious money. I'm sure someone will howl at some of my posts.
A major new development that ushers in a new age is not something that can be shrunk back down to a page in DSM. The Information Age is here. The usage range goes from zero "I hate those goddamn computers" to the extensive use we are discussing here.
If a non-work activity is interfering with work, then name the problem very specifically. "This person is hooked on paid sex chat services that are interfering with work." This is NOT an 'internet addiction', because then they could just change delivery mechanisms to their cell phone while their breaks lengthen. Get the person counseling so they don't have to discuss sex with outsiders at work.
If someone is not breaking work policies, then it becomes even more unclear. So some guy likes to spend 8 non-work hours a day playing MMORPGs. Okay. What's your point? Is someone else a better person because they like to do 'manly stuff' like fishing and working on their truck?
Plus there's tremendous risk to get certain people tagged with a medical label for dubious reasons, because all kinds of consequences then arise.
We have to make sure the inflammatory media doesn't brainwash people with this ruse.
I use DeliPlayer, though there are others. I haven't converted a lot lately; if Deli has a converter I haven't found it. I had to use something else one time a year ago.
I caught this guy about 4 days ago by wandering through Dominic Tocci's links. I was then mildly surprised to see that the WSJ picked this up, and by extension, SlashDot.
I am right now using DeliPlayer as my lead music app, because I DO listen to a lot of Tracker tunes. I agree what this guy's stuff is video humor enhanced mods. Someone on youtube posed a question though. I'm interested in the/. opinion.
Someone was counting frames during the high speed sequences, and wasn't sure he saw "all 5" clips for the matching 5 sounds. Does anyone think that he neglected any of the frames, implying that he built the entire soundtrack first, then added the frames on top, but missed a few?
I'm not surprised that MS Research had noticed the problem and *begun* working on it.
Then, being faster & nimbler, Mark R. actually wrote his program. Now, MS has acquired the rights to it, which should make their research go a lot faster.
Unless I'm mistaken, the article didn't portray Ghostbuster itself as a rootkit.
1. Float an idea 2. Get ground down in implementation 3. Buy someone else's 4. Profit!
Jebus has been touring the metropolitan Nebraska area, but their first attempt at a radio single , "Jebus Loves You", hasn't on past the town of Willow Corners.
For a lot of people, Work means Documents. Businesses are not going to rent their documents. IF some silly service decides to charge you for access to your cover letters to bids,... then businesses will grumble a little, then turn back to non-cash options. Open Office if they prefer the full suite approach, or simply hacked together in WordPad.
I firmly believe that Net apps are a complete trap. "But what if you want to work remotely", you ask. Work... on what? You have your laptop with you, right? Your laptop would have a synched copy of your work. And at *worst* you can remote in to your desk box.
On the security side, I would never trust my document on someone else's server. The security problems with *that* would shake Alcatraz.
Slashdot Mirror
All psychologists agree that plain text loses next to flashing-anything. So there's a 6x8 block of text, buried in (other stuff) ... and get a load of that FlippyPage!
All still proof that Web 3.0 isn't here yet, in which someone figures out a 5 part payment distribution system so that viewers aren't crushed by ads from companies whose boards are adicted to FivePercentGrowth-or-Bust.
We all boycotted Geocities for this back in the day.
I'll try.
You seem to feel that correlations are both obvious and clear enough not to require any institutional effort at all. "So why do this?"
There are multiple levels of results responding to someone's random remark at lunch. This study doesn't list costs, but notice it only aimed for both an easy and small result, and required nothing fancy for equipment. This means it was cheap to operate. Cheap is good. Cheap is easier to fit into stray budgetary dollars.
"Oh look. Lab 4167 screwed up and left us 200 virus samples when someone screwed up the paperwork. Jack was asking about why he always feels like crap. Let's do a cheap study. Hey Boss, can we re-requisition those samples? Then they get to go in your Research Supply column instead of the Screw-Up Column. Oh, yea, have the secretary get me a pack of graph paper from the supply cabinet."
I feel this is perfect Compromise Science. *By dispeling* the "you're full of #$%#$%" counterargument, this kind of thing can greenlight the $100,000 needed to do the full size study with 750 people over 2 years, with all those cross-controls.
I don't know if I'm always happy, but I actively deflect bad-emotion causing situations on a game theory level, and it also so happens that I have missed exactly 1 day from illness in two years.
Mr. Grump: "Why the #$%$ do I feel like @##$@#$?"
Optimist : "I don't know what you're talking about"
Your post above hints at *synergy*.
Exterior cause annoys you, then getting ill further annoys you.
Deflect exterior cause, and it so happens that you not annoyed by the illness you don't have.
For historical quaintness, and my proportionate age at the time, Wargames will always be worth watching every 5 years on my $1 copy. (1981 pricing!)
The truth is that the kid will hack in, find someone using the server to host Things Not Intended For The PG13 movie rating
Fair point.
These are examples of some advanced uses that apparently Open Office cannot yet handle. However, I will continue to use it at least part time and promote it, because anything is better than the status quo of the past x years. Use MS if you must ; you have made the considered choice which should be how all users approach MS.
Can we distinguish between "Big IT" and "Small IT"? As one of the two guys wearing the IT hat part time, I am fully aware that Word and Excel are the 17 foot draft horses of the office. PDF? That's something you do when you want an untouchable scan so your contracts don't come back with a surprise on them. (Without requiring a level of work that sends red flags)
Because of the tech specs of one of our servers, we're getting great exposure to Open Office, precisely for that lovely price - Free as in Birds, and Beer. As soon as our other IT admin updates it past Beta on the server, I'll quietly promote it even louder.
That's why these German folks are missing the boat. The expensive Gorilla from Redmond, and the Open version(s) are defining the framework. "Cheap" is not good enough anymore.
Don't we wail about Newbies everywhere else? There could be a side benefit that only certain people "get it" and stay. Anyone who doesn't ... "doesn't deserve to be there".
External world communities are rampant with unspoken restrictions. Some call you a Greenhorn for five years after you move there.
Okay, here we go. Time to get rained upon. My karma must be around Plus50 by this point, and I'm gonna need every bit of it to survive this one. Time to say hello the Penguinator. I'm moderately bright, but I have no luck. (I racked up $25,000 in surgery playing badminton.)
3 51/
Is there such a thing as a CD that boots itself with minimal adjustments to windows, so I could host an office "Experimental Freedom Friday (EFF)" so that we can all oooh and aaah, then avoid breaking anything?
Part of the demo would be the fewest keystrokes possible, and all It would have to do is run Firefox, Open Office and Mp3s. Part of the presentation pitch would be "look, it only takes 4-6 commands I can write down on an index card".
We could coin a distro name. BulletProof Linux.
Anyone want to take up the challenge? I am humbly offering myself as the TestBird, like the Canaries in mines. I'm your dream audience. Clueless, nervous, and adventurous. Get me going, and I can pitch this to hordes your Non-Caring Average Users.
I am also changing my Slashdot settings, so I can some of you some email questions to avoid flooding the forum.
I definitely fear the penguins, despite the tagline at the top. Here's a pic of Tux glaring at me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robot-fotomat/321614
Petra the music band has done some really interesting things with the material. Their songwriter was so talented the group is in my top 100 even though I am quite firmly not Christian.
... the bible written in MMORPG would be terrifying to behold.
At least you were careful to say "modern AND literary skill"
I think this is actually an example of Microsoft marketing. Office 2007 is in fact ... not big. It's a new version of Office. One Of Many, to reference our little B(ill)(org) icon we use.
... in the first hour! If I extrapolated out a true-cost of time lost, I can easily see another 25 hours slipping away. Productivity, right? The fleet is finally orchestrated to a unified Office 2003. People are productive. My company is one of the smaller ones so that the few IT guys don't have days, let alone weeks to churn wandering around behind people completing questions like "Why can't I ... " "Because that guy over there didn't save-as in the backward-compatible format".
... and solved the problem.
Tying in with the themes of this whole thread, we have a typical organization that has a few medium-strong users, and a *whole lot* of weak users. I saw no functions that looked valuable enough to replace the entire fleet of Office 2003 installs. I did see clear problems that would completely distract us in the worst way after the other colossal upgrades we just performed.
Those were the problems that arrived
To restate, I studied the software from a deployment view, and I also happen to dislike it. However, I routinely scout out clever tricks buried in software for me to use singly, to arm management with a few tricks for their meetings.
Topic 2: Internet Explorer 2 arrived trumpeting security enhancements. Great. However, the question was "why was I affected when they removed the menu bar?". I answered that. I am also not the only one to feel a clash from the deviation from software function placement standards that Microsoft themselves championed. It was addressed in Slashdot comments elsewhere. I simply restored the menu, restored its position at the top of the App,
The computer world is in its own accelerated-time parallel universe. Just under 25 years ago (I picked 1983 with the advent of Apple II, Commodore, and Atari) the first wave of new PC's really hit the shelves. The tech types of the time started digging and hacking ... and everyone else was NOT a user at ALL, and called us Nerds. Hollywood noticed.
... Shawn Fanning would be happy to spin them a tune. It was the end of the Alt-Shift-Tab navigation inside of some poorly designed software.
Flash Forward to 1999: With the arrival of Windows 98 as the "semi-stable Win95 service pack", many companies ditched DOS and coaxed their employee armies into being users. Then they discovered that if they could bear to suffer being the Nerd they ridiculed 15 years prior,
It is only EIGHT years after that... and now we are ridiculing users for being passe by using Windows 2000?!
In many other key industries, durability is one of the vital sales points. Anything expected to collapse into unusability gets derided as sloppy, if not a complete outrage. This just proves the computer world is just barely a decade short of maturity. Eventually we'll lose the excitement over milestone OS's, a few standard versions will take hold, and people will settle into the applications they are comfortable with for a long haul.
You tagged a point.
For SIX years Microsoft disappeared off the deep end getting stuck in Vista development. Therefore it was the Win2000/XP choice, and everyone knew they were cousin OS's.
Now some internal analyst of MS has decided that sales for Vista won't be adequate on ship specs alone (like the repiorted incompatibility with SQL server), so they have to yank away their flagship OS that made them the company they are?
The auto companies learned that you can't artificially obsolete one model in hopes of bullying the consumer to upgrade. The Japanese turned out 15-year cars and nearly wiped Detroit off the map.
Companies have a right to believe that if they spend a thundering amount to build a mission-critical computer system, it should last them a long time if it performs the functions they need. On the heels of this announcement, because of the quick release dates between Win2000 and XP, (and XP itself had some nasty early problems), you know the end-of-life announcement for XP is close. If MS started their support clock by the repair of SP2, they'd have to start their timeline about 2004 which leads to support through about 2010.
From above:
.xlsx format .docx format, but windows disingenuously called it "Word". It failed to import into a program our tablet uses. I had to turn extensions on, discover that it was not in fact labeled with an icon that says "word 2003", change the format, and re-import it.
"I have seen several anti-productive results out of Vista. The champion is... MS Office 2007! I peeked at an example beta copy our other IT guy was experimenting with - and I find it utterly unusable.
Doesn't really seem like the best way to evaluate a product..."
We were talking about productivity, right? I took one look at Office 2007 to evaluate it. I lost my first hour to:
A. Strange placement of menu fuctions.
B. One machine failed to load the update to read the
C. Someone else's machine was set to hide extensions. Except one of the Word files was now a
In short, I evaluated, found it non-productive, and reverted to my TWO alternate choices. (Office 2003 and OpenOffice 2.)
As for browsers, I am a medium-heavy user of the menu commands. Most of the file menu, Edit-Find, View-Source, Tools-Internet Options, and more, for IE7. The equivalents are a little different in Firefox. I use them interchangeably as features require. Viewing source in IE7 is still a little different than in Firefox. I haven't tried Opera yet though.
I created my post after surveying about 3/4 of the posts. I tried to indicate this with the term "large swaths" implying some variation among individuals, but an overall summation of what DealBreaker point the pro-MS people are spotlighting. It's perfectly natural to use something, and wish matters were otherwise.
... MS still has a foothold.
... With a gloriously varied spread of distros and versions per distro.
Currently, I perceive the dealbreaker that MS has built is: they have forced many companies to adopt them as a standard beyond simple document creation, but for secondary functions like exporting. A simple example is programs that export into Excel, and haven't yet added direct support for Open Office Calc. If I may borrow one of your phrases, "Sure, I agree microsoft is shit, and increasingly harms the user." Yep. But until a software vendor bothers to add export functionality into Calc,
I do in fact recognize that OS X is indeed proprietary, and they simply used a legendarily stable core to help advertise security. I give them credit for a powerful comeback from a comatose company, into the second of the trilogy of OS's. Because I am aware of the Animal Farm effect, (Windows Bad - Leopards & Jaguars Good) I am fiercely avoiding apple purchases.
There really are only three choices, but the subdivisions are a little distracting.
1: Microsoft
A. 2000/XP
B. Vista
2. Apple OS X series
Most of the incarnations are not dramatic.
3. Linux (and variants, I plead ignorance)
To summarize, Having totally discarded Set 2, and 1B, that leaves me with MS - 1A, and Linux Set 3. (Distro not yet decided.)
The following snip is exactly what I hoped to aim for:
"The question I would ask that crowd is "*if* the apps *were* available in Linux, would you choose Microsoft because you actually approve of their corporate policies?"
I certainly would not."
Exactly. My overall approach is now to begin work on parallel systems. One fading legacy Windows machine, and soon a Linux investigation that will turn a hair or two gray before I settle upon my choice of variant.
Here's my post in simpler form for all the OffTopic modifiers.
t els-roadmap-quad-core-yorkfield-set-for-q3-2007/
Because I have a software induced decision to make right now, I will go with an Intel CPU chip. If no surprises appear, that is slated to be the first of their new 45NM process currently code-named Yorkfield. I learned about that here.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/29/gazing-down-in
Overall, I agree with the long term prospects of AMD's research by staying at fewer cores (I feel Quad is a good number), but buttressing that main core power with smaller dedicated assistant chips that take the brunt of specific tasks. The timelines I have seen indicate that AMD is still a chunk of time away from rolling out their 45NM process, which I feel is the milestone to finish out the decade. Their compound core-plus-support chips are not due out for about 3-4 years.
Am I back on topic now?
Captcha word: Latitude.
45NM process and related tech is supposed to be good for laptops, boosting battery life during times that less power is drawn for "ordinary-user" low power use.
This discussion seems to be separating into predictable groups. One problem is that there is a profound philosophy discussion behind all this, with lots of psychology on top.
However you rate their presentation, at its best the FSF is trying to carve out a world with restriction-free software. Because of the raw economics, some of the fancier features/programs are not yet available in Linux. But Linux has grown in awareness, if not as much in full usage. Ask an ad company: awareness is the first stage, to precede use. People "receive exposure", then think about it, check with friends, read up, etc.
Large swaths of the Pro-Microsoft posts here run: "Give me my Functionality, and I'll live with some social nuisance intangibles". Here's two areas to ponder.
Now Vs. Trend.
Vista is quite clearly more restrictive compared to prior OS's in terms of user flexibility. The benchmark of comparison for MS these days is the pair of Win2000/XP (take your pick.) Are the specific security features of MS worth the other downsides? I do not think so. My chosen solution to the security problem: a Darkbox for serious Windows Only processing protected by a NetScreen for filtering, experimental scouting and so on. I have heard other users come up with different approaches to security.
I have seen several anti-productive results out of Vista. The champion is... MS Office 2007! I peeked at an example beta copy our other IT guy was experimenting with - and I find it utterly unusable. Therefore I will be using Office 2003 on some machines and OpenOffice 2 on others.
IE7 is almost as silly. Here I only use 7 functions, but I waste time and displeasure at the jarring interface. (I did finally stumble on someone's registry patch that replaces the menu bar as the top row of the app.) Result: I use FireFox except in specific cases where FF crashes, typically with Flash.
The other trend is that "Vista may be barely okay now, but look at the trend". MS *does* have a history of sneaking in undesirable elements, and only backing off at the last minute if they are sufficiently pressured. There may be a real issue with Today's Productivity, but there could be trouble in the future arc mapped out. The question I would ask that crowd is "*if* the apps *were* available in Linux, would you choose Microsoft because you actually approve of their corporate policies?"
I'd like to think that with some coordinated efforts, within 8 years most of the serious applications can be operated in Linux, making it the valid third part of the OS trilogy. Unfortunately, I do see it as 8 years and not 3, because the sprawling scope of Linux's philosophy seems to dissipate some energy away from tight focused delivery.
I am due to get my Last of the Windows line XP machine real soon. (I saw an announcement about Intel's successor to Kentsfield, so I have to get the specs on that.) My purchase timeframe for this is rather tight.
This will be the last Windows machine I will buy, and I plan to let it do its thing in the corner running specialized apps forever until the circuits fuse.
I will be going into a purchase freeze to let "everything else" sort itself out to see "who's on top in 2010 and beyond". I suspect by that point AMD will have caught up to their 2006 projection, and whatever that machine becomes, it will likely have an AMD chip.
I will shortly become a Thundering Newbie with my first Linux box. This will be dirt cheap so I can proceed to make mistakes with less fear of risking serious money. I'm sure someone will howl at some of my posts.
A major new development that ushers in a new age is not something that can be shrunk back down to a page in DSM. The Information Age is here. The usage range goes from zero "I hate those goddamn computers" to the extensive use we are discussing here.
If a non-work activity is interfering with work, then name the problem very specifically.
"This person is hooked on paid sex chat services that are interfering with work." This is NOT an 'internet addiction', because then they could just change delivery mechanisms to their cell phone while their breaks lengthen. Get the person counseling so they don't have to discuss sex with outsiders at work.
If someone is not breaking work policies, then it becomes even more unclear. So some guy likes to spend 8 non-work hours a day playing MMORPGs. Okay. What's your point? Is someone else a better person because they like to do 'manly stuff' like fishing and working on their truck?
Plus there's tremendous risk to get certain people tagged with a medical label for dubious reasons, because all kinds of consequences then arise.
We have to make sure the inflammatory media doesn't brainwash people with this ruse.
I use DeliPlayer, though there are others. I haven't converted a lot lately; if Deli has a converter I haven't found it. I had to use something else one time a year ago.
I caught this guy about 4 days ago by wandering through Dominic Tocci's links. I was then mildly surprised to see that the WSJ picked this up, and by extension, SlashDot.
/. opinion.
I am right now using DeliPlayer as my lead music app, because I DO listen to a lot of Tracker tunes. I agree what this guy's stuff is video humor enhanced mods. Someone on youtube posed a question though. I'm interested in the
Someone was counting frames during the high speed sequences, and wasn't sure he saw "all 5" clips for the matching 5 sounds. Does anyone think that he neglected any of the frames, implying that he built the entire soundtrack first, then added the frames on top, but missed a few?
I'm not surprised that MS Research had noticed the problem and *begun* working on it.
Then, being faster & nimbler, Mark R. actually wrote his program. Now, MS has acquired the rights to it, which should make their research go a lot faster.
Unless I'm mistaken, the article didn't portray Ghostbuster itself as a rootkit.
1. Float an idea
2. Get ground down in implementation
3. Buy someone else's
4. Profit!
So how much data does an overturned Ford Escort store?
The summary botched the article.
It is "technology", not a rootkit that MS is developing.
Recall that MS bought Mark Russinovich and Rootkit Revealer. That's what this is. It will probably get a MS branding makeover to spiff it up.
In the beginning there was MS Word.
Later came Virgin Records.
Jebus has been touring the metropolitan Nebraska area, but their first attempt at a radio single , "Jebus Loves You", hasn't on past the town of Willow Corners.
For a lot of people, Work means Documents. Businesses are not going to rent their documents. IF some silly service decides to charge you for access to your cover letters to bids, ... then businesses will grumble a little, then turn back to non-cash options. Open Office if they prefer the full suite approach, or simply hacked together in WordPad.
I firmly believe that Net apps are a complete trap. "But what if you want to work remotely", you ask. Work... on what? You have your laptop with you, right? Your laptop would have a synched copy of your work. And at *worst* you can remote in to your desk box.
On the security side, I would never trust my document on someone else's server. The security problems with *that* would shake Alcatraz.
So you're also posting as an AC, and you decided to paste the same rant twice? Why isn't that flamebait?