> "Let's be clear: forbidding 'duplication of functionality' is forbidding > competition. The point of competition is to do the same thing, but better."
Yes - indeed.
It's not a "platform" - it's a CELLPHONE!
If you wish to create a better cellphone, then feel free to do so.
Meanwhile, apple can quite rightly manage what extensions can be added to its own mobile phone(s).
> "Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to allow > Congressional hearings, but not to delay, the > implementation of new FBI regulations that would allow > them to spy on American citizens who are not suspected > of any crime."
Most of the world expects this sort of dictator-despotism in the USA. It has been happening for years, and I really don't see why citizens of the USA are only just now starting to worry about the fact that their government is freely spying on them at any time and for any trivial reason at all.
I think that two phrases apply here:
1/ "Duh!"
2/ "Ha ha!" (a la Nelson in The Simpsons)
If the USA considers this to be acceptable, then that is that. But, I don't see why the use of an International forum such as Slashdot.ORG should be used by USians to push this. Isn't some other forum more appropriate for this internal USA matter?
Stds compliance good for all except lg monopolies
on
ECMAScript 4.0 Is Dead
·
· Score: 1
> What is needed in the JavaScript world is not more > features, but more consistency of implementation > across the various browsers.
While I agree with you about the need for greater consistency of implementation, I don't expect that will ever happen. Microsoft does not want that to happen; and will do all it can to prevent cross-platform and cross-browser adherence to agreed standards where those standards will reduce its monopoly position - even to the extent of hijacking standardisation processes.
> "... 'AT&T does not use "false reset messages" to manage > its network,' Kalmanek said in the letter. Kalmanek noted > that Vuze's analysis said the test 'cannot conclude > definitively that any particular network operator is > engaging in artificial or false [reset] packet behavior.'"
Interesting that they're denying something/very/ specific, and not absolutely denying the accusation overall.
also interesting that they're effectively saying "could be, couldn't say for sure".
What I don't understand is why a carrier corporation - one that is paid by the sender of the data to move data around - thinks it has the right to specify what sorts of data get transmitted from one client to another.
Next minute electricity corporations will start saying that they'll only deal with 100,000, 22,000, and 11,000 volt electricity and not with 240 volt electricity, as 240 volt electricity has become too popular, and that popularity is causing them difficulties in supplying 240 volt electricity. Clearly many of the things they're using that electricity for are illegal - such as staying up late at night and reading when they should be in bed asleep.
This is, after all, known to be a fact because the grandmother of a neighbour three blocks away happened to be driving past one day and saw at least one lamp glowing in the house.
Its a 15 watt night light you say? Sorry but I believe your three-blocks-away neighbour's grandmother more than I believe you.
Has she paid me to disconnect your 240 volt electricity? I don't think I need to divulge that sort of corporate information to you. It might be, but could not be the case for sure.
64bits for Micro$oft Windows, 32bits for AppleCorp, but still Adobe has released no version of Photoshop/CS for users of the widely supported Linux OS that was fully 64bit when Vi$ta/Longhorn was merely a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.
> Sadly many IT professionals believe Windows saves > money because its an integrated platform. But ignore > the reboots and being forced to buy alot more servers > as Windows is not friendly with using one or 2 more > apps on a single server compared to Unix.
The real reason why MS Windows is poor as a server with more than 1 application running on it is that MS windows was never intended to be a "server". Its origins are as a desktop platform.
The reason why programs are called "applications" on the Windows platform is because they were an application of the Windowing graphical interface to a particular task.
As you know, MS-DOS is not a multi-tasking system. Originally MS Windows ran on top of MS-DOS. Applications of MS Windows can only ever have one application with the "focus".
It was only several iterations later that MS developed a version of MS Windows that did not need to run on top of MS-DOS.
the primary focus was still, however, the graphical user interface - and still with one application at a time having the focus. MS is still working out how to run a version of MS Windows without a "head".
Unix, however, was a full multi-user/multi-tasking system from the very beginning.
Unix systems fundamentally expect multiple programs and multiple users - and, with the help of the X server, can even manage multiple graphical applications across a network.
Windows fundamentally expects only one user, and that one user running only one application with the focus at any one time.
Until that changes MS Windows will continue to have problems with multiple applications and with scaling. At this stage MS is still struggling to produce a headless multi-user/multitasking system that can run any application across a network.
The big question is: Why does anybody actually believe MS Windows is a genuine server platform?
> According to the new Microsoft report, Vista also had > fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than other OSes
Make that fewer PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED vulnerabilities.
We simply don't know how many bugs have actually been found because that information is not being kept in a publicly searchable facility.
We already know that there have been more than a few times where M$ has simply not revealed the existence of a major security flaw until just as it was about to release a fix for it.
How many other bugs does M$ know about but deliberately chosen to do nothing about?
> So many of the comments here are of the "Audiophiles are idiots" variety > that they're ignoring the key point. For the majority of real-world > material, the analog version really does sound less-shitty.
Perhaps that is because the vinyl format is hiding all the faults that is in the digital recording from whatever source.
Perhaps what we're getting is a situation where most of the shite that is being released today is being released by people who are clueless for people who are deaf (the ipod/ghetto blaster generation) on a format that actually shows all the flaws of those recordings for what they are.
Personally, I have a CD of an original analogue recording that was made in the mid 1950s at Kings College, Cambridge. They spliced two versions together. The CD is so clear that I can actually hear the difference in the hiss/background noise on the original recording.
I used to have a vinyl version of the same recording, and that was detail that I did not hear on the record.
I think that truly the reason why the kiddies are wanting vinyl is that the shittiness of their shitty music is not as obvious on that limited format.
That, of course is not a fault of CDs or of Digital Audio per se.
> So you can talk all you like about the wider dynamic range of > digital audio; the truth is that most modern mainstream CD > releases clip and sound terrible.
Alas that is all too true.
That, however, is not caused by digital audio. It is caused by careless engineering, and careless mastering. What they produced simply should have been erased and a new version recorded with appropriate recording levels set.
> The assertion that 'all music recorded today is all recorded > digitally using 16 or 24 bit recorders' is incorrect; 2-inch > analogue multitrack is still widely used where vinyl production > is a requirement.
And, of course, music sold on vinyl totals approx 0.2% of the overall market of music sales.
> Pre-echo normally refers to a digital phenomenon of frequency > domain transforms, not vinyl.
Can't say I've come across that in any recording I've purchased.
> Well, that and there's the old print-through on analog mag tape > masters that could cause something similar, but that has nothing > to do with vinyl and everything to do with bad mastering media.
I actually own vinyl that has pre-echo. It is where the part of the groove that the stylus is in is influenced by the part of the groove that follows it one revolution later on the record.
It is usually a sign of poor mastering as the controlling circuitry on the cutter did not move the cutter in fast enough for the loudness of the signal to be cut onto the master.
> The LP was just never a very good reproduction of the > sound in the studio. > > But ok, some people prefer the sound the way it is distorted > by reproduction via LP/record player, a matter of taste.
> Vinyl does sound better than a 16-bit CD in quiet > passages... MUCH better, actually.
Firstly, as I posted elsewhere, all music recorded today is recorded digitally using either 16bit or 24bit recorders. It is simply not possible for vinyl to improve on the sound of the original digital recording. Perhaps you are referring to the absolute necessity for recordings when being transferred onto vinyl needing to have most of the dynamic range compressed out of it in order to fit within the dynamic range of a vinyl record. 16bit digital audio has approx 100dB of dynamic range available. The only problem with digital audio that I have come across is having too wide a dynamic range for listening comfort and I'm needing to turn the volume DOWN for when the orchestra gets into the seriously loud parts.
> It has to do with bit depth which decreases as the audio level goes > down. CDs are mastered with between 12db and 20db of headroom before > absolute clipping, so you're only using about 14 of your 16 bits > right there.
Actually, when I was *mastering* CDs I was wanting to have the peak volume no less than 3db from 0dBfs.
Also, the bit depth does not alter at all. It remains that the signal is still captured as a 16bit sample. The fact that the audio level may be capable of being STORED in fewer than 16bits does not change the fact that the voltage difference represented by, say, 65535 and 65534 up near the top end of the 16bit dynamic range is the same voltage difference that is represented between 127 and 126 down near the bottom end of the 16bit dynamic range.
If you take the same, 50dB accoustic signal and record it both digitally and using a good professional analogue recorder, (both set to be capable of capturing an accoustic peek of 96dB without distortion) and then digitally normalise the former to have a peek of, say, 1dBfs, and you playback the output of the former into the input of another likewise good professional analogue recorder, but this time amplifying the output so that it has a peek of 96dB, you will find that both will introduce their own types of distortion into the signal.
The trick really is to record it once, to set the recording levels correctly the first time, and to process the captured signal as little as possible between original recording and final mastering.
The fact that some CD players were so poorly manufactured that they could not cope with the fully dynamic range of 16bit digital audio without the analogue part of the digital/analogue converter itself starting to distort is not in any way a fault of digital audio. People experiencing that should go out and buy a CD player that can do what it claims it can do.
1/ 16bit digital audio has about twice the dynamic range (numerically) of vinyl records. In fact 16bit digital audio has more dynamic range than the best professional analogue tape recorders - even when those tape recorders use good noise reduction techniques.
2/ 16bit digital audio has more than twice the channel separation (numerically) of vinyl records. In fact it has complete channel separation.
3/ 16bit digital audio does not require dynamic compression in order to fully capture and playback the entire dynamic range of a large orchestra. Vinyl requires dynamic compression for almost everything that is to be reproduced with vinyl, including capturing all frequencies below 1kHz.
4/ The simple process of tracking the "stylus" through the grove of the record damages the vinyl, deforms the grove and introduces distortion. It is simply not possible for a stylus to faithfully capture from the vinyl what was pressed onto the vinyl - even with the most expensive equipment. Most styli are not even capable of not jumping out of the grove in louder parts of the music.
5/ ALL music recorded in professional studios today is recorded digitally using either 16bit or 24bit recorders. The bit-rate is what determines the depth of the sound and the total dynamic range available. All vinyl does is introduce limitations and distortions.
AND they still say that vinyl has a superior sound. Well yes - it does - when you compare it with MP3s! But that really is not saying much.
> I am not on the Office security team, but I think that I understand the issues they are facing.
OK so what you're saying is that you are not basing what you're saying on actual personal knowledge, and therefore what you're saying is effectively useless!
> There are at least three obvious means for users to handle deprecated > formats: > > 1 Make the registry changes indicated in the KB article. Given that there > may be vulnerabilies in the legacy conversion routines, perform conversion > in a separate non-administrative user account to prevent system compromise.
Why should a user be forced to hack that arcane beast known as the Windows Registry just because Micro$oft decided to make some arbitrary changes to M$ Office and thus prevent the user from being able to open certain types of files?
Answer: No user should be forced to do that.
> 2 Keep a copy of your existing O12 or earlier Office software. Run it > (probably in a VM so you can use it 10 years or more from now) to convert > legacy formats to more recent formats.
You don't understand it don't you. The user WAS able to open those types of files using their current version of M$ Office. Now they can't - but it's the same version of M$ Office that they're using. If M$ is wanting to disable support for old, legacy, non-M$ file formats then the correct time to do that is when a new version is released. Thus, whatever is the next version after M$ Office 2007 should have been the one to no longer have support for what has been dropped, but there should be a downloadable plugin to provide that support if needed. That way the number of users using those formats can be measured.
> 3 Buy commercial format conversion software. I certainly used to do this > a lot in the past, in a different company, when we were taking data from > a wide variety of sources.
Why do that when the software they already have had been able to open those formats without difficulty or error?
> Many of the file formats listed are by third parties, not Microsoft. Intelligent > deep fuzzing has become very good in the past year or two. Microsoft has and > uses these fuzzers as well. It is reasonable to assume that the Office team > looked at the handling of these old formats.
Actually, it is reasonable to "assume" nothing in these circumstances.
> Maintaining support for legacy and legacy 3d party formats gets expensive, > particularily when you have to rewrite the parser and more expensive indeed > if you have to try and reverse engineer the format itself because you have > no documentation (after all, some of these formats were written by third > parties who may no longer be extant).
Diddums. I'm sure that Microsoft can afford to throw a few more dollars at its cash cow. And, with regard to "reverse engineering" those file formats, welcome to the world that the rest of us are living in. You're only bitching about what M$ makes everybody else do.
AND, we're not talking about creating new parsers. We're talking about M$ basically disabling existing functionality.
> Such effort has to be evaluation in terms of value for the customer, as > compared to writing new functionality.
> Customers do have possible mitigations to address the issue. As a matter > of configuration policy, you always keep a copy of your tools as well as > your data, as the tools change over time as well.
I believe there is an expression that has the two phrases "grandmother" and "suck eggs". But having said that, one would hope that M$ itself had kept the necessary data and tools to edit the source code for the parsers that M$ has just unilaterally and arbitrarily disabled!
> This is as true for documents as it is for source code and build > environments. Customers who have legacy documents should either > have the legacy tools that can open these documents or th
> This is nothing more than a very clumsy (but brazen) attempt to > make people upgrade. I'm surprised they have the balls to do > it, what with their current OOXML circus.
I'm not surprised at all.:o)
It is what one expects from a company that does not respect the people who have used its software (and re-purchased it several times) over many years.
Would Adobe even consider doing this with Photoshop? No.
What we are seeing is nothing more than a "vendor lock-in" ploy.
I'm almost certain that M$ will not fully support OOXML if it gets approved by the ISO. Lets be realistic - M$ Doesn't actually support it now!
> Deliberately making it too cumbersome and complex for most people to ever > work around this, i.e. leaving it technically (but not really practically > for almost everyone) an option, for now at least gives MS an excuse, while > still taking a big step towards getting rid of support for those old formats > entirely, which is not all that unreasonable I suppose for formats greater > than 10 years old.
Let's not forget - what is being supported is *software*, ie M$ Office, not a file format.
The current iteration of Micro$oft Office should be capable of opening any and all files created by any prior release of M$ Office, and should be capable of doing so in a safe and secure manner.
If the current iteration of Micro$oft Office is incapable of safely and securely parsing any file created by any prior iteration of M$ Office then surely something is very wrong with Microsoft, and with M$ Office!!
> They did this because the old formats are 'less secure', which > actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from > some untrustworthy source.
How can a *file format* be more or less secure?
Surely it is the application that is being used to parse said file that does it in a secure or insecure manner. A file format is just a means to store data in an orderly manner.
That said, why doesn't M$ adopt the Open Document format, given that it is the ISO standard? (rhetorical question - already know the answer - "vendor lock-in" and screw the competitors again)
> I think we're all familiar with Microsoft's business > strategy. It's fairly simple: they sell software. It > works well. (or at least it has until now)
Indeed - MSIE and MSOutlook are both excellent virus transmission vectors.
GNU/Linux will never be a popular system for those interested in sending spam or viruses.
Slashdot Mirror
> "Let's be clear: forbidding 'duplication of functionality' is forbidding
> competition. The point of competition is to do the same thing, but better."
Yes - indeed.
It's not a "platform" - it's a CELLPHONE!
If you wish to create a better cellphone, then feel free to do so.
Meanwhile, apple can quite rightly manage what extensions can be added to its own mobile phone(s).
> "Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to allow
> Congressional hearings, but not to delay, the
> implementation of new FBI regulations that would allow
> them to spy on American citizens who are not suspected
> of any crime."
Most of the world expects this sort of dictator-despotism in the USA. It has been happening for years, and I really don't see why citizens of the USA are only just now starting to worry about the fact that their government is freely spying on them at any time and for any trivial reason at all.
I think that two phrases apply here:
1/ "Duh!"
2/ "Ha ha!" (a la Nelson in The Simpsons)
If the USA considers this to be acceptable, then that is that. But, I don't see why the use of an International forum such as Slashdot.ORG should be used by USians to push this. Isn't some other forum more appropriate for this internal USA matter?
> What is needed in the JavaScript world is not more
> features, but more consistency of implementation
> across the various browsers.
While I agree with you about the need for greater consistency of implementation, I don't expect that will ever happen. Microsoft does not want that to happen; and will do all it can to prevent cross-platform and cross-browser adherence to agreed standards where those standards will reduce its monopoly position - even to the extent of hijacking standardisation processes.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/index.php?topic=20071125145019553
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/index.php?topic=20051116124417686
> "... 'AT&T does not use "false reset messages" to manage
/very/ specific, and not absolutely denying the accusation overall.
> its network,' Kalmanek said in the letter. Kalmanek noted
> that Vuze's analysis said the test 'cannot conclude
> definitively that any particular network operator is
> engaging in artificial or false [reset] packet behavior.'"
Interesting that they're denying something
also interesting that they're effectively saying "could be, couldn't say for sure".
What I don't understand is why a carrier corporation - one that is paid by the sender of the data to move data around - thinks it has the right to specify what sorts of data get transmitted from one client to another.
Next minute electricity corporations will start saying that they'll only deal with 100,000, 22,000, and 11,000 volt electricity and not with 240 volt electricity, as 240 volt electricity has become too popular, and that popularity is causing them difficulties in supplying 240 volt electricity. Clearly many of the things they're using that electricity for are illegal - such as staying up late at night and reading when they should be in bed asleep.
This is, after all, known to be a fact because the grandmother of a neighbour three blocks away happened to be driving past one day and saw at least one lamp glowing in the house.
Its a 15 watt night light you say? Sorry but I believe your three-blocks-away neighbour's grandmother more than I believe you.
Has she paid me to disconnect your 240 volt electricity? I don't think I need to divulge that sort of corporate information to you. It might be, but could not be the case for sure.
64bits for Micro$oft Windows, 32bits for AppleCorp, but still Adobe has released no version of Photoshop/CS for users of the widely supported Linux OS that was fully 64bit when Vi$ta/Longhorn was merely a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.
Why the heck why not!!
> Sadly many IT professionals believe Windows saves
> money because its an integrated platform. But ignore
> the reboots and being forced to buy alot more servers
> as Windows is not friendly with using one or 2 more
> apps on a single server compared to Unix.
The real reason why MS Windows is poor as a server with more than 1 application running on it is that MS windows was never intended to be a "server". Its origins are as a desktop platform.
The reason why programs are called "applications" on the Windows platform is because they were an application of the Windowing graphical interface to a particular task.
As you know, MS-DOS is not a multi-tasking system. Originally MS Windows ran on top of MS-DOS. Applications of MS Windows can only ever have one application with the "focus".
It was only several iterations later that MS developed a version of MS Windows that did not need to run on top of MS-DOS.
the primary focus was still, however, the graphical user interface - and still with one application at a time having the focus. MS is still working out how to run a version of MS Windows without a "head".
Unix, however, was a full multi-user/multi-tasking system from the very beginning.
Unix systems fundamentally expect multiple programs and multiple users - and, with the help of the X server, can even manage multiple graphical applications across a network.
Windows fundamentally expects only one user, and that one user running only one application with the focus at any one time.
Until that changes MS Windows will continue to have problems with multiple applications and with scaling. At this stage MS is still struggling to produce a headless multi-user/multitasking system that can run any application across a network.
The big question is: Why does anybody actually believe MS Windows is a genuine server platform?
> There are alternatives to Hotmail. There are
> none to the iPhone (so far).
Yes there is. Simply don't use the iPhone. That is an alternative.
> According to the new Microsoft report, Vista also had
> fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than other OSes
Make that fewer PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED vulnerabilities.
We simply don't know how many bugs have actually been found because that information is not being kept in a publicly searchable facility.
We already know that there have been more than a few times where M$ has simply not revealed the existence of a major security flaw until just as it was about to release a fix for it.
How many other bugs does M$ know about but deliberately chosen to do nothing about?
> Is the removal of restrictions from our
> media really that big a deal?
Yes. It is.
DRM is all about giving someone else control over what you can do with your computer.
You make a valid point about the need to reduce the peek level before filtering. My experience agrees with your comment.
Cheers
Believe me that was an insult. NO respectable person with any integrity would want to work for such a corporation as Microsoft.
> So many of the comments here are of the "Audiophiles are idiots" variety
> that they're ignoring the key point. For the majority of real-world
> material, the analog version really does sound less-shitty.
Perhaps that is because the vinyl format is hiding all the faults that is in the digital recording from whatever source.
Perhaps what we're getting is a situation where most of the shite that is being released today is being released by people who are clueless for people who are deaf (the ipod/ghetto blaster generation) on a format that actually shows all the flaws of those recordings for what they are.
Personally, I have a CD of an original analogue recording that was made in the mid 1950s at Kings College, Cambridge. They spliced two versions together. The CD is so clear that I can actually hear the difference in the hiss/background noise on the original recording.
I used to have a vinyl version of the same recording, and that was detail that I did not hear on the record.
I think that truly the reason why the kiddies are wanting vinyl is that the shittiness of their shitty music is not as obvious on that limited format.
That, of course is not a fault of CDs or of Digital Audio per se.
> So you can talk all you like about the wider dynamic range of
> digital audio; the truth is that most modern mainstream CD
> releases clip and sound terrible.
Alas that is all too true.
That, however, is not caused by digital audio. It is caused by careless engineering, and careless mastering. What they produced simply should have been erased and a new version recorded with appropriate recording levels set.
> The assertion that 'all music recorded today is all recorded
> digitally using 16 or 24 bit recorders' is incorrect; 2-inch
> analogue multitrack is still widely used where vinyl production
> is a requirement.
And, of course, music sold on vinyl totals approx 0.2% of the overall market of music sales.
> If you ever have the chance to meet someone who insists on recording
> the drums on two inch tape, be polite and ask to listen to it.
They're probably wanting to get the compression that you get on analogue tape.
They do it as a sound effect.
> 6/ The RIAA equalization curve is a rather extreme way to treat
> music on its way to and from the vinyl, or is that what you meant by #3?
Yes - That is included in what I meant by Nr 3, as per the last sentence.
BTW, altering the overall volume down by 2dB will introduce significant undesirable quantization noise. I see no good reason why you should do so.
> Pre-echo normally refers to a digital phenomenon of frequency
> domain transforms, not vinyl.
Can't say I've come across that in any recording I've purchased.
> Well, that and there's the old print-through on analog mag tape
> masters that could cause something similar, but that has nothing
> to do with vinyl and everything to do with bad mastering media.
I actually own vinyl that has pre-echo. It is where the part of the groove that the stylus is in is influenced by the part of the groove that follows it one revolution later on the record.
It is usually a sign of poor mastering as the controlling circuitry on the cutter did not move the cutter in fast enough for the loudness of the signal to be cut onto the master.
> The LP was just never a very good reproduction of the
> sound in the studio.
>
> But ok, some people prefer the sound the way it is distorted
> by reproduction via LP/record player, a matter of taste.
Mate, I agree with you. That's spot on the money.
> Vinyl does sound better than a 16-bit CD in quiet
> passages... MUCH better, actually.
Firstly, as I posted elsewhere, all music recorded today is recorded digitally using either 16bit or 24bit recorders. It is simply not possible for vinyl to improve on the sound of the original digital recording. Perhaps you are referring to the absolute necessity for recordings when being transferred onto vinyl needing to have most of the dynamic range compressed out of it in order to fit within the dynamic range of a vinyl record. 16bit digital audio has approx 100dB of dynamic range available. The only problem with digital audio that I have come across is having too wide a dynamic range for listening comfort and I'm needing to turn the volume DOWN for when the orchestra gets into the seriously loud parts.
> It has to do with bit depth which decreases as the audio level goes
> down. CDs are mastered with between 12db and 20db of headroom before
> absolute clipping, so you're only using about 14 of your 16 bits
> right there.
Actually, when I was *mastering* CDs I was wanting to have the peak volume no less than 3db from 0dBfs.
Also, the bit depth does not alter at all. It remains that the signal is still captured as a 16bit sample. The fact that the audio level may be capable of being STORED in fewer than 16bits does not change the fact that the voltage difference represented by, say, 65535 and 65534 up near the top end of the 16bit dynamic range is the same voltage difference that is represented between 127 and 126 down near the bottom end of the 16bit dynamic range.
If you take the same, 50dB accoustic signal and record it both digitally and using a good professional analogue recorder, (both set to be capable of capturing an accoustic peek of 96dB without distortion) and then digitally normalise the former to have a peek of, say, 1dBfs, and you playback the output of the former into the input of another likewise good professional analogue recorder, but this time amplifying the output so that it has a peek of 96dB, you will find that both will introduce their own types of distortion into the signal.
The trick really is to record it once, to set the recording levels correctly the first time, and to process the captured signal as little as possible between original recording and final mastering.
The fact that some CD players were so poorly manufactured that they could not cope with the fully dynamic range of 16bit digital audio without the analogue part of the digital/analogue converter itself starting to distort is not in any way a fault of digital audio. People experiencing that should go out and buy a CD player that can do what it claims it can do.
Lets see... where to start.
1/ 16bit digital audio has about twice the dynamic range (numerically) of vinyl records. In fact 16bit digital audio has more dynamic range than the best professional analogue tape recorders - even when those tape recorders use good noise reduction techniques.
2/ 16bit digital audio has more than twice the channel separation (numerically) of vinyl records. In fact it has complete channel separation.
3/ 16bit digital audio does not require dynamic compression in order to fully capture and playback the entire dynamic range of a large orchestra. Vinyl requires dynamic compression for almost everything that is to be reproduced with vinyl, including capturing all frequencies below 1kHz.
4/ The simple process of tracking the "stylus" through the grove of the record damages the vinyl, deforms the grove and introduces distortion. It is simply not possible for a stylus to faithfully capture from the vinyl what was pressed onto the vinyl - even with the most expensive equipment. Most styli are not even capable of not jumping out of the grove in louder parts of the music.
5/ ALL music recorded in professional studios today is recorded digitally using either 16bit or 24bit recorders. The bit-rate is what determines the depth of the sound and the total dynamic range available. All vinyl does is introduce limitations and distortions.
AND they still say that vinyl has a superior sound. Well yes - it does - when you compare it with MP3s! But that really is not saying much.
> I am not on the Office security team, but I think that I understand the issues they are facing.
OK so what you're saying is that you are not basing what you're saying on actual personal knowledge, and therefore what you're saying is effectively useless!
> There are at least three obvious means for users to handle deprecated
> formats:
>
> 1 Make the registry changes indicated in the KB article. Given that there
> may be vulnerabilies in the legacy conversion routines, perform conversion
> in a separate non-administrative user account to prevent system compromise.
Why should a user be forced to hack that arcane beast known as the Windows Registry just because Micro$oft decided to make some arbitrary changes to M$ Office and thus prevent the user from being able to open certain types of files?
Answer: No user should be forced to do that.
> 2 Keep a copy of your existing O12 or earlier Office software. Run it
> (probably in a VM so you can use it 10 years or more from now) to convert
> legacy formats to more recent formats.
You don't understand it don't you. The user WAS able to open those types of files using their current version of M$ Office. Now they can't - but it's the same version of M$ Office that they're using. If M$ is wanting to disable support for old, legacy, non-M$ file formats then the correct time to do that is when a new version is released. Thus, whatever is the next version after M$ Office 2007 should have been the one to no longer have support for what has been dropped, but there should be a downloadable plugin to provide that support if needed. That way the number of users using those formats can be measured.
> 3 Buy commercial format conversion software. I certainly used to do this
> a lot in the past, in a different company, when we were taking data from
> a wide variety of sources.
Why do that when the software they already have had been able to open those formats without difficulty or error?
> Many of the file formats listed are by third parties, not Microsoft. Intelligent
> deep fuzzing has become very good in the past year or two. Microsoft has and
> uses these fuzzers as well. It is reasonable to assume that the Office team
> looked at the handling of these old formats.
Actually, it is reasonable to "assume" nothing in these circumstances.
> Maintaining support for legacy and legacy 3d party formats gets expensive,
> particularily when you have to rewrite the parser and more expensive indeed
> if you have to try and reverse engineer the format itself because you have
> no documentation (after all, some of these formats were written by third
> parties who may no longer be extant).
Diddums. I'm sure that Microsoft can afford to throw a few more dollars at its cash cow. And, with regard to "reverse engineering" those file formats, welcome to the world that the rest of us are living in. You're only bitching about what M$ makes everybody else do.
AND, we're not talking about creating new parsers. We're talking about M$ basically disabling existing functionality.
> Such effort has to be evaluation in terms of value for the customer, as
> compared to writing new functionality.
> Customers do have possible mitigations to address the issue. As a matter
> of configuration policy, you always keep a copy of your tools as well as
> your data, as the tools change over time as well.
I believe there is an expression that has the two phrases "grandmother" and "suck eggs". But having said that, one would hope that M$ itself had kept the necessary data and tools to edit the source code for the parsers that M$ has just unilaterally and arbitrarily disabled!
> This is as true for documents as it is for source code and build
> environments. Customers who have legacy documents should either
> have the legacy tools that can open these documents or th
> This is nothing more than a very clumsy (but brazen) attempt to
:o)
> make people upgrade. I'm surprised they have the balls to do
> it, what with their current OOXML circus.
I'm not surprised at all.
It is what one expects from a company that does not respect the people who have used its software (and re-purchased it several times) over many years.
Would Adobe even consider doing this with Photoshop? No.
What we are seeing is nothing more than a "vendor lock-in" ploy.
I'm almost certain that M$ will not fully support OOXML if it gets approved by the ISO. Lets be realistic - M$ Doesn't actually support it now!
> Deliberately making it too cumbersome and complex for most people to ever
> work around this, i.e. leaving it technically (but not really practically
> for almost everyone) an option, for now at least gives MS an excuse, while
> still taking a big step towards getting rid of support for those old formats
> entirely, which is not all that unreasonable I suppose for formats greater
> than 10 years old.
Let's not forget - what is being supported is *software*, ie M$ Office, not a file format.
The current iteration of Micro$oft Office should be capable of opening any and all files created by any prior release of M$ Office, and should be capable of doing so in a safe and secure manner.
If the current iteration of Micro$oft Office is incapable of safely and securely parsing any file created by any prior iteration of M$ Office then surely something is very wrong with Microsoft, and with M$ Office!!
> They did this because the old formats are 'less secure', which
> actually makes some sense, but only if you got the files from
> some untrustworthy source.
How can a *file format* be more or less secure?
Surely it is the application that is being used to parse said file that does it in a secure or insecure manner. A file format is just a means to store data in an orderly manner.
That said, why doesn't M$ adopt the Open Document format, given that it is the ISO standard?
(rhetorical question - already know the answer - "vendor lock-in" and screw the competitors again)
> I think we're all familiar with Microsoft's business
> strategy. It's fairly simple: they sell software. It
> works well. (or at least it has until now)
Indeed - MSIE and MSOutlook are both excellent virus transmission vectors.
GNU/Linux will never be a popular system for those interested in sending spam or viruses.