But seriously, it's the Command key, not the "Apple" key. It hasn't been called the "Apple" key since the Apple ][ computer. You don't "Apple-Tab" to switch apps, you "Command-Tab".
Horrible spelling and grammar might be one thing, but at least use the right vocabulary so other people know what the hell you're talking about. Ever try to help a Windows user who doesn't know the terminology? "The thing at the bottom with the names is at the top and when I click the blue spot it doesn't show the arrow!" Let's avoid that on a tech news site, ok?
I remember when Windows 95 came out, with its weak, obviously-an-afterthought "web browser" (IE 3.0). It was painfully obvious that Microsoft had missed the Internet boat, and shortly thereafter, Bill Gates sent his historic all-hands memo pointing the company in the direction of the Internet.
Compared to whom?
I never used OS/2 or Amiga, but compared to Macintosh, Microsoft was WAY ahead on the whole internet thing. Apple didn't even release a PPP connection tool until, what, version 7.5 or so? Long after Windows 95 had one standard. I don't remember when Apple started putting web browsers on the OS CD, but I'd guess it was either version 7.5 or 8.0, again, long after Microsoft was doing same.
I'd like to see a more detailed explanation of Microsoft "missing the Internet boat" please.
You all should know that CrazyJim is a prodigy. Not only does God speak to him, but he also can predict the future with 100% accuracy! For instance, he came up with the idea for a Starsiege Tribes-like game only a year after Tribes was announced. Amazing! He's also invented a comic book about a hero who uses katanas with rockets in the hilt, and you can bet your ass that'll be a top seller in only a few years. Hell, he's designed thousands of video games even if those fat-cats in the game industry won't hire him as a designer! (Can you believe they actually care about something as stupid as "experience" when it comes to game design? What morons.)
Unfortunately, his highly-funded program to produce "true AI" has failed because his $10 webcam doesn't have enough resolution to make out detail in images.
First of all, log in if you're going to actually reply and debate something.
Secondly, I have no clue what you're talking about. The copyright owner, by default, has EVERY RIGHT to the work. They decide whether you can show it to a crowd for money, they decide whether you can copy it, they decide whether you can rent it out. Do you understand? Video rental stores don't work because copyright *law* says they can rent the movies, but because the copyright holders of those movies say they can. I can as easily release a DVD that didn't allow that.
There's no way to make money from a copyrighted work without the creator's permission. Period. That's how copyright is designed; if I make something, I get to choose EXACTLY how it's used and who has it. If George Lucas tomorrow decided to pull every copy of Star Wars off the shelf and never release it again, that's his right. It would be unpopular, but it wouldn't be illegal.
Well, most other (successful) browsers have "exploration"-themed names. Netscape Navigator, Apple Safari, Internet Explorer. If they must use the ice theme, why not some kind of arctic exploration-related term? I don't know what it is, but there HAS to be a better name than "IceWeasel."
Someone around here has a sig that says something like, "letting a programmer name your product is like making a marketer program it." Never before has it been demonstrated so clearly. (Well, to be fair, at least the browser isn't Gimped.)
You seem to have missed my point. I'm not saying that hardware should enforce law. I'm saying that the software distributed with the card should.
That's why, currently, the SOFTWARE (driver) is the one picking the WLAN frequencies. Cards sold in the US have drivers set for US frequencies, cards sold in France have drivers for French frequencies, etc.
Opening the hardware up so any yokel could produce a driver for it would completely sabotage this effort.
2) We've already genetically engineered all the foods we commonly eat. Corn ears used to be less than an inch long. Cauliflower and Broccoli both came from the same ancestor plant. Onions and Potatos used to be teeny. Pea plants used to pop their peas all over the ground before we engineered them to stay in the pods. There's no difference between "engineering" plants through generations of breeding and "engineering" them through genetic technology except that the later is quicker.
Yet with less than 5% share and almost 0% of the corporate market, the./'er argue about the relevancy of (pick one) Mac OS X, desktop Linux, Amigas, etc. The real question is should anyone care about the Mac? Will that be around for the next 5 years?
Well, I think the main issue is that people HAVE said that about the Mac. Virtually every year from 1984 to the present. And Apple's doing better than ever. Now I can't speak about desktop Linux, and Amiga is dead by any measure, but the reason people don't post "Mac is irrelevant!" is because the other 40,000 people who posted that over the last 20 years all look like idiots.
Because some jackass open source programmer will write a driver which will make the card broadcast on an illegal radio spectrum. And when the investigators come to take a look at it, they'll just look at the brand name of the card. And the company will have to tell them that the reason that card is breaking the rules is because they opened up their documentation without any sort of code signing or approval program. And meanwhile, that wireless card could be interfering with police radios while they're trying to hunt down a killer.
Xbox 360 is the same way. Every disk game and Live Arcade game has a free demo available for everyone with a free Xbox Live account. IMO, that's one of the best features of the system and yet nobody talks about it.
Thanks for your honesty. The problem is that this DRM issue is so polluted by people whose main concern is justifying their own piracy.
People argue "I pirate because the record companies don't sell online." When the record companies DO finally see the light, they argue, "well, now I pirate because $1.00 a track is too expensive." When you show them the millions of tracks Apple has sold at that price, then the argument becomes, "well, I pirate because those have DRM." When does it end?
If you're going to pirate music, just be open about it. Don't make it into some bullshit "cause" against DRM.
Just like copy protection in games went away when publishers realiz-- oh wait, it didn't.
I'm predicting the future by extrapolating from similar situations in the past. You're just giving me a bunch of wishful thinking. Do you have any evidence to support your belief? Or perhaps something to demonstrate that the copy protection in games is different-enough from DRM that the games industry doesn't make a good example?
Damnit, don't say that. You know it'll create dozens of "I use Adblock and Firefox because I am SO 1337!" posts and the smug level will be unbearable.
Re:I have plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft..
on
The BBC's Honeypot PC
·
· Score: 1
Unless you're buying from Ted down the street, your computer comes with the latest OS at the time of production. Of course, because of shelf life, that means it comes from 3-6 months out-of-date, but usually updating from that state is only a few dozen megabytes and maybe half-a-dozen patches. If you're buying from Ted down the street, all bets are off.
The firewall (which is pretty good) is on by default on any computer bought in the last 2 years. And older XP computers typically have a firewall installed (and turned on) by the company that sold it.
Sure, the user could turn it off, but-- guess what?-- it's THEIR COMPUTER. You can turn off the firewall on your Linux or OS X machine, also. That said, Windows XP SP2 will make your life a pain in the ass if you do run it with no firewall. There are constant system tray messages reading "your system is at risk."
Microsoft could prohibit people from turning off the software firewall at all, and THEN imagine the teeth-grinding on Slashdot! "Microsoft is controlling the computer I bought! From mom's basement I STAB AT THEE!!"
Could people please learn a teeny bit about Windows before posting crud like this? How about intelligently considering issues like this instead of always making them into a lose-lose for Microsoft? They're doing all they can to secure the system. Microsoft has NO control over what people install on their own computers, nor do they have any control over what the computer maker puts on them.
They are. iTunes Music Store has all of those shows. Although they hadn't yet posted Season 3 premiere of Battlestar as of sunday morning.
if they were offered in a format that was conducive to what we want (ie no DRM)
Ah, so you're one of those Slashdot masses living in fantasy-land. No they are not DRM-free. Nor is any other TV show available now or in the future. Cope.
we would consider purchasing them.
Bullshit. You're just so happy that since they aren't DRM-free, you can justify taking the content for free. And since they'll never be DRM-free, you'll have a handy excuse to explain your piracy until the end of time. You're not fooling anybody.
To be fair, Windows Vista at Release Candidate is still leaps and bounds better than Windows ME was after service packs. Plus, if you were even slightly intelligent, you'd buy Windows 2000 instead of ME.
I enjoy how the thought of buggy third party applications apparently never crosses Slashdot's collective mind. I know that 99% of crashes on my PC are third party applications that frankly probably ignored the documentation and did something stupid. Microsoft has good people working on finding programs that rely on undocumented behaviors and putting in various bypasses to deal with them, but you can't expect them to be able to test the hundreds of thousands of applications out there before the public beta.
Try being a Mac user and using the Mozilla one. Half the stuff on there is marked as "compatible" for OS X despite causing Firefox to freeze, not load pages, etc. It seems like developers are allowed to just check all the compatibility checkboxes without doing any kind of verification or testing at all.
Slashdot Mirror
But seriously, it's the Command key, not the "Apple" key. It hasn't been called the "Apple" key since the Apple ][ computer. You don't "Apple-Tab" to switch apps, you "Command-Tab".
Horrible spelling and grammar might be one thing, but at least use the right vocabulary so other people know what the hell you're talking about. Ever try to help a Windows user who doesn't know the terminology? "The thing at the bottom with the names is at the top and when I click the blue spot it doesn't show the arrow!" Let's avoid that on a tech news site, ok?
I remember when Windows 95 came out, with its weak, obviously-an-afterthought "web browser" (IE 3.0). It was painfully obvious that Microsoft had missed the Internet boat, and shortly thereafter, Bill Gates sent his historic all-hands memo pointing the company in the direction of the Internet.
Compared to whom?
I never used OS/2 or Amiga, but compared to Macintosh, Microsoft was WAY ahead on the whole internet thing. Apple didn't even release a PPP connection tool until, what, version 7.5 or so? Long after Windows 95 had one standard. I don't remember when Apple started putting web browsers on the OS CD, but I'd guess it was either version 7.5 or 8.0, again, long after Microsoft was doing same.
I'd like to see a more detailed explanation of Microsoft "missing the Internet boat" please.
You all should know that CrazyJim is a prodigy. Not only does God speak to him, but he also can predict the future with 100% accuracy! For instance, he came up with the idea for a Starsiege Tribes-like game only a year after Tribes was announced. Amazing! He's also invented a comic book about a hero who uses katanas with rockets in the hilt, and you can bet your ass that'll be a top seller in only a few years. Hell, he's designed thousands of video games even if those fat-cats in the game industry won't hire him as a designer! (Can you believe they actually care about something as stupid as "experience" when it comes to game design? What morons.)
Unfortunately, his highly-funded program to produce "true AI" has failed because his $10 webcam doesn't have enough resolution to make out detail in images.
First of all, log in if you're going to actually reply and debate something.
Secondly, I have no clue what you're talking about. The copyright owner, by default, has EVERY RIGHT to the work. They decide whether you can show it to a crowd for money, they decide whether you can copy it, they decide whether you can rent it out. Do you understand? Video rental stores don't work because copyright *law* says they can rent the movies, but because the copyright holders of those movies say they can. I can as easily release a DVD that didn't allow that.
There's no way to make money from a copyrighted work without the creator's permission. Period. That's how copyright is designed; if I make something, I get to choose EXACTLY how it's used and who has it. If George Lucas tomorrow decided to pull every copy of Star Wars off the shelf and never release it again, that's his right. It would be unpopular, but it wouldn't be illegal.
Well, most other (successful) browsers have "exploration"-themed names. Netscape Navigator, Apple Safari, Internet Explorer. If they must use the ice theme, why not some kind of arctic exploration-related term? I don't know what it is, but there HAS to be a better name than "IceWeasel."
Yes, ok, but it's still a fucking stupid name for a web browser.
Wow, what can you add to "Iceweasel?"
Someone around here has a sig that says something like, "letting a programmer name your product is like making a marketer program it." Never before has it been demonstrated so clearly. (Well, to be fair, at least the browser isn't Gimped.)
You seem to have missed my point. I'm not saying that hardware should enforce law. I'm saying that the software distributed with the card should.
That's why, currently, the SOFTWARE (driver) is the one picking the WLAN frequencies. Cards sold in the US have drivers set for US frequencies, cards sold in France have drivers for French frequencies, etc.
Opening the hardware up so any yokel could produce a driver for it would completely sabotage this effort.
Uh, yes it is. Actually, it goes further: it says you can't distribute it without their approval whether or not you're doing it for money.
What is your basis for saying that quote is incorrect?
1) What difference does it make?
2) We've already genetically engineered all the foods we commonly eat. Corn ears used to be less than an inch long. Cauliflower and Broccoli both came from the same ancestor plant. Onions and Potatos used to be teeny. Pea plants used to pop their peas all over the ground before we engineered them to stay in the pods. There's no difference between "engineering" plants through generations of breeding and "engineering" them through genetic technology except that the later is quicker.
Yet with less than 5% share and almost 0% of the corporate market, the ./'er argue about the relevancy of (pick one) Mac OS X, desktop Linux, Amigas, etc. The real question is should anyone care about the Mac? Will that be around for the next 5 years?
Well, I think the main issue is that people HAVE said that about the Mac. Virtually every year from 1984 to the present. And Apple's doing better than ever. Now I can't speak about desktop Linux, and Amiga is dead by any measure, but the reason people don't post "Mac is irrelevant!" is because the other 40,000 people who posted that over the last 20 years all look like idiots.
Because some jackass open source programmer will write a driver which will make the card broadcast on an illegal radio spectrum. And when the investigators come to take a look at it, they'll just look at the brand name of the card. And the company will have to tell them that the reason that card is breaking the rules is because they opened up their documentation without any sort of code signing or approval program. And meanwhile, that wireless card could be interfering with police radios while they're trying to hunt down a killer.
Xbox 360 is the same way. Every disk game and Live Arcade game has a free demo available for everyone with a free Xbox Live account. IMO, that's one of the best features of the system and yet nobody talks about it.
Thanks for your honesty. The problem is that this DRM issue is so polluted by people whose main concern is justifying their own piracy.
People argue "I pirate because the record companies don't sell online." When the record companies DO finally see the light, they argue, "well, now I pirate because $1.00 a track is too expensive." When you show them the millions of tracks Apple has sold at that price, then the argument becomes, "well, I pirate because those have DRM." When does it end?
If you're going to pirate music, just be open about it. Don't make it into some bullshit "cause" against DRM.
Just like copy protection in games went away when publishers realiz-- oh wait, it didn't.
I'm predicting the future by extrapolating from similar situations in the past. You're just giving me a bunch of wishful thinking. Do you have any evidence to support your belief? Or perhaps something to demonstrate that the copy protection in games is different-enough from DRM that the games industry doesn't make a good example?
That would be the department set up to get past that nasty level with the 3 needle motherships where you start with next-to-nothing in your fleet.
Damnit, don't say that. You know it'll create dozens of "I use Adblock and Firefox because I am SO 1337!" posts and the smug level will be unbearable.
Unless you're buying from Ted down the street, your computer comes with the latest OS at the time of production. Of course, because of shelf life, that means it comes from 3-6 months out-of-date, but usually updating from that state is only a few dozen megabytes and maybe half-a-dozen patches. If you're buying from Ted down the street, all bets are off.
The firewall (which is pretty good) is on by default on any computer bought in the last 2 years. And older XP computers typically have a firewall installed (and turned on) by the company that sold it.
Sure, the user could turn it off, but-- guess what?-- it's THEIR COMPUTER. You can turn off the firewall on your Linux or OS X machine, also. That said, Windows XP SP2 will make your life a pain in the ass if you do run it with no firewall. There are constant system tray messages reading "your system is at risk."
Microsoft could prohibit people from turning off the software firewall at all, and THEN imagine the teeth-grinding on Slashdot! "Microsoft is controlling the computer I bought! From mom's basement I STAB AT THEE!!"
Could people please learn a teeny bit about Windows before posting crud like this? How about intelligently considering issues like this instead of always making them into a lose-lose for Microsoft? They're doing all they can to secure the system. Microsoft has NO control over what people install on their own computers, nor do they have any control over what the computer maker puts on them.
If the shows were available online for purchase
They are. iTunes Music Store has all of those shows. Although they hadn't yet posted Season 3 premiere of Battlestar as of sunday morning.
if they were offered in a format that was conducive to what we want (ie no DRM)
Ah, so you're one of those Slashdot masses living in fantasy-land. No they are not DRM-free. Nor is any other TV show available now or in the future. Cope.
we would consider purchasing them.
Bullshit. You're just so happy that since they aren't DRM-free, you can justify taking the content for free. And since they'll never be DRM-free, you'll have a handy excuse to explain your piracy until the end of time. You're not fooling anybody.
To be fair, Windows Vista at Release Candidate is still leaps and bounds better than Windows ME was after service packs. Plus, if you were even slightly intelligent, you'd buy Windows 2000 instead of ME.
I enjoy how the thought of buggy third party applications apparently never crosses Slashdot's collective mind. I know that 99% of crashes on my PC are third party applications that frankly probably ignored the documentation and did something stupid. Microsoft has good people working on finding programs that rely on undocumented behaviors and putting in various bypasses to deal with them, but you can't expect them to be able to test the hundreds of thousands of applications out there before the public beta.
Try being a Mac user and using the Mozilla one. Half the stuff on there is marked as "compatible" for OS X despite causing Firefox to freeze, not load pages, etc. It seems like developers are allowed to just check all the compatibility checkboxes without doing any kind of verification or testing at all.
No.
Yeah, no one told you life was going to be this way. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA. Shoulda studied management, eh?
I think I liked the original version of that song better. This one doesn't even rhyme right...