The director of platform strategy at Microsoft, Bill Hilf has lead the Linux and open source software technology group at Redmond for the past two years and formerly headed the global Linux technical strategy of IBM. He says reliability and predicability are the key factors which give Microsoft's software the edge over Linux and open source alternatives.
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Member since:2005-06-30
Funny, I don't have any of these problems. Of course, it's not like I am going after the trouble... Being paranoid probably help.
I don't necessarily agree with the article, but the most predictible thing in all this is: with a touchy subject like that, there will always have BS from both sides.
Member since:2005-10-22
You don't have to reinstall windows all the time if you keep on top of viruses and spyware. Virus scanners are resource hogs and scanning for spyware is a nuisance.
I think it's also incorrect to say that you *have* to pay for a license when you consider the number of people who don't. I'm pretty sure that in Microsoft's eyes a non-paying Windows user is still better than a non-paying Linux user.
Member since:2006-01-10
Personally, I find that a fresh install of Windows XP is indeed necessary. What I mean (and I believe the parent post meant as well) is that things just start to clog up in the registry after a while. Ever want to test out a buncha apps, so you install and uninstall something like 30-40 of anything (games are normally bad for this).
Ever do a before and after look at the registry? Even after the "uninstaller" ran there are keys left over. After a while (6 months to a year) I find this slows things down enough that it's worth a reinstall.
Total system ownage is not the only reason to need to reinstall, you must consider the slow degrade that I've witnessed in XP (unless you just use a base set of apps and never uninstall anything).
Just to compare, I find Slackware does a great job even with a relatively simple package management tool. I can install a package, remove it, and do an slocate to ensure that everything is truly gone (and it is).
Just my view.
Member since:2005-12-15
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Member since:
2005-12-18
Now, with all due respect... that's BS.
Well... I have to agree on something. Windows is much more predictable if he meant something like:
- Within the next 6 months, I'll have to reinstall my Windows on my box from scratch.
- I'll have to use a full blown antivirus + antispyware + antimalware in order to keep it from falling pray to script kiddies (and that of course will mean my super-dupper pseudo-server will behave just like a 486).
- I'll have to pay hard money for my licence.
That's pretty much predictable.