Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 12th Feb 2008 21:32 UTC, submitted by Flatland_Spider
The Linux Foundation has posted the second half of its long and thorough interview with Linux founder Linus Torvalds, part of the Foundation's 'open voices' podcast. While the first part of the interview focused on the Linux development community, this time Torvalds sounds off on everything from patents and innovation to the future of Linux. According to Torvalds the reason Linux hasn't taken off is that most people are happy with the way things are. "If you act differently from Windows, even if you act in some ways better, it doesn't matter; better is worse if it's different." Torvalds also attributes much of the frustration with Windows Vista to this same idea. In other words, it's not that Vista is worse than XP, but it's different and that causes distress among users.
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Member since:2005-08-11
I'll just reply to these 2 things:
[p]Which helps all those people who purchased their new Vista machines with 32-bit processors how? Also I think it's pretty sad when an Operating System needs to use more than 4 gigabytes of RAM to provide the same experience XP does on less than half of that....[/p]
Doesn't help them at all, but at the same time, I don't think that the preformance hit is anywhere close to what you are claiming, and also, most processors manufactured in the last 3 years are AMD64 or EMT64 capable processors, so they do have options. You'd be hard pressed to find a new computer in the last year that came with Vista, and isn't running a 64bit capable processor. If somebody did buy one, they were hoodwinked.
[p]I agree. Which is why I was talking about Vista, which doesn't work as well as XP did. Please read my previous comment again to see where you misunderstood me.[/p]
I did not misunderstand you, I was responding to our statement about how MS didn't fix the major problems with XP, and then got on my soapbox. My bad.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
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.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
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, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2005-08-07
Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't happening. (HINT: it is happening)
I agree. Which is why I was talking about Vista, which doesn't work as well as XP did. Please read my previous comment again to see where you misunderstood me.
Again I agree. Which is why for those people with hardware incompatibilities I usually recommend Windows XP when it can be installed. Unfortunately even XP isn't a magic bullet--some hardware OEMs are working very hard to ensure XP fades away, but for those whose hardware is compatible with Windows XP it's usually a better solution than Vista. Of course, as I said after they see the performance differences and realize how much its going to cost them to buy a new license for XP.... Sticker shock isn't pretty. I'll leave it at that.
I don't remember EVERYBODY hating Windows XP when it came out. Everyone loved XP to my recollection of things, except for the hassle of activation and the silly default theme--which many of us changed immediately. Were there issues with viruses and spyware--sure! But I don't remember hearing too many people going back to Win98SE like you do with people rolling back to XP. Those who went to Windows 2000 usually did so because they hated having Internet Explorer integrated beyond their ability to remove it.
These days those with that complaint have largely either moved on to Linux, MacOS X, or begun using tools like nLite to install their system without it, like they used to do with 98Lite and or Fred Vorck's methods.
Which helps all those people who purchased their new Vista machines with 32-bit processors how? Also I think it's pretty sad when an Operating System needs to use more than 4 gigabytes of RAM to provide the same experience XP does on less than half of that....
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/kernel/wmm.mspx
So I keep hearing. Again, I don't see how in this case different is good. You're still asking that we give over three or four times the amount of system RAM to only get half or less than half the performance we got on XP... Pitiful really.
--bornagainpenguin