Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 18th Apr 2008 11:38 UTC
When Vista was released, and the first reviews started to trickle in, it became apparent that Vista was a massive release - not only in terms of money spent on it by Microsoft and the amount of promotion, but also the operating system itself. It was huge, and it felt as such too. Despite what many have been saying the past year, Vista is, in fact, much more than just XP with a new theme. Basically every framework and feature has been rewritten, lots of new ones have been added, and, according to some, the process of modularisation has started with Vista (and Server 2008). It may come as no surprise that all these changes resulted in a whole boatload of bugs and breakage, which led many people to conclude that Vista was simply not as "done" as it should have been when released. Steve Ballmer confirmed these sentiments in a speech at Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals conference in Seattle.
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Member since:2005-08-06
Okey, repeat after me
"Vista is not linux, vista is not linux, vista is not linux".
95% of the computer market are aware of Linux existence, we know it is said to be every users wet dream.
Now I'm not dreaming about it despite knowing of it's existence... so can we stay on the topic of what Ballmer is talking about instead? Especially as Linux is just like Vista "work in progress"....
Big question is rather, isn't consumer marketing laws saying something about false marketing?
Member since:2006-05-29
Vista is more a case of false development then false marketing. Do you think they had a choice? I doubt people would have been more happy to get Vista forced down their throat with their next computer if even Microsoft had been saying what Ballmer did say now.
Rewriting every feature from scrap that you already had means that they either were badly implemented or they were implemented in a way that they couldn't be integrated with other changes done to Windows.
Either way it has "amateurish" written all over it and it explains the lack of new features in Vista. I think the problem was that Microsofts development model just didn't work anymore for a project this big.
I don't want my OS rewritten all 6 Years, i want it upgraded in reasonable time in a reasonable way which means, Vista isn't for me and i have run out of patience for MS... i expect my Mac to arrive tomorrow, then it is good bye Windows.
Member since:2007-02-17
Okey, repeat after me
"Vista is not linux, vista is not linux, vista is not linux".
95% of the computer market are aware of Linux existence, we know it is said to be every users wet dream.
Now I'm not dreaming about it despite knowing of it's existence... so can we stay on the topic of what Ballmer is talking about instead? Especially as Linux is just like Vista "work in progress"....
Big question is rather, isn't consumer marketing laws saying something about false marketing?
"Vista is not linux, vista is not linux, vista is not linux".
95% of the computer market are aware of Linux existence, we know it is said to be every users wet dream.
Now I'm not dreaming about it despite knowing of it's existence... so can we stay on the topic of what Ballmer is talking about instead? Especially as Linux is just like Vista "work in progress"....
Big question is rather, isn't consumer marketing laws saying something about false marketing?
Sigh!
Here is what Ballmer apparently did say about Vista:
"We had some things that we can't just set the dial back, but I think people wish we could. Vista is bigger than XP. It's going to stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn't get bigger still, and that the performance and that the battery life and that the compatibility, we're driving on the things that we need to drive hard to improve."
OK Steve we get it. It is big, and you have to be careful not to make it bigger.
Steve, what you have utterly failed to explain is this ... why is it big? It doesn't (apparently, to the user anyway) actually DO anything much that XP didn't also do faster at a fraction of the size of Vista.
OK ... so can we now focus on that?
Member since:2005-08-07
[sigh...] I really didn't want to comment in this thread, since doing so means I'll lose the ability to mod people but I just had to respond to this...
Okey, repeat after me
"Vista is not linux, vista is not linux, vista is not linux".
"Vista is not linux, vista is not linux, vista is not linux".
Trust me, we know the difference! My Linux can run circles around Vista on lower end hardware while performing much of the same feats that Vista supposedly requires such a hardware upgrade to be able to do...
Oh and did I mention that my Linux uses less space while providing me with more apps?
So ummm, yeah not a problem on our end...
95% of the computer market are aware of Linux existence, we know it is said to be every users wet dream.
Wow! Really?? I hadn't really seen that trend, but that would be so cool...
Now I'm not dreaming about it despite knowing of it's existence... so can we stay on the topic of what Ballmer is talking about instead?
Umm...dude? You just said... Oh wait I see what you did there. Funny how no one in this article was even talking about Linux, wet dreams or etc until you brought them up... Nice try OP...
Especially as Linux is just like Vista "work in progress"....
Ummm... Linux may indeed be a work in progress but unlike Vista it's free--both in cost and in freedom.
Vista requires me to spend a minimum of $100 USD for an OEM copy (which may or may not actually be legitimate) and still not have all the 'wonderful' features Microsoft advertises Vista as having! No for that I've got to spend nearly three hundred dollars as well as having to do a total hardware replacement in order to get the same level performance I have now in either XP or Ubuntu...
As others have asked in this thread, what exactly is Vista actually doing that requires them to use so much resources? It can't be the basic day to day functioning of the OS, because others have managed to do all that at a fraction of the resources and look better while doing so!
Big question is rather, isn't consumer marketing laws saying something about false marketing?
On this at least we agree!
Why isn't some consumer body (or all of them really) standing up for the people they supposedly represent and demanding an answer to Vista?
Why hasn't some governing body complained about Microsoft's blatant and forced paid beta program?
Why has it suddenly become acceptable to make your customers pay for your broken OS with the claim it's a work in progress?
Inquiring minds would like to know!
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2007-04-12
I must totally agree.
Hey, my dear fellow linuxians - isn't that Linux is also "work in progress"?
Isn't true that every PC / Mac / whatever (Amiga PPC? ;-) ) computer user on this planet AT LEAST heard of Linux, and many of them saw / tried it?
Why then 95% of the "computer user population" won't mind about changing "their" OS to Linux, despite it is free and - according to some - so perfect and flawless?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that those 95% of "computer users" has better things to do in life, than full time sudy of the man pages?
Member since:2005-07-06
"What's the big deal, he is just saying what we know and wanted to hear...
Well ... he said it was big (and it is ... on disk the bare Vista OS is ~ three times the size of a full Linux distribution including applications) ... but even he apparently doesn't know what is in it that is taking up all that room ... or at least, if he does know, he isn't telling us.
It is sure hard to figure out what features it actually has that takes up all that size on disk. "
100% agree; and for the same amount of space Vista uses up, you can have a full blown development installation with all the bells and whistles.
Now, some would claim its due to 'less drivers' - I call bull to those; Linux (like MacOS X, Solaris and *BSD's) include large number of generic drivers which developers build their own drivers on, without need to replicate large sections of code over and over and over again. It seems that in my experience, in the Windows world, a 40mb (or larger) driver download is considered 'acceptable'.
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:
2007-02-17
Well ... he said it was big (and it is ... on disk the bare Vista OS is ~ three times the size of a full Linux distribution including applications) ... but even he apparently doesn't know what is in it that is taking up all that room ... or at least, if he does know, he isn't telling us.
It is sure hard to figure out what features it actually has that takes up all that size on disk.