Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 25th Jun 2008 22:47 UTC, submitted by Flatland_Spider
We're really on the subject of software installation issues on OSNews lately, and this story, making its rounds on the internet, fits in quite well. Back in the day, during the antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft, Microsoft had to make a whole slew of corporate email public. In light of Gates' imminent withdrawal from Microsoft, SeattlePI dug up a little gem among these emails, one in which Bill Gates goes on a full-blown rant about the difficulties he had trying to download and install Windows MovieMaker, back in 2003.
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RE: I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)
by jabbotts on Thu 26th Jun 2008 12:25
in reply to "I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)"
Member since:2007-09-06
Would he have cared if it hadn't inconvenienced him? Us techs have been picking up the pieces from this kind of mess for years but when we say anything, we're naysayers. Odd how there wasn't any improvement in either the "last sane place" add/remove or in the website design. I still have a long list of "update Q3243219" left in my add/remove and if these are updates, why don't they just replace the files they update rather than make an add/remove entry; it's not like we're going to remove them later else it wouldn't be an OS Update Patch.
The letter was a great read when it hit the news sights though. A bunch of the regulars elsewhere have been trying to find any evidence that it's a hoax but it keeps turning up on reputable servers.
RE[2]: I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)
by BluenoseJake on Thu 26th Jun 2008 14:09
in reply to "RE: I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)"
Member since:2005-08-11
RE: I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)
by Pro-Competition on Thu 26th Jun 2008 20:44
in reply to "I think I see a good reason for Bill Gates to retire :)"
Member since:2007-08-20
This email indicates that regardless of all the naysayers, at least Bill Gates himself cares about quality enough to do something about it, to the best of his abilities in terms of his time and personal efforts.
Do you mean that "the best of his abilities in terms of his time and personal efforts" is writing an e-mail? He was the boss, wasn't he? Did any of those complaints get fixed?
Who was in charge when the Registry became unusable? Who was in charge when the file system became unusable?
I'm mildly impressed that he at least recognized that those things were broken, but that just makes me angrier that after 10+ years they have done nothing to fix any of it!
Oh well, at least Bill felt better after caring enough to send a nastygram.
P.S. None of this is meant to be offensive to the poster I am replying to. It's just that 15 years as a Windows developer has done its work on my blood pressure.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2006-05-26
This email indicates that regardless of all the naysayers, at least Bill Gates himself cares about quality enough to do something about it, to the best of his abilities in terms of his time and personal efforts. Unfortunately, it seems there's not enough like him that work for him to come up with proper consistency! I, too, would get very frustrated to have to deal with this all the time as a lead geek, and of course, his fortunes (which he probably doesn't care that much about, as it's moot) are affected by this, but, more than anything, his personal pride is.