Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 24th Jul 2008 22:04 UTC
As someone who uses Windows Vista practically daily, I've always wondered where all the negativity in the media comes from. Sure, Vista isn't perfect (as if any operating system is), but I just don't see where all the complaints are coming from. It runs just fine on my old (6 years) machine, all my software and hardware is compatible, and it's stable as a rock. Microsoft has been wondering the same thing, and after a little test, they may have found out why people seem to dislike Vista so much.
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Member since:2005-06-30
Member since:2006-12-16
Member since:2007-02-17
"Then, in two days, I met two guys with Vista on their laptops. Both times, I said "Hey, you're running Vista." and the answer was "Yeah, it sucks!" Ordinary people, mind you, not Linux folks.
I'm guessing that they bought computers that are underpowered. Vista really needs a minimum of 2GB to run efficiently but, since their margins are so thin and competition is so fierce, Dell and others try to cut corners by installing only 1GB. The result is fairly predictable: the machine spends an inordinate amount of time paging, and generally feels more sluggish. With 2GB going for about $40-50, you can't tell me that it's too expensive to properly equip a machine, either. " I'm currently running Kubuntu 64-bit with both KDE 3.5.9 and KDE 4.1 RC installed. No version of Windows has ever sullied my machine.
Why should I pay for a more expensive machine, pay for extra RAM, pay for a Vista license, go through all sorts of registration hassles, and use up a lot more disk space ... all to get less functionality, make my machine susceptible to malware, make it run far slower, have it annoy me with UAC prompts, risk not being able to use some of my hardware, give up my privacy, allow a big US software vendor with monopoly interest a backdoor to my machine, risk that same vendor making an error and deciding to disable my machine, and give Big Brother US media content firms both a significant slice of my CPU time and rights over what I might want to do with my machine?
It simply makes no sense for me to do that, I would have to be insane. I would sacrifice many freedoms, rights, capabilities and capacity, and I would gain precisely nothing.
I can tell you for certain ... it is indeed way too expensive to set up a machine with Vista.
Member since:2006-01-06
Why should I pay for a more expensive machine, pay for extra RAM, pay for a Vista license, go through all sorts of registration hassles, and use up a lot more disk space ... all to get less functionality...
It isn't less functionality. You're running less software (eg. no desktop search, etc), and you're declaring victory over resource usage. Try comparing apples and apples.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
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."More News »
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2006-01-06
Ordinary people, mind you, not Linux folks.
I'm guessing that they bought computers that are underpowered. Vista really needs a minimum of 2GB to run efficiently but, since their margins are so thin and competition is so fierce, Dell and others try to cut corners by installing only 1GB. The result is fairly predictable: the machine spends an inordinate amount of time paging, and generally feels more sluggish. With 2GB going for about $40-50, you can't tell me that it's too expensive to properly equip a machine, either.